Well, alright! We’re on another hunt. Like husband like wife, Cherry seems to have taken control of Violet’s hunt to discover the identity of the anonymous activist. On a “significance” scale, this rates a little higher than an alien crash.
But how did they discover that kudzu vines had also been distributed throughout their village center? Cherry only learned about this a short while ago (in Trailverse Time). And Violet doesn’t seem like the kind of social creature that would deign to mix with the hoi poloi.
At least one thing I have been pleased about in this strip is Rivera’s more expansive view of Lost Forest and her aim to show it to us. Who knew the locals favored what appears to be a cross between old English and traditional German buildings? Perhaps it points to some “old world” origins of their ancestors.
Did you miss last week’s strips but don’t want to spend time scrolling down to read them (and my commentary)? Then here is a summary: It was a curious week with little action, more ambiguity, and several incredibly bad puns. Okay, maybe that was a bit too summary. Let me try again:
Mark and the boys continued their examination (from the previous week) of a clearing in the woods during their hike to find an alleged alien crash site. An obscure diagram scratched on the ground led one of this blog’s followers to suggest it might be a pagan pentagram, which would have been an interesting plot development. It turned out to be a diamond-shaped perimeter with an extinguished campfire. Still, why draw any diagram on the ground? With only an abandoned rubber horsehead (which Rusty claimed) and some “pink crystals” discovered by Ernie, the boys were undecided about the alien incursion. Mark was more concerned about the alleged fate of the mysterious campers who had abandoned this “failed campsite.” Instead of moving on to search some more, Mark decided the adventure was over (since he naturally assumed command of the hunt) and took the boys to eat pizza at Planet Pancake. There was pizza to be eaten, but Mark spent his time contemplating the fate of the campers. You’ll have to scroll down and read the actual dailies if you wish to experience Rivera’s puns.
As I noted yesterday, I’m drawn to conclude that Rivera presented this Rusty Adventure mainly for the purpose of launching another story for Mark, so it’s likely that Rusty and his friends will now disappear from the strip until needed in the future. We’ll have to wait and see; it’s possible that Rivera will first turn her attention back to Cherry this week, as she and Violet Cheshire prepare to search for the mysterious Kudzu Crusader. Anyway, since you’re here let’s see what Mark has for us today:
For the longest time I’ve encouraged people to not sweep away spiders because they tend to only hang out where there are other creatures you’ll like even less. And spiders consume them, as Mark describes.
So Jeanette has expanded her pancake menu to include pizza. Well, both foods are round. Perhaps we’ll even get to see injera on the menu before too long. Like pizza, this round Ethiopian bread can function as both a plate and an eating utensil. But I digress.
Mark is still hung up about that abandoned campsite. Why? I mean, isn’t that what you do when you leave: You abandon it, unless you are one of those who thinks humans are not really a part of nature and should leave no trace of their presence. Unlike other animals. I’m digressing again.
I have the feeling that Rivera has set us (and Rusty) up once again. It might be that Rusty’s failed alien search adventure was simply a plot device to initiate Mark’s upcoming project: The search for the missing camper.
Instead of investing in a longer and more involved storyline, as well as the chance to reveal some more personality in the boys, Rivera appears to be making Mark the hatchet man to kill off the search (and this story) at the first likely opportunity: “Oh, an abandoned campsite, boys? Well, fake alien crash. Time to go. This story is over!”
Did Mark even use his vaunted compass? Did they get waylaid, lost, or confused in their hiking? Who knows? But Mark acts as if he was in charge all along, arrogantly trying to control the situation with his patronizing “father knows best” judgement in panel 4 with Rusty filling in the punch line. And didn’t Rusty and Mark already have pancakes that very morning!? Well, I could be wrong about all this. Today’s strip could just be a setup for a surprise plot twist that shows itself on Saturday. This is the right place and time for one!
The first place the kids find some trash and it automatically becomes the alien crash site? Well, the clearing is shaped like a circle (think flying saucer or alien crop circle)!
While the boys enjoy their alien adventure, Mark finds it very suspicious that a person or persons unknown might have built a campsite and campfire in a clearing. Wow! Who could imagine such a thing!?
Isn’t this the same thing Mark, Happy, Rex Scorpius, and his mother all did when they were on the run from the police? If these mystery campers were anything like them, they’d have to be long gone by now!
