Rivera takes the easy road to spot Mark for the ongoing bad puns. Well, why not? He’s done it before. I suppose it is logical to think this is director Wesley’s video camera that was left on the floor, as opposed to one of the likewise-missing actors in the house. But did Wingit record himself? Or was he just filming miscellaneous sequences for future use? At least Mark takes the next logical step to view the recording.
Well, I have to say that those lions certainly do look pretty relaxed; the kind of relaxation that comes after a good meal, that is!
Art Dept. One thing that has always puzzled me since Rivera took over the strip is why portions of Mark’s hair (and Cherry’s for that matter) are blue. Is blue the new gray? Does Mark color his hair? This does not resemble any kind of normal highlighting. I do recall seeing this hair convention before in some comic books here and there. Post a comment if you have some information.
I hope you discovered my belated posts for Saturday and Sunday (scroll below), as I accidentally left them in draft.
Yeah, this looks like more story padding going on; but is it? There are some really glaring issues: 1) The action in today’s episode appears to precede the events of this past Saturday, where Mark was shown alreadyinside the house. Check it out. The question here is “WTH!?” This is not a simple “What happened last week” recap. The publish date here clearly shows 09-16 in panel 3.
2) The artwork today is once again clumsy and hurried. Note Sammy Spotter in panel 1: He looks like he was drawn by somebody who didn’t know how anatomy works. Mark’s figure on the steps is not much better, looking more like a Howdy Doody marionette. And he does not have the flashlight Sammy gave him on Friday, but had on Saturday!
3) I also missed the “variable front door” situation. On Thursday and Friday, we saw double-doors with twin side windows. They changed to a single door with full-length sidelights on Saturday. Today, they are back to double-doors but with no side windows or sidelights. This is one freaky, but ugly mansion.
Rivera could probably have used the Continuity checker from Wesley Wingit’s movie set.
I just posted the blogs for Saturday and Sunday. That is, I think I either fell asleep for two days or had a server issue. I discovered Saturday and Sunday’s posts in the DRAFT folder, not online.
Mark, Rusty, and Sammy Spotter arrived by ferry on Santa Catalina Island, whereupon they wasted a bit of time debating Rusty’s place in the greater scheme. He wound up at the hotel, in any event. Mark and Sammy arrived at the “Lion Mansion” with little or no gear, save a flashlight that Mark carried inside. Pointedly, Spotter remained outside.
Mark walked into the living room, only to find a pride of lions just lounging around. Neither Mark nor the lions made any overt moves against each other, as if the they couldn’t care less. Mark found a video camera on the floor and surmised that it might be an important clue regarding movie director Wingit’s whereabouts. Once again, I’ll point out that at no point has anybody asked about the whereabouts or health of the actors that Wingit coerced to stay in the mansion. But we do have some drama building!
Art Dept. The artwork this week avoided any overt extremism, so that was good. I noticed that Friday’s strip in particular was a bit odd, with heavily-outlined figures in panel 1. This heavy outlining was not continued into panels 2 and 3. Why not? The other notable curiosity was the drawing of the lions, clearly in a different style than the rest of the artwork. The most obvious answer is that they are based on reference art/photography that has been retrofitted into the strip. As I mentioned earlier, cartoonists use reference art and images when it is helpful. And that is not controversial. James Allen, for example, made use of it, especially with cars and planes. But the best standard is blending the reference images to match the rest of the artwork. Saturday’s strip is a clear example of this disparity.
I’m not sure what Cherry is holding in panel 5, but I think it’s now legal in most states. Okay, I couldn’t resist the bad joke. Gah! This strip is rubbing off on me.
Anyway, today’s topic offers good enough advice. It’s a tough call. We found an abandoned kitten in a state park and adopted it. She lived with us for 20 years. With just one kitten, it was fairly easy. Can’t say what we would have done then with an entire litter. I think the expense of spaying & neutering would cause most of us to think twice. Sometimes I wish there were no pets.
This is rich. It’s hard to tell, but it has been daylight. Maybe it’s getting on to dusk, but shadows are rarely cast in the Trailverse. So why does Mark need a flashlight? Did the mansion lose electricity? Are all the shades drawn? I mean, we can still see the outside!
Anyway, what clue is Mark referring to? Does Mark think Wingit left a video of what he was doing or where he went? Why does Mark believe it could be Wingit’s camera or why anybody would have one?
