Well, the free-for-all rumble is all but forgotten, as are the Grungey Boys. Instead, Mark and Tad hold an impromptu argument/negotiation in public; if you want to call a desert “public.” Well, there is something of a stadium with some viewers in it, I reckon. I half expected all of the other contestants to get frustrated by this chaos and simply pack up and go. It would make a great single-panel strip!

And we have arrived at the transition we’ve been waiting for:  An invitation to Tad’s office where he will try to buy off Mark in some way. This is what we saw, implied in the unfinished panel that Jules Rivera posted elsewhere, and that I reposted on April 1^st.  As for the boxing match, with Tad Crass stepping away, who is going to run the contest and judge the winner?

Art Dept. The accidentally colored-over tail of Mark’s dialog balloon underscores the haste that is clearly visible in the drawing of panel 1. Yet the other two panels are comparatively more carefully delineated, suggesting that Rivera was in a hurry, but returned later, when she had more time. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and the hasty panel was inked in last.