Jules Rivera continues to take her story into new territory as Rusty’s behavior becomes more focused on his new persona and “friends.” Rusty acts both patronizingly (panel 2) and disdainfully (panel 4) to his fellow scouts, even as Rob’s own cynicism seems to dismiss the entire scene. Again we see the ominous orange sky continuing to flavor the stressful situation, until it suddenly gets replaced by a normal and more familiar featureless light blue sky (panel 4). Is there a symbolic intent to all of this? It seems out of character to the strip to start thinking along this line.

Ian’s apology about being ignorant of the photo’s authorship is undone by the fact that Rusty had originally sent the photo to him and Rusty’s other friends, as we see in this lookback on January 26, 2026:

It’s little wonder that Rusty is not gushing with happiness at their apology and lack of faith. He seems to enjoy rubbing it in their faces, as well. It’s so unlike the Rusty we all know, right?

But is this real or is it Memorex? That is, is Rusty really winding up his friends (to borrow a useful British phrase) to get even for their behavior? It sure looks like Rusty’s getting his money’s worth out of seeing most of them freaked out and distraught. There are three days left to finish this chapter of the story. But there is still the issue of Robbie and the stolen photo, the hoodwinked scoutmaster, and the merit badge. We should need another week to resolve all of that and conclude the story. But it will have to wait for a few weeks following our return to Mark, Happy, and gorillas.