Where to begin. We have a pride of lions just hanging around as if they are at a watering hole in a Kenyan savannah. They don’t seem at all bothered by Mark’s sudden entrance, and Mark doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he can just walk in and kneel down alongside the lionesses. I suppose, if they have eaten all of the actors, they are not looking for snacks.
Mark holds the discovered video camera with the awe of Indiana Jones discovering a Peruvian golden idol. I don’t understand the mystery here. Are the lions tranqed? Maybe Wesley Wingit decided he had enough and took the actors out for dinner or maybe a quick weekender to San Diego.
Or, these are not real lions, but actors in costume, and Wingit is the alpha male on the sofa. That would mean they are part of an experiment to see if they can fool any would-be rescuers. Why? That would be because Wingit wanted to save money by not having to hire real lions for his movie.
I wonder if Rivera thinks this strip comes out once a week, since she uses half of today’s space repeating what was covered yesterday. Perhaps she thinks she is being helpful to elderly Trailheads who still read this strip and who might appreciate the reminder. On the other hand, this reiteration is also a method for padding a story to slow the pace down and help it fill out the week. Perhaps that slick, single-panel-Rusty-drop-off yesterday moved too quickly for an old comic strip like this and it just needs a breather.
Okay, so it looks like the guys did bring along some equipment! But maybe this is more than a simple flashlight. Perhaps it is like the cigarette lighter that Our Man Flint used to carry, the one that had about 98 different tools and functions built into it. In any event, it seems that Sammy Spotter, the intrepid animal wrangler, will not be participating in Mark’s assignment, after all. Maybe Mark will begin wishing he had brought along somebody useful, like Rex Scorpius.
I appreciate the fact that Rivera was able to telescope Rusty’s departure from the story in such an efficient and encapsulated fashion (panel 1). It’s a technique she should employ more often to keep a story moving along. And how Mark was able to get somebody else to pay for Rusty’s airfare and expenses for doing nothing more than hanging out should earn him an award for his powers of persuasion or maybe just bald-faced deception.
Anyway, Sammy Spotter seems a bit melodramatic, which is to say, annoying. But I love how he and Mark just showed up at the lion mansion without having any special equipment or even an obvious plan. Hmmm, I suppose they will just have to wing it?
In other news: Cherry’s concurrent story of a collection of kittens suddenly appearing from out of the bushes is mirrored in a video I just found on YouTube. Truth and Fiction meet? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lN2MAvsOEnw
Well, the crisis thermostat is really boiling over now! Or maybe it’s freezing over? Heck, I’m just not sure what Rivera is driving at. Is this a real crisis or not?
Instead of hurrying on to solve this really big deal problem (at least for the movie studio), our intrepid group takes the time to drive out of their way to view some old houses. And now they dawdle by the shore, coddling Rusty.
Perhaps after they spend a few hours hiking around the mountains to find a Catalina fox or shrew, they might find the time to take a detour to the “lion house,” only to learn that the missing movie director snuck away to the Bahamas with one of his “production” assistants.
I’m still trying to come to grips with the justification for this entire storyline. One would think that a house filled with free-roaming lions and human actors would constitute an imminent threat requiring quick and decisive action. Nothing could be further from the truth. Then there is the fact that the entire enterprise is not about rescuing the actors (who cares about them!?!), but on finding the missing director who set up this ridiculous scenario, in order to protect the reputation of the movie studio.
I cannot stop thinking that there might be something entirely different going on here than we are led to believe. Is Sammy Spotter being honest? Are the lions actually in a cage inside the house? Or are they old, toothless beasts ready for their last roar? Is Mark being conned into participating in some kind of secret Reality TV show? Is he being set up to be a fall guy? Or maybe it’s something even worse, planned by one of the clown criminals from his earlier adventures? Perhaps I’m just hoping for something spicy. Don’t let me down, Jules!
Mark and Rusty arrive on the 600-passenger Catalina Flyer, or a similar catamaran ferry, with the famous Catalina Casino in the background. It’s a good enough composition, though the scene suffers from an uninteresting sky. Sure, everybody is glad that Mark did not pilot the boat. But they haven’t disembarked yet!
Art dept. Rivera referenced pictures of the images she combined in panel 1. This is a long-standing and common practice in comics, especially in adventure strips that rely on recognizable locations and objects. In the days before the Internet, cartoonists kept physical files of photos and drawings of useful objects, locations, animals, people, etc. This was standard practice in the earlier Mark Trail strip.
