Okay, Cherry isn’t wielding the Hammer of Thor, but isn’t mincing words, either. And now that Cherry has supported Rusty’s accusation, will Ranger Shaw counter her claim? Or will Ranger Shaw bring the boys over and make them come clean? After all, it is quite easy for Rusty to show his picture with the earlier timestamp. The question I have is whether this gets cleared up on Saturday. That would be fast work and out of tempo with the pace of this storyline. Actually, I think that Rivera will instead cut to Rusty, hiking along a trail with his new companion, Rocky Raccoon.

As for the boys playing in the front yard, they are actually doing what I’d expect all curious boys to do: Stand around and try to eavesdrop on the adults!

Art Dept. As reader Daniel P. commented yesterday, that darned fence disappears and reappears. Frankly, I’m not sure where it even came from. I don’t recall ever seeing a fence around the property before. Has anybody else seen it, outside of this story?

I like the tight pacing and changing viewpoints of the panels today:  A two-panel panorama opens to include the boys in the background looking across, back to Cherry and Shaw in the foreground; then a tighter focus on just Shaw and Cherry as she makes the accusation; and finally a close-up of Cherry in panel 3 as she piles onto the accusation.

Finally, I should have said something, yesterday, about Wednesday’s panels. The second and third panels feature individual shots of Cherry and Ranger Shaw facing each other, like double portraits from the Renaissance. Even Cherry’s mental image of Rusty is sneering in Shaw’s direction! It’s another example of good pacing in the action, as the separate panels infer a slight time distinction to dramatize Ranger Shaw’s reaction and response to Cherry.