I reckon we might want to gear up for an Armadillo Sunday. And it’s nice that Mark was able to tear himself away from his family chit-chat long enough to get to the emergency situation he was sent down here for. I’m glad to see I was wrong about the stalling continuing. Rivera actually is moving the story along!
You’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, conventional wisdom says. We shouldn’t prejudge these hipsters employed by the Manatee Transportation Company as if they are anything like those laughably bad “hippie” portrayals that were a common staple in the old Dragnet TV show. Still, are these two people marine biologists or veterinarians? If not, where are the scientists? There are two more days this week where Rivera can introduce some support staff. But then again, if we insisted upon strict realism and proper protocols, where would the fun be? Mark is in the Land of Lunatics, Scammers, and Oddballs, so let the weird begin!
<Sigh!> Will this desultory dialog mark the content of the week? (To paraphrase Rusty, see what I did there!?) Rivera tends to parse her stories into weekly chunks, a simple and convenient technique that functions as book chapters. But do we need an entire chapter devoted to this phone call? That is to say, if Mark is off on some important and potentially dangerous assignment (according to Bill Ellis), is distracting Mark with Peach’s bipolar ex-boyfriend a really good idea right now?
Long-time readers of Mark Trail know that Mark has a long history of dealing with poachers, so even just mentioning the word is enough to set him off, as we see here!
Historical Note: Interesting use of the slang, “moxie” in panel 4. I remember it as a popular term often used in MAD Magazine when I was growing up. In case it isn’t obvious, the term refers to personal audacity, nerve, or spunk. The term originated in a once-popular beverage of the same name that was advertised as “nerve food” and a health beverage.
Here it is Christmas Eve and Rivera wastes another day on meaningless drivel that does not move Mark’s story one iota farther along. So today we see a possible example of Mark’s narcissism, as played out in panel 4. Should we take his statement seriously? Perhaps Mark is just being melodramatic to evoke more sympathy from Cherry. Otherwise, Mark is developing an alarming sense of self-importance. Sarcasmmight also explain the narration box containing that hackneyed phrase “Thoughts and Prayers”, normally reserved for people at death’s door or for their survivors.
Anyway, what is Mark talking about in panel 4? Nowhere does Bill Ellis assign the role of manateebodyguard to him. Instead, Ellis simply pointed out some dangers related to the assignment. Even Bill Ellis knows that Mark is just a reporter (or “journalist” if you want to be charitable), not a Navy Seal or trained bodyguard.
Hoo-boy, a plate of crow for me. Now I can see a really good reason to keep these characters in their normal, identity-based clothing. And there is Mark in bed wearing pajamas, which brings up another point: What the heck time is it, anyway!? Unless Lost Forest is west of Georgia, they’re both in the Eastern time zone. Mark is ready for bed, while Cherry and Rusty are dressed to go … someplace: Christmas Service, perhaps? An invitation to a 1950s social dinner at the Sunny Soleil Society?
It’s really disappointing that Rivera builds up a story of a manatee-in-crisis down in Florida that demands Mark’s immediate cooperation and participation; yet, wastes a day giving us nothing but a pointless throwaway strip with Mark loafing around in bed at a time when everybody else is still in their day clothes.
As the prior week focused on Mark’s departure to Florida to save Max the Manatee (as that adventure should resume tomorrow), so this past week Cherry learned about sister Peach’s weakness for men who check several of the macho boxes: big, strong, handsome, hunter, poacher, bipolar, … uh, hold up. Too many boxes. Seems boyfriend Rick illegally lured a protected deer onto private property so he could shoot it. Well, nice to know that even Peach has some standards, so she dumped the dude.
Unfortunately, Rick turned angry and violent after the rejection, threatening Peach, Olive, and other family members. So the two sisters fled the state to seek safe shelter in Lost Forest. And that’s where things stand at the moment.
Well, this is an interesting departure from the usual Sunday nature blab, and I’m happy to see that Rivera’s approach to the Christmas holiday is not some sentimental greeting card blather. Focusing on the animals of The Twelve Days of Christmas is a clever idea. Well done, Rivera! She clearly spent extra time designing and drawing today’s panels. It’s actually quite good and makes me wish all of her stuff measured up.
And I do like the “country squire” attire Mark sports. I can actually imagine spinning off a 17th centuryLord Mark Trail adventure strip. We’d see Lord Mark rising from his snobbish upper class ways to become focused on learning about and protecting animals and their habitats during the early days of the Royal Society, while also interacting with scientists, nobles, and lawbreakers of the day.
So the week ends with an uneventful return to the Trail cabin, as Rusty rushes to hug his favorite (and only) aunts. And this concludes the current chapter of Cherry’s latest story as we’ll return to Mark’s emergency trip to Florida (note the symmetry here: One emergency results in fleeing Florida, while the other emergency results in a race to Florida).