For example, the Catalina Island Fox (and cacti) in the foreground appears to be a reversal of this photograph I found in an online search. The challenge for the artist is ensuring that the drawing matches the overall style of the strip as close as possible in order to lessen the accusation of mere cut-and-paste laziness. I believe I mentioned that the depiction of the famous “Meme” houses of San Francisco is another example.
Cherry called in her dad, Doc Davis the Lost Forest Veterinarian, to consult on dealing with her box o’ kittens found in the bushes of the Sunny Soleil Society. Doc warned against pet shelters, having too few funds or adoptees available. He suggested getting someone to foster the kittens until they get old enough to offer up for adoption. Just who would adopt any of them is another thing. About that time, Violet Cheshire showed up and started gushing over the cute kittens, until she developed a sudden allergic reaction. It should be noted that she did not sneeze around Banjo Cat. So, is that an inconsistency in the story?
Not necessarily, but we’ll have to wait to see if Rivera picks up on this point. Not all cats produce enough allergens to affect people and not all cats affect people the same way. That’s just to say “it depends on the cat (or kitten).” And that’s a common problem with most allergies. I know that, as I went through 20 years suffering indoor/outdoor allergies, including getting weekly shots and inhalants. Not a lot of fun. But most of them disappeared about as suddenly as they came on. We’ll likely be waiting a few weeks before we learn more about Violet’s reaction, as we should now get two weeks of Mark’s current assignment. But first …
Rivera continues to force puns on us, shooting twice for a basket. On the plus side, this another topic germane to Mark’s current assignment on Catalina Island. On the negative side, the artwork looks pretty spartan. Even the title panel is hardly more than an idea.
You know, if Rivera did not put Mark in virtually every panel (and there’s really no need for that), there would be much more room for the subject(s) to shine!
I’ll let you grammarians have fun with the actual text; I don’t wish to hog all of the fun!
So, Banjo Catdidn’t give Violet the sneezies like these kittens appear to do? That’s a tough break for Violet and for Cherry, if the diagnosis is accurate. Where will the plot go, then? Too bad that we’ll have to wait for another two weeks to find out, unless Rivera has revised her usual schedule of Cherry=1 week and Mark =>2 weeks.
Art Dept. It may just be another case of artistic license, but that animal looks pretty large to be a kitten.
This story is moving along at the pace of a garden snail, or so it seems. And the Big Plan is: Cherry and Doc con Violet Cheshire into fostering the kittens. Okay, then what? Do they hold an “Adopt a Kitten” event to unload these little fur balls? They should do it in a hurry, while the kittens are still in their cute phase.
I presume that Doc Davis is going to be as good as his word and take his own advice? He can foster those kittens in his private bedroom hidden somewhere in a corner of the Trail cabin that we never see. That’s after he spays and neuters the kittens, of course!
Art Dept. Things improved today. Even the squirrel.
Oh. I almost forgot Rivera’s punchline of the day (panel 4). But I’m going to try harder.
Do you think Cherry’s stories have become more simplistic and vacuous? If so, why?
The current plot involves Cherry finding a pack of possibly abandoned kittens. What to do?!? That Cherry has no idea about animal shelters around Lost Forest is a bit surprising. Of course, what todo with stray cats and kittens (to say nothing of dogs) is certainly a real world problem with no easy solution. Spaying and neutering kittens is one step, even if it means returning them to the wild. Finding families to adopt the kittens is not easy. We’ll have to wait and see what happens and whether Cherry’s over-the-top reaction (panel 3) has any justification.
Art Dept.Who drew this stuff? Is Rivera just knocking these panels out while waiting for the surf to come in? I’m sure that the door in panel 1 must have been traced from my grandson’s 5th grade drawings. As far as panel 2 is concerned, I wonder if Rivera let somebody else use her drawing tablet. Did you notice Cherry’s amazingkitten box whose size varies panel to panel?
Then there is the very different depiction of Doc Davis in panel 2, as if drawn by my grandkids. Is there a genuine reason for this sort of inconsistency? Most of Rivera’s critics seem to think she can’t draw or doesn’t care (for examples, search for comments on this site by Mark, “the contrarian commenter”). I’m more inclined to the latter reason, which is worse.
First off, the contrivance and pacing of the dialog into three panels is not warranted, just for the sake of a forced joke. I’d have rather seen panel 3 become panel 1 and move on with two more panels to push the story some more. I don’t think we’d lose any context for the remark.
Art Dept. I don’t wish to be merely critical. Even if I am. So, why are everybody’s slacks tight fitting? This is a standard design choice in Mark Trail. But isn’t it about time that Doc Davis, at least, started wearing “comfortable fit” slacks that don’t look like leggings?
Why does Rivera show Doc and Cherry standing so closely, side by side in panel 1, with their bodies facing us, while their heads are turned toward each other? And that proximity looks like some geezer hitting on a younger gal.
I think panel 2 is well done, though drawing Cherry’s mental image balloon crowds Doc Davis out of the frame. Panel 3 is quite another story. It’s a room of shifting perspectives!
Doc looks like a slightly smaller version of Andre the Giant, fully covering the door behind him. When we see that Cherry is virtually the same height as Doc, one has to wonder. Let’s suppose it must be artistic license or the “needs of the story”, but the kitty box is drawn with a perspective that matches nothing else in the room. But we need to see the kittens, right? Drawing the scene from a higher viewpoint could have resolved that issue much better, but would also present more challenges in foreshortening the figures.
While Mark, Rusty, and Sammy Spotter presumably make their way to Catalina Island, Rivera returns us to Cherry’s drama of the six kittens. Based on Doc Davis’s reaction, finding kittens is either a rarity in Lost Forest or maybe he’s never seen that many kittens at one time.
So what is Rivera driving at? Is she setting up a scenario where the kittens need to get vaccinated and then taken to the pet shelter? The kittens don’t look like they are running away, so shouldn’t a search for a possible mother cat be undertaken? But then again, if a mother cat is found, then what? Regardless, they have to be removed from the premises to protect them from the dangerous lawn spray. Clearly, this is a tricky situation for Cherry.
Based on the content so far, I predict this will be yet another short story for Cherry. Shorter stories seem to have become the norm, in contrast to her earlier, longer episodes, such as the incident of the statue and the bees (“Sunny and the Bees“).
So after landing at LAX, Mark and Rusty met up with Sammy Spotter, the animal wrangler. They spent a lot of time in the airport hashing over the reason why actors and a director are trapped inside a house filled with lions. Apparently, Director Wesley Wingit deliberately makes movie flops so that his studio can write them off as tax losses to save money. Kind of similar to the Mel Brooks movie, The Producers. I don’t imply Rivera took the idea from Brooks; butthatit probably really happens.
In any event, Spotter is given to hysterics (okay, similar to accountant Leo Bloom in the movie), while Rusty cons him into taking an out-of-the-way detour to the so-called meme houses in Santa Monica for a look-see before continuing on to the lion house on Catalina Island.
While I’m on the subject of their ad-hoc visit, it suddenly came to me yesterday afternoon that the reason Mark and Rusty stupidly stared and yakked at us in panel 3 of Saturday’s strip may be because Rusty was taking a selfie video he wanted to post. You can just see his raised right arm. So I think we should interpret that panel either as if we were Rusty’s smart phone, or more properly, if we were viewing Rusty’s video already posted online. If that is correct, Rivera’s panel makes more sense and is a clever (though not original) design. Okay, admit it: You already figured that out!
The Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California (of which Santa Catalina Island is one) hosts six varied subspecies of island fox. They live nowhere else in the world. But once again, Mark finishes up the Sunday chat with another pun.
Why is Sammy still in his “I’m looking for Mr. Trail” pose (panel 1)?
Call me a skeptic, but I don’t see how they will get to Catalina soon, seeing as how they’ve already spent so much time hanging around the airport. And now it’s a detour to the “meme houses.” Well, why not? It’s only a short distance in the opposite direction of Catalina Island, so time is clearly not the issue it first appeared to be.
But why are Rusty and Mark breaking The Fourth Wall by talking to us? And talking nonsense, no less. Do they think we should care!?
Maybe some continuity issues here (panel 1), or maybe Sammy Spotter is just conditioned to returning to his original pose in times of stress. Either way, it is weird. Also weird, why are they holding their briefing session in the airport, rather than in the car on the way to their assignment?
And why does Sammy Spotter feel he can’t go into the house, alone? There are several actors already in there—we were told—, and Spotter is an animal wrangler! It doesn’t add up, even if I’m not a mathematician.
I invite your comments on Spotter’s main worry (panel 3).
The Daily Trail 