We got to experience an All Rusty Week. It began with Cherry dropping the lad off at his scout meeting in Lost Forest. We immediately noticed Rusty’s uniform was completely different from his previous scout meeting, where the uniform was clearly based on the olive-colored Boy Scouts (Scouting America) uniform. This week, he wore old-school Cub Scout blues. Why the change? Perhaps Rusty’s Woods Scouts troop enjoys a more diverse fashion closet than its Real World counterparts. That, in itself, is a bit strange, since several of the principal characters in Mark Trail rarely, if ever, change their clothing choices. Sure, that is part of the character’s branding. But I’m digressing …

After getting dropped off, Rusty immediately skipped out on his Woods Scouts meeting and went on a walk through the woods to deal with some internal conflicts and emotions. Rusty was still angry at Robbie for claiming Rusty’s nature photo as his, which resulted in Robbie getting a merit badge from the scoutmaster (Robbie’s dad!). Sure, who has never been screwed over at some point? Thus, Rusty went off on his own to work things out.

One thing I noticed in these panels was how different the forest looked during Rusty’s excursion. The trees and bushes looked strange, almost nightmarish at times. The forest portended a mysterious or suspenseful event awaited the lad as he walked along the curving dirt road, lost in his thoughts.

Then a sudden sound from behind interrupted Rusty’s thoughts. What could it be? Was this the dramatic moment I thought would happen? Nah, it was just a  raccoon. But Rusty immediately put aside his angst and had a sit-down with the raccoon. Rusty went into a “Christopher Robin meets Pooh” fantasy, giving the raccoon some of his sandwich, assigning it a name (“Rocky”, of course), and having a friendly conversation. Just then Rusty got interrupted again, this time by a phone call from Cherry, wondering where the hell he was. From this, we learned Rusty’s middle name is Justice. But it didn’t look like he was going to get any justice from Cherry when she came to pick him up. The strip ended the week with Rusty hoping to justify his behavior by claiming animals are just better companions than people.

Not one of Rivera’s better efforts, I’m afraid. And Mark’s attempts at humor also fall flat, which is hardly a surprise. When I see that stuff, I’m thinking Rivera is just being self-indulgent and not putting this valuable space to better use. In addition, these Sunday pages are supposed to be her favorite, but the art looks more like her dailies. I’m getting crusty, I think!

And Rivera omitted one important fact: The bird’s name, bobwhite, is an onomatopoeic translation of its unique whistle-like call. The quail has other calls, but this one is its most famous and distinctive. I enjoyed hearing it while growing up. You can’t mistake it for another bird, though a mockingbird might imitate the call. Here is an example of the bobwhite call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CguBVbaJiU