I think Jules Rivera has been watching Japanese cinema. Mark’s expressions and close-ups certainly are reminiscent of scenes in that genre. That is, other than the small ears, you might be confused into thinking this guy in the blue cowboy hat is somebody else.

Maybe you’re thinking “Naw, it’s just spaghetti westerns” as a closer-in-time influence here. Perhaps, though some of those earliest movies were directly inspired by Japanese films. It would be premature, however, to think that Mark is actually a robotic clone, even with that strange segmented forefinger in panel 3.

I’m not sure if Mark has the full measure of this situation just yet. It isn’t so much about why Crass wants to continue the event in the future as much as why he put it on in the first place, including paying the contestants and their families to attend. But Crass’s comment in panel 2 suggests he is the front man for people behind the scenes. There is still more to discover, including “What does this story have to do with nature or environmental problems?”