Okay, the potential AI menace seems to be getting lots of press these days, as it is in the Trailverse. How did this wind up in Mark’s wheelhouse? I mean, Jeb is a journalist, right? It’s his story and his concern. Mark’s story is the bear. But things have gotten all twisted around. Now, the bear(s) has somehow taken on the task of protecting Jeb, instead of just killing him. Maybe the bear is on patrol at this moment. But just how the bear decided (or is even able) to become a bodyguard is not clear. Maybe that is what accounts for the bear’s incursions into the tech retreat.
Mark is clearly not going to run out on Jeb, and I fear that we might see a repeat of the car chase scenes from the Palm Springs adventure, as Mark and Jeb barrel down the hill in Mark’s speedy station wagon, chased by Sid Stump in a BMW M760i xDrive sedan, or equivalent. Gawd, I’m starting to think maybe going after redneck poachers isn’t so bad a storyline, after all. Well, Rivera could jazz it up by proposing professional poaching gangs, rather than backwoods hillbillies, as used to be the norm in this strip.
The Tech Bros sure missed the boat for a money grab with their phony NFT scam a while back. Now, it seems they (and the others) are being groomed to support Sid Stump’s AI scam. I can appreciate the ironic justice. So AI is the new geek toy in town; not that it is actually new, of course. Even I wrote basic AI programs over 30 years ago. But the technology is a lot more advanced; advanced enough to start fleecing suckers and suckering innocent people. Misinformationis going to be the coin of the realm once the election season really gets moving. And I reckon the cash will come in from those who benefit from the chaos and fraudulent voting claims.
In any event, once again (i.e. Cricket Bro in Palm Springs and Cricket Bro in Portland) Mark is in a situation involving computer tech, which has little to do with nature or his regular skill set. It’s like an old LP with a scratch that forces the stylus to catch and keep repeating the same bit of music. Of course, the bear is just a plot diversion, mere window dressing.
This is at least the third story where digital hanky-panky is taking place, and Mark is no computer nerd. Is he just going to hammer Sid Stump into the ground and call it good? I’ll note that Jules Rivera has so far ignored my sage advice about giving Mark a tech-weenie sidekick to at least give stories like this one a semblance of practicality. Since Rivera likes to retread characters, I think Diana Daggers appears to have some qualifications.
It seems Mark’s role here is going to be similar to the one in the Cricket Bro/Palm Springs adventure, where he assisted Aparna (?) to steal back her original app code while he kept staff busy with his mediocre boxing skills. I’d love to be wrong.
I stand corrected and applaud Rivera for adding some additional depth to this story. The issue is not so much the capability of AI as it is the capability of Stump to scam the campers. This could have been a sweet turnabout on the Data Bros. and their attempted scam, except for the fact that they—like the others—apparently have no money and hope to squeeze a spare million out of Stump. It’s quite funny in a way: everybody is secretly there for the same reason.
On the other hand, this explanation seems to contradict Jeb’s original statement that the issue was Sid’s secret plans to fill the world with misinformation. Of course, I think we all know Sid was grossly behind the times on that idea.
However, I’m also not clear on the geological issue expressed. Okay, the cliffs are unstable. So Stump attracted his marks with the challenge to brave dangerous terrain? Cricket Bro and Faux Professor Bee Sharp didn’t sound like they were aware of that challenge when they went over the side. Is Mark signaling for a rescue chopper?
Sorry, Jules, but you let the proverbial bear out of the bag last week. We already know why Jeter is stuck in the woods. That wuss of a reporter apparently doesn’t have the brains or stamina to simply walk out. On the other hand, optimistic Mark thinks that he, himself, is safe, not realizing that fraternizing with “the enemy” will not earn him bonus points with the management.
Meanwhile, the bear hunts for commenter Daniel’s picnic baskets.
Rivera must really like her “image” balloons, as she seems to be using them more often. But do we really need to be reminded of what a bear looks like? It doesn’t look very protective, anyway.
Also, I think today is a wasted “rehash” day. We learned why Jeb has been in the woods in Saturday’s strip, just two days ago. Even an old fart like me can recall things that far back. Something tells me that Tuesday may not get us much farther along with the plot. Just a hunch.
Tune in next time for “Bears are fine once you get used to the smell“, or “Yogi found his new Boo-Boo“
What’s been going on this past week? Mark conducted a nighttime hunt for the lost reporter in the woods alongside the STEM retreat. In a short time, Mark stumbled onto the reporter, one Jebediah Jeter, who popped out of the bushes. Seems Jeter was thrown into the woods by Sid Stump to be killed by a bear (!!) for discovering his secret plan to use AI (Artificial Intelligence, in case you came in late) to take over the world, or something like that. But Jeb and the bear somehow befriended each other. Jeb can’t leave the woods without Sid coming after him. What to do? We’re waiting on Mark’s response, which could appear as early as Monday.
I was a little disappointed in the story development, as I had thought there would be a chance for a more dramatic plot development. Well, maybe it is, a bit. Jeb is yet another weirdo; a bewhiskered reporter dressed more flamboyantly than necessary, running around the woods like Grizzly Adams. Jeb wants Mark (and us) to believe that Sid Stump is willing to kill him to prevent exposing the fact that AI can be used to create destructive amounts of fake information. The notion that other people are not already aware of this fact about AI seems farfetched, even within the Trailverse. Still, it’s a topical item in the news these days, and that’s something. At least Mark isn’t once again trying to expose fraudulent fishing at a bass tournament, so let’s see how this story develops.
I still don’t like Mark’s new beard. It just does not look right. Jules, return the stubble, please!
Hmmm. AI is a timely enough plot device here, but I think, for all of his self-assumed brilliance, Sid is behind the curve. Everybody in the real world knows AI is being used to generate fake news, fake student papers, and fake conspiracies. But, maybe in the Trailverse the inhabitants are still getting used to no longer being stuck in the 1950s. It’s a lot to process in a short time!
As for Jeb’s little plight, bunk! Now that Mark knows, he’s also a marked man. Here’s a suggestion, Jeb: Take the back way out.
Sheesh! Making friends with a brown bear. “Gentle Jeb”, is it? Yeah, I know. GentleBen was the bear in that 1960’s kid’s TV show, but I won’t pass up an obvious reference. I’ll pass on Grizzly Adams