Well, pirate security or not, I’d have asked that guy for some specific reasons why the parcel of land in the back is off-limits. It’s Las Vegas, not the Nevada Proving Grounds (I’m ignoring the land’s more bureaucratic official nomenclature). Cherry’s demeanor lacks the feisty “in your face” quality that Jules Rivera first gave her when she took over the strip in late 2020. I’ve mentioned it before, right? She had her own landscaping business and her own independent streak. Then she gave that up to became a contracted employee of her initial rival, the Sunny Soleil Society. Over the past several years, Cherry has become less assertive, more domesticated. More boring.

Ironically, that is what happened to the original Cherry Davis that Ed Dodd first imagined back in the late 1940s. She was a real outdoorsy gal with a pet bear and a self-assertive personality. She capable of going camping without Mark. Over time, those 1950s societal pressures (as mirrored in TV and magazines) pushed her character more and more into a traditional stay-at-home wife who happened to live in a cabin. And Cherry’s evolution seems roughly parallel. I thought Rivera was supposed to take her in a whole different direction!

On a more positive note, I’m quite impressed by her image in panel 3. That’s easily one of her best depictions, suggesting there is still something of a personality inside that head.  Rivera did a fine job putting some attitude in that drawing, especially as it still has that cartoony style.