What do you think? Is panel 1 a visual pun of my blog title? If so, Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!

The argument continues, as Mark pussyfoots around the issue. The point of scamming money from Happy was exposed before they even visited the gorilla sanctuary. And what about the drive back home? Did they not talk about it at all? We don’t know, because Jules Rivera also kept that part of the story tucked away in a secret folder. We seem to be treading water here; more soap opera than adventure. Well, Happy has previously played down his donations to Gail. Being smitten does tend to cloud the rational part of the brain.

Art Dept. In panel 3 Mark feels obliged to throw a zinger back at Happy as he looks across with a Doonsbury-inspired expression (well, the eyes, anyway). This type of cynical expression doesn’t really work well with Mark or with the general tenor of the strip.

Nevertheless, panel 3 is unnecessarily crowded, owing to fitting in Rivera’s popular arced background divider, the image balloon of Gail and her bag o’ cash, the traditional signature bubble-and-date, and Rivera’s all-too-common punchline narration box. That’s a lot to fit it around Mark and his comment. Compare it with its mate, panel 2, where Happy didn’t need that image balloon of Gail.