Art Dept. Have you ever seen one of those trick perspective rooms where a 6’ dude walks to a corner of the room closer to the viewer, yet is now smaller than the 5’ person he was originally standing beside? It’s all optical illusion, of course. These are known as “Ames Rooms” named for the scientist who first constructed one (but it was not his original idea). However, that is not what is going on in panel 1.
While the sisters are correctly proportioned with regard to the truck, they are literally giants with regard to the cabin in panel 1! There is noartistic requirement for this, as the cabin could have been drawn in any number of ways that would maintain correct proportions. This then brings up the question of whether this disparity is due to Rivera’s indifference, a deliberate choice, or just carelessness. Do note that a proper, proportional relationship between people and cabin is restored in panel 2. Why the disparity?
If you like, feel free to submit your reason and justification for thinking so in the Comments!
The story is coasting today, as Rivera does indeed spread out the drive home to fill out the week. Perhaps Cherry’s squirrel remark is one of those sitcom-like remarks meant to inject some humor into a tense situation. Or maybe it’s a warning that the commercial health inspector hasn’t gotten around to the donut shop yet, so be careful. Meanwhile, nobody yet has thought about the possibility of Rick pursuing Peach.
Art Dept. Rivera’s earliest work in Mark Trail featured interesting and unusual perspectives. Today’s axonometric-like drawing in panel 1 is another daring attempt that is mostly successful, but the figures of Cherry and Peach are somewhat blocky; especially Cherry. The human figure can be tough to interpret in acute angles. Rivera has been altering our viewpoints inside the truck all week long. But the interior of the truck is starting to look more like a room with small windows than a truck’s cab.
Peach’s “Jerry Springer”-style confession does give one pause to wonder whether Rick’s behavior manifested itself any earlier, unless their relationship was short-lived. And the Pitts are clearly not ones to go running to the police or an attorney, either.
Cherry might want to rethink her decision to give shelter to her sisters, for the sake of her own family’s safety. Rick sounds like the kind of person who would come after Peach. But I hear what you’re thinking: “What about Mother Pitt?” Apparently, even Rick knows his own limits, as he didn’t try to threaten her.
Rivera paces today’s strip the same as yesterday’s but in doing so, the overall pace of the story has slowed down, since we have to wait until tomorrow to learn about Rick’s reactions. I’m betting today’s and tomorrow’s strips could have been consolidated into one. We could cut out panels 2 and 4 as extraneous. We really don’t need to know who or what this “famous buck” is that Rick poached. That it was poached is good enough.
Art Dept. On the other hand, I’ll give points for the background coloration in panels 3 and 4. Their somber tones help reinforce the drama. In fact, I was going to mention that yesterday, since panel 4 did not have a tone-setting background, in spite of its darker content.
Art. Dept. (This is George being a mega-geek today) I think Rivera’s pacing in today’s 4-panel installment is well timed, with no extraneous fat to trim out. After the panel 1 premise is established (“What did he do?”), panels 2 and 3 waste no time or space in establishing the basis of Peach’s former affection for her boyfriend, Rick. In panel 4, Rivera ends with Peach’s conflict, creating a cliff-hanger designed to get us to “turn the page” and discover the truth by which Peach made her fateful decision.
I also like the manner in which Rivera transitions Peach’s backstory from current time (panel 1) to her past, via flashback. Panel 2 shows the start of her flashback as the “Current Time” Peach literally looks back on her past time with Rick. Notice that Rivera shows Peach still talking using a conventional speech balloon. By panel 3, we have moved into Full-Scale Flashback Mode, as all of the images are now part of Peach’s flashback. Her recollection is carried forward only in narration boxes.
Otherwise, the overall drawing remains sketchy. I would have liked to see Rivera alter the style (or at least appearance) of the flashback panels as a further visual reinforcement of the time/place change.
I’ve already gone over the fact that moose should not be found in Lost Forest, unless Lost Forest has relocated to upper New England or an upper region of one of our other northern States. So we’ll move on. (Ed. note: I missed the erroneous comparison before posting.)
Today’s strip solidly stamps the main focus of this story. I expect Cherry will grill Peach on the person’s name and the reason he is such a lowlife. That should conclude on Wednesday, if Rivera is efficient.
Wait. Did I just write that? Sorry, I picked a bad day to stop drinking chocolate malts. In fact, Mark and Cherry took most of last week to drive to the airport. Can we expect any less on the return trip? Nope! So tell Olive to move over as we hop in to catch the dialog.
Art Dept.Panel 1 is somewhat nicely drawn, including flora that doesn’t look like it was copied from Hägar the Horrible. On the other hand, drawing things in motion can be difficult. Cartoonists often use horizontal “speed lines” (what Mort Walker called “hites”) trailing behind the moving object to suggest motion. Rivera uses them on occasion, though sometimes blended into the terrain (see the last panels for December 11 and 12). No room for hites today. In fact, the truck in panel 1 looks empty!