Commenter Daniel P proffered an intriguing hypothesis that the design scratched into the ground in yesterday’s strip (panel 4) was a pentagram, suggesting that some kind of pagan ritual (that would include the horse head) could have taken place. But today, it looks more like a diamond to me, with the remains of a campfire in the middle. Not terribly interesting, but the pagan pentagram idea sure sounds a lot more intriguing for this story. Tip: If you click on any part of the strip, it will automatically zoom in. Click the back button to exit the zoom.
Hmmm, nothing much said about that ground diagram, and that Eastern Mole in panel 1 sure seems to want to get somewhere else (it could wind up as our Sunday subject). But instead of an intriguing or even dangerous adventure, all we’re getting so far is a bunch of juvenile jokes, and not just from the juveniles. I think panel 4 is a record low for Rivera.
Maybe the comics syndicate would have been better off letting Rivera start a “Young Mark Trail” strip where he is just a teen and already getting involved in journalistic investigations and the environment. The type of storytelling and humor Rivera likes to use would more appropriately fit that format. She would probably attract a larger, younger audience, as well. Then somebody else could take this over. Win-Win. Hear that, King Features Syndicate?
So, they must have actually traversed more of Lost Forest than I figured. This might have been one case where a narration box in one of the earlier dailies stating something like “And some hours later…” would have been informative for once, rather than hosting another pointless pun.
Mark’s internal cogitations about the source and point of the mask are helpful, but inconsistent. A prank? Possible! Someone lost? A non sequitur. Better to ask “Was it left behind after a costume party in the woods?”
But a more dramatic hypothesis would be “Perhaps the mask was used in a bank heist and the robbers are nearby!” Yikes! Now that would be a fundamentally more significant and dangerous proposition. We might expect that to be the case in a pre-Rivera Mark Trail adventure. In any event, Mark, better safe than sorry, so turn the kids around and head to the pizza parlor, while you can!
“In [Mark’s] search for an alien crash site…” Uh, just whose search is this? Last I saw, Mark invited himself into this adventure. Jules Rivera seems to once again be taking the boys for granted, as if they are only grist for the mill of Mark’s unending search for glory. To put it even more cynically, Rivera seems bent on trying to trivialize Mark Trail’s purpose and existence. It is both unbecoming and sad.
Okay, then. Taking Rivera’s question literally (panel 1), what else did Mark find that was strange? By my own armchair reckoning, Mark hasn’t found anything, strange or common, because the horsehead mask was found by Robbie! Robbie might be a pain in the ass, but he has the right idea (panel 3): Keep searching!
Last week Mark remarked (like that pun, Jules!?) that he thought something was going on at this location. Are they going to look around for clues of the alleged mask dropper? And what will they find?
The age-old conspiracy theory of visitors from a distant planet surfaces in Rusty’s latest adventure. Online sources claimed that an extraterrestrial incursion and crash occurred somewhere in Lost Forest, though the specific crash location was not mentioned. Certainly, an unfortunate oversight by the excited poster, I’m sure. Yet, this omission didn’t matter to Rusty and his friends who still insisted on initiating an expedition to locate the wreckage. And really, who would not be tempted? This could be a fun mystery, even if it isn’t about the environment.
Mark bribed Rusty into letting him come along with the gang. Rusty’s main rival, Robbie, objected, but the other boys overruled him. So off they went, guided by Mark and his trustworthy pocket compass. But here, Mark failed to teach the kids that a compass—on its own—is not a “finder” but merely a “direction locator”, thereby spreading misinformation that could lead to possible problems for the boys in the future. A negative mark for woodsman Mark Trail!
By Wednesday’s strip, the actual hiking began with an abandoned horsehead mask found on the trail in Friday’s strip. It didn’t appear that the gang had hiked very far or very long. In any event, the Saturday strip had Rusty thinking that the alien crash story was fake and he was ready to go home. Yet Mark was not so easily defeated and thought that something funny was going on, which required more investigation. I think Mark has an idea this was a prank and who the prankster might be. Do you? While you ponder this, let’s get in some nature education:
Sharks can be social animals and have BFFs. Okay, that’s nice to know. They’re not always lone killers, lurking just under the surface for female surfers trying to catch a wave.
Do sharks behave like us? Apparently so, but we sometimes use the term “shark” to refer to seedy characters (e.g., loan sharks) who take advantage of people, usually in dire straits. Or the term can refer to a member of a New York street gang that has a tendency to dance and sing in poor neighborhoods.
But I don’t get Mark’s final comment, other than as a bad pun.
