Looks like the rain storm that hit Mark and the cave missed Cherry and her section of Lost Forest. That’s interesting for a rain storm that caused such flooding, too! Also, it’s unusual to see an accent slipping out of Cherry, along with some old-school patois. It got me curious.

I know the phrase “my dogs are barking” but not where it originated, so I did some searching and was happy to see that it appears to have originated with the early 20^th century cartoonist, Thomas “Tad” Dorgan. Tad was a master at coining (and popularizing) catchy phrases, some of which are still used today, including dogs (for shoes), dumbbell (used as an insult), “for cryin’ out loud”, 23-skidoo, the cat’s pajamas (Tad just popularized it), drugstore cowboy, and cheaters (for eyeglasses). Okay, that’s our history lesson for today.

Well, the last time we saw Cherry (September 12), she was fighting with Honest Ernest about protecting mother and baby bats in the town’s music hall. Ernest had just been knocked off his ladder by the bats. Cherry advised him to go get checked for rabies. Not sure if he did that. But he’s back to try again, looking no worse for wear (and that’s a phrase going back several hundred years!).

Unlike the earlier versions of Mark and Cherry Trail, Jules Rivera’s two rebooted protagonists don’t seem very determined to send their lawbreaking antagonists to jail or to the Hereafter. Instead, they tolerate, if commiserate over, these troublemakers every time they return. But that’s about as far as it goes. No doubt, the fault isn’t Mark’s or Cherry’s, but the economics and time involved in creating and developing new troublemakers in this strip. Well, that’s my hypothesis.