Call this the Week that Weaved, if you wish. As Cherry dropped Mark off at the local airport to fly down to Florida and protect Max the Manatee from danger, the Fickle Fates of Airline Scheduling conspired to have Cherry’s two sisters, Olive and Peach, fly into the airport at the same time. Well, truth be told, Cherry knew they were coming, so she likely scheduled Mark’s plane to take off around the same time to save herself another trip.
And lucky Cherry, not only did airport police not chase her away from the curb while waiting on the sisters (as noticed by commenter Be Ware of Eve Hill), but she learned that the visit is really to get Peach out of Florida and away from her violent ex-boyfriend. His identity is a mystery at this point, but we do know that he is heinous, which is pretty far down the scale of personality attributes. Speaking of mysteries, will we continue with Cherry’s story on Monday or pivot to Mark and Max the Manatee?
While you’re flipping that coin, I hope you’ll stick around long enough for the Nature Monologue.
Growing herbs (outside or inside) is certainly a useful sideline and doesn’t take much work. We grow several herbs, which is to say, my wife does. I have a brown thumb, because anything I try to grow turns to … well, my wife is the gardener and she keeps me away from it.
One thing I tire of is TV commercials with the always smiling faces of the actors, even people in those dreadful, omnipresent drug commercials. Cherry and Mark’s frozen smiles in today’s nature chat just trigger a reaction that makes me want to immediately turn the page (or scroll away).
Today’s strip is like watching an Infomercial. I keep waiting for Mark and Cherry to tell me how little they want to charge me for their customized mail-order herb baskets that I can grow in the comfort of my own home: “Just three payments of $14.99 (plus shipping) and they will arrive within seven business days! Order now and they’ll throw in the Grow Light! Don’t wait! Call 555-1212. That’s 555-1212. Call today at 555-1212. Why are you still watching? Call now!! Did you get the number? It’s 555-1212.“
So, the Pitt sisters are united once again! For those of you who came in late, I noted back in 2020 that the given names for the three sisters is the basis for one of Rivera’s earliest and better puns. Rivera created Cherry’s family (as far as I know at this point) with the surname Pitt; hence, we have sisters Cherry Pitt, Olive Pitt, and Peach Pitt (note the color of their clothing). Lest you think the surname is contrived (okay, it is!), let me remind you that the Prime Minster of England during the American Revolution was William Pitt, the Younger. And there is that Brad dude, too.
Names based on puns is nothing new, of course, and they litter the history of comic strips. Entire families are rarer. The family that always pops up in my mind is the family of Olive Oyl, (Popeye’s girlfriend), including Castor Oyl and Cole Oyl. Do you remember any other examples? Let me know!
As for the “heinous hunter ex-boyfriend”, whoever could he be? This is clearly going to be the point of Cherry’s next adventure. Too bad it won’t be the dramatically serious story it should be. Maybe the dude will turn out to be Mark’s old nemesis, Dirty Dyer!
Gag me with a spoon! Okay, I get the joke; it’s actually a funny contrast and it doesn’t involve a lame pun. I’m impressed that Rivera carried it off. I might even go so far as to think that panel 1 is also a dig on pre-Rivera departure scenes where Mark and Cherry are always so lovey-dovey. It’s an attractive and plausible scenario, but that may be reading too much into it. Do you agree or not?
Taking out a lot of the pointless and repetitious dialog, I think Rivera could have reduced the current sequence of strips to three days. Yet, arising out of all that bland chit-chat I believe we see the beginnings of Cherry’s next story come to light. With the arrival of Cherry’s sisters I reckon we should get ready for more sibling fighting. Still, I’m anxious to see if Rivera fleshes the sisters out a bit more.
Speaking of which, why didn’t Mark already know about their visit? Do spouses really invite relatives to visit without clearing it with their Significant Other? If I tried that, I’d be the one staying in a motel.
Unofficially, Lost Forest is supposed to be in or around Georgia. So why is there a moose hanging around (panel 4)? It really has to be lost to have wandered down that far south, especially given the moose’s preference for colder climates. Based on last Sunday’s nature study, Rivera had to know about the moose’s habitat. I reckon in her zeal to integrate animals from the Sunday topics into the dailies (or vice-versa), Rivera must have forgotten a few inconvenient facts.
Hmm, let me see if I grasp the essentials: Mark was told that a group of conspiracy nut jobs think this particular ocean-based manatee was chipped by the government to help track and control weather. Okay, that conforms with the kind of stupid ignorance we see on social media and some news networks.
Furthermore, as Max the Manatee is in danger of being abducted, it also makes perfect sense to send Mark Trail the Nature Journalist to Florida to protect it, rather than employ armed guards, for example.