“This hike was a bust.” What a quitter! Ah well, is this another busted adventure? The gang could not have walked very far before finding the horsehead mask. Yet, they somehow thought they needed some kind of GPS or compass to avoid getting lost. This suggests that Lost Forest is not very large or that Rivera decided to omit about four hours of hiking between the Thursday and Friday strips. It begs the question: Shouldn’t they just keep searching? And I agree. Stopping now would be a drag. By the way, this plot has nothing to do with the environment or ecology, right? Whoah! This is the Mark Trail adventure strip. Why can’t Rusty get involved in environmental matters like his parents?
Let’s get to another of the issues, shall we? (I’ll leave you to discover another one.) In panel 4, Mark says “I don’t know, Ernie.” Ernie!? WTH? Mark has been talking to his own son, Rusty! Has Mark spent so little time at home that he forgot what Rusty looks like? We might be able to make that case for the pre-Rivera iteration of Mark Trail. Another possibility is that Mark’s brain is working slowly and is only now reacting to Ernie’s outburst in yesterday’s strip.
Nevertheless, Mark’s lame joke in panel 4 is a clear setup of things to follow. For those of us who might be misled by Rusty’s all-too-easy surrender, Rivera has taped a “To be continued” sign to panel 4.
Maybe the costume horse head came from the prop department of “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” which occasionally trotted out Secretariat, the dancing horse. Just a thought.
Yesterday’s reader commentary noted the suspicious omission of smartphones from the general discussion, in spite of Ernie’s apparent attempt to use a tracking app on his (I’m not sure why I forgot his name the other day). The more important comment may have been the general dismissal or concern for smartphones in order to justify Mark’s intervention as he arrived to “save the day.” Taking on the role of hero is Mark’s calling, of course. He just can’t stop himself.
In Rivera’s version of Mark Trail, his attempts at heroic posturing often result in minor catastrophe or at least, setbacks. As I noted in the past, I think this is just fine. It makes him more human. In the pre-Rivera iterations, Mark was always just a trifle too righteous, too honorable, and too dang smug. However, many readers (I suspect) consider Mark’s current image has been pushed too far to the other side, making him appear more foolish than just more human. I think Rivera also kept the old “smugness.”
Apology: Thanks to reader “be ware of eve hill” and Dennis (the blog’s originator) for their help in my finally figuring out why the “Like” button was not showing up (at least for me) on the main page. But I also have to be more careful about my posting technique. Apparently, viewers who are subscribed to this blog (I think there are at least 2 or 3), automatically get notified by email immediately when I post. Ouch! On one recent occasion I accidentally posted but forgot to load the strip on the page. A moment of distraction on my part. If you were especially quick, you might have viewed that post without the strip. I quickly corrected it, but it was embarrassing. I don’t know if you got re-notified. This “not ready for prime time” fiasco could have happened before, as I sometimes have to post my blog “early”, because this site’s “preview” function does not always work. Anyway, I’ll try harder to cut down on these goofs!
Well, at least we’re moving along. Mark trots out some “woodsman” wisdom, for little purpose. Sure, moss grows on the north side, most of the time. Flowers tend to lean towards sunlight, so they may lean south, some of the time. But you better hope it isn’t a snowy winter. Say, weren’t any of these kids ever scouts!?
Again, neither moss nor compass tells you “where you are”, only in what direction you may be heading. Big difference! I reckon that Rivera was never a scout, either. But I suppose if Mark’s main intention is just to make sure they are moving in one direction, then fine. But if you are not counting steps or marking trail (oh, I just made a pun!) as you go, then getting back where you started is not guaranteed. Still, this is just Lost Forest, not the Alaskan Wilderness. If we’ve learned anything, there are lots more people living in it or around it than we thought. Just yell. Somebody will find you. Maybe even Klingons.
The troop sets off to discover something that is possibly from another world. Truly, that’s a life-changing adventurous for any child.
But I’m sorry, there is much wrong here. “Aliens are technically nature,” spouts Rusty. What does that mean? Ignoring the primary definition of “someone from another country”, the relevant definition of alien is something not of our world (e.g., “Klingons”); so therefore, not “nature”. Something alien could even just be a meteor, but a crashed spaceship would be better.
Once again, the Moe-haired kid in panel two asks the necessary question: How do you find something if you don’t have a route to follow? Doesn’t stop Mark from taking the lead (as he always tries to do). For his bona fides, he implies his pocket compass will help them find the site.
Again, I’m sorry. A compass does not “find” anything, except the Earth’s Magnetic North. It’s for keeping track of your direction of movement or for following a map. But it does not home in on crash sites when you don’t know where they are. Unfortunately, it seems doubtful that the kids will see through Mark’s flummery.