But if there is any hope for sanity and logic, Mark’s idea of being a guardian will turn out to be a fantasy when Mark discovers there is already a crew of private security along for the ride to the ocean, and he’ll be restricted to actually just being a reporter.
To get this out of the way, today is just rubbish in terms of story development. Mark inexplicably thanks Cherry again for the ride then immediately jumps into how wonderful a guy he is. A “guardian” he calls himself? What qualifies him as a guardian of a manatee when there are scores of professional marine biologists at hand? Maybe he means “bodyguard.”
Mark seems to have an overstated sense of self-worth and importance. I’m not sure where the narcissism comes from, since we have not seen much of this behavior in the past. What is Rivera’s motive here? Maybe, just maybe, Mark is being portrayed as sarcastic, but we’ll need to see some evidence for that interpretation. But this is the kind of annoying boasting that leads to embarrassment and failure. In fact, this is generally how Honest Ernest is portrayed.
Art Dept. Today’s drawing is nowhere near as sad as yesterday’s. With the exception of the mirror and door handle, panel 1 is actually well composed and drawn. The angle of the truck and proximity of the interior is close enough to easily see Mark and Cherry while still leaving room for dialog. It helps that panel 1 is a double-wide. Panel 3, however, is another story. Both figures are way too small in scale for the truck. In fact, Cherry looks really bulimic.
An all-too-common complaint is Rivera’s supposed lack of artistic ability. I don’t believe that. I think it is deliberate. We have seen many some examples of finely crafted panels. However, today is not one of those days. The everyday banality of the scene, itself, is perfectly fine and hardly different from similar pre-Rivera scenes, except for the difference in Cherry’s attitude. It’s nice to see that Cherry is not the mewing, tearful housewife of “the old days.” Rivera’s attempts to create “greeting card” maxims (panel 3) is the only real jarring text.
Art Dept. Here is where, once again, I am perplexed and frustrated. From the cabin bedroom in panel 1 to the outdoor scene of panel 3, if you removed Mark and Cherry, I’d almost swear I was looking at panels from Snuffy Smith and Li’l Abner. Well, maybe not quite that good. Panel 3 is especially galling in its crudeness. It makes me wish Rivera would go back to using clipart and tracings. Is this another case of “Gotta go, surf’s up.”? Or maybe a challenge to the syndicate to see how much she can get away with? This is the kind of stuff that draws out regular scanner, Mark the Contrarian Commenter. Except that I stole his thunder.
As Cherry and Mark celebrated the completion of the catio, resolving the issue of where to keep the cache of found kittens (and possibly their mother, though I’m not certain), Mark received his usual just-in-time phone call from Bill Ellis. Interesting how that always seems to happen. Have we ever seen an instance of Mark getting a call from Bill while he was in the middle of a project or adventure?
Bill engages Mark to head to crazy-land (Florida) to assist/report/confound the transportation of Max the Manatee back to the ocean from his landing in a resort pool as the result of recent storms and/or floods.
The problem: It seems there are some militant anti-climate activists that have been making threats to the company moving Max, because meteorology is evil. What that has to do with Max the Manatee is a mystery. But Mark is gung-ho to go and help save Max! Not that we know exactly what Mark is supposed to do or why, but if this sounds whacko, remember two things: The action takes place in Florida and this is just another Mark Trail story.
A nicely-composed title panel leads us into this brief presentation, including some sound advice for presumptuous tourists and distracted drivers. You likely won’t run into a moose unless you live in or visit the upper United States, Canada, or northern Europe. As bad as it is to collide with a moose on the road, colliding with something as small as a deer on the road can also be dangerous to drivers and bikers. I always get a bit nervous and cautious driving through forested areas, especially in the Fall during mating season. When driving in northern Minnesota, the only way I want to see a moose on the road is in my rearview mirror!
Another twist in the story: A conspiracy theory that meteorology is evil. Sure, why not? There are plenty of real world, goofy—that is to say, paranoid and stupid—claims about government controlling the weather. Real meteorologists get harassed and receive death threats. And what does a business that moves manatees have to do with meteorology, anyway? Sometimes I wonder if the Middle Ages really ever ended.
I’m sure if scientists could figure out a way to mitigate weather and climate extremes, we’d all benefit. The idea that government wants to make weather worse is just plain moronic, especially since government resources (including taxpayer dollars) have to be used to assess and fix the damage. Nope! Government prefers to spend our money on more dependable projects, such as the Military, congressional pork barrels, and energy industry subsidies.
But Mark is correct: Florida is one of the Capitals of Crazy. Still, what the heck is Mark’s role in this incident? He is not in law enforcement, not a trained bodyguard, and not a private detective. So, I’m quite anxious to see just what he will do when he gets to the scene of the slime.
The Daily Trail 