“Mark Trail is everyone’s True North.” That statement in panel 4 is certainly debatable, but it also functionally conflicts with the purpose of Mark’s compass. True North is not the same location as Magnetic North (where a compass points). Magnetic North is not even a fixed spot. But Rivera is invoking a metaphor popular in religious circles where a holy leader is “the true north” for believers, the direction for moral and ethical behavior. I don’t think Rivera means to imply the religious aspect of that metaphor. Instead, I think Rivera suggests the kids should shut up and trust Mark. Like they did before.
Robbie makes an excellent point, of course. None of the other kids showed up with their daddies (who all probably have stable jobs, anyway). Furthermore, the boys won’t be able to cuss or talk about girls with a parent along! But I covered this point yesterday (And that’s a pretty well-drawn Mark in panel 2).
I’m not sure that Rivera ever got around to naming all of the kids. The kid with the Moe haircut seen in panel 1 of yesterday’s strip is Ernie, son of Jeanette, who operates Planet Pancake. I think that the unnamed kid who says “Pfft”(behind Robbie) is selectively recalling events. The reason Mark saved them from the ‘gators is because he was responsible for putting them on the island with the ‘gators (cf January 2023). And there were no other adults around, anyway!
Finally, I hope you see the parallel drawn here with Rusty and Robbie in relation to Mark, right? That is to say, Mark and his own childhood nemesis (later turned grownup nemesis).
Prolog: For a long time, I was puzzled by the fact that there was no “Like” button on my post pages. I had finally forgotten about this until I started seeing “Likes” tabulating on my pages! Huh!? Where did they come from? In the WordPress settings, the Like button setting was enabled, but I still saw nothing. One of my readers even told me she only sees Like on the Comments page. I didn’t see it there, either.
I use MSEdge, so I went through its settings to see if there was anything to change. Nothing. I brought up Chrome and there was the Like button where it should be on the main page! Now I was really puzzled. Why Chrome and not Edge? After a lot of cogitation and throwing CDs at my heavily dented door, I had a wild idea and turned off Adblock just for WordPress. Lo and behold (as they say), the LIKE button now shows up on the daily blog! Man am I getting slow. Well, on to today’s Mark Trail strip:
Okay, put away any excitement for Cherry’s story as we return to Rusty and Mark. The Trails do move in their own, restricted circles. For Mark, it’s people like faux-Prof. Bee Sharp, Diana Daggers, Rob Bettancourt (Cricket Bro) and his brother, and finally his dad. For Cherry there are Georgia, Honest Ernest, Violet Cheshire, and various members of the Sunny Soleil Society. For Rusty, it’s his buds. Yeah, there is some comfort in familiarity, of course, but there is also tedium. At least here, we have Rusty’s friends. Most kids like to spend time with their friends, so it is only natural to see them reappear when the strip focuses on Rusty. So, we give Rusty a pass, but not his mom and dad.
I don’t get the gag in panel 4 about Mark being “worth waiting for.” Those kids were neither expecting Mark nor waiting for him. More sarcasm? Rivera is supposed to be expanding the Trailverse to allow other family members to get some of their own face time. So why does Rivera continue to redirect attention to Mark? Can’t these kids just have their own adventure for once (think of the movie “Stand by Me”), or at least hold Mark back until the kids get into trouble and need to be rescued. It’s time for the kids to start making their own decisions and mistakes.
Were you by chance too busy this week to keep up with Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail? Fear not, dear heart, for having taken on the mantle of daily observer, analyst, and reactor, I can—nay, I must—catch you up. Such is my obligation and pleasure.
This past week the strip turned its focus from Mark to Cherry. Working one day (as is all too common) in the garden of the Sunny Soleil Society, Violet Cheshire interrupted Cherry with a handful of kudzu vine and a written note of scorn. Apparently, somebody left that fragment of invasive weed on her home porch with the note blaming Violet for apparently sponsoring its growth in her home garden. It was signed with a comic book nickname: “The Kudzu Crusader.” Of course, Violet assumed Cherry fashioned this presentation as some kind of childish prank. But Cherry denied being either being the author or perpetrator of this action.
I would have thought that this story would move on from the initial interrogation and response. In fact, most of the week’s strips were wasted on repeating this question-and-denial routine, in slightly different revisions. It wasn’t as if the issue was difficult to understand.
Other than my observation that Violet—surprisingly—expressed no knowledge of kudzu, this story started to languish. By Friday, Violet was finally ready to believe Cherry might be innocent, and now came to think that Cherry was being framed. If somebody wanted to frame Cherry, wouldn’t they have signed her name to the note? But even Cherry began to accept Violet’s illogical “frame Cherry” theory. In Saturday’s strip, Violet was overtaken with Sherlockian zeal, ready to go on the hunt with Cherry as her Watson and find the real Kudzu Crusader.
At last, the story’s excitement level rises to a measurable level! It would be a shame to interrupt the plot at this point and chuck its momentum in the freezer, just to get back to Mark’s ambiguous storyline.
Now it’s good to use more plastic!? As happened last week, Rivera is once again linking the Sunday topic to the current storyline(s), which is a good idea. And as usual, her customized title panel is spot on. Rivera ingeniously takes advantage of the lanternfly’s wing markings to pick out the strip’s name. I would only add that the spotted lanternfly was first observed on the eastern seaboard but seems to be moving westward.
I think I’m beginning to understand a few things: Violet doesn’t know what kudzu is and calls it an “exotic” vine. I think we might assume she is not from the South or even the Midwest.
According to The Nature Conservancy, kudzu was brought into this country over 100 years ago from Japan and later deliberately promoted during and after the Great Depression to help minimize soil erosion. Little did they know back then! Also, the fact that Cherry has to actually state that she doesn’t like kudzu is like saying penguins don’t like to summer in Miami.
Nevertheless, we’ve had 5 days of Cherry and Violet more or less repeating the same dialog: “Why did you do this, Cherry?” “I didn’t, Violet! Why would somebody want to frame me?” Slow pacing is fine when the plot or information is complex. This is not the case. After the first day, not much new was introduced, making this long sequence unduly boring and unproductive.
Maybe these two should first be more concerned about removing the rest of the kudzu currently in Violet’s home garden, before it starts expanding into the surrounding forest. Then they can go into full Enola Holmes mode to find the true culprit. My money is still on Ernest (or maybe his wife, seeking revenge for the affair!).
Wait. How can a “suspect list” increase when there are no suspects to begin with? Perhaps the term “increase” implies we start with the Sunny Soleil Society?
Anyway, this focus on Cherry seems misplaced, but I’m working from a position of logic, or at least, reasonable assumption. When Cherry says she has no enemies, is she forgetting about Honest Ernest? Well, maybe she does not consider him to be her enemy.
Art Dept. I’ll give Rivera high marks for the drawing of Violet in panel 1. The pose and especially her expression are quite well done and believable, and matching the tone of her comment. It forms an interesting bookend with Cherry’s face in panel 4. It’s still a shame that Rivera does not integrate more interesting design perspectives in the strip like she used to.
Sorry for the lateness of this post. Violet Cheshire’s comment in panel 2 just completely contradicted all of her prior statements about Cherry and the note. I was too flummoxed to continue.
Well, that’s only a half-truth. In reality, I got distracted by other matters. But when I got back to this post, I saw that Violet really did make that statement. So, this wasn’t just a late-night hallucination, after all.
Now in panel 1, we see another bit of illogic: Why should the note attempt to frame Cherry when it wasn’t even signed by Cherry in the first place? If the narration box is meant to be an editorial comment, it reads as if Rivera was being influenced by Violet’s statements! Violet’s passive-aggressive dialog is doing nothing to move the story along, except to extend this pointless issue of Cherry’s personality.
What’s the point here? Is Rivera really concerned about establishing the authorship of the note or more concerned with pushing a “reality TV” melodrama of manufactured confrontation?
I suppose this could be yet another marketing ploy from Cherry’s second-place antagonist, Honest Ernest. We haven’t heard from him for a while. Perhaps he and Violet had a falling out after the revelation of their affair. That could be a driving motive for this anonymous note. Or maybe the prelude for another Honest Ernest toxic chemical creation.
Suddenly Cherry reverts to her “trailer trash” heritage (see the first Rivera-era story: Dec-21-20) as her apparent lack of education comes into full display in panel 4. But is she just being impertinent to Violet the Tramp? How else to explain her crudity? Cherry’s grabbing the note and her reaction in panel 3 (“…there’s no way I wrote this”) is the setup for the upcoming put-down.
But Cherry’s sarcasm in panel 4 is undermined by Rivera’s disappointing derisive response in the same panel, which otherwise provides us with no useful insights into the story. That’s my opinion. Do you have a different interpretation?
The Daily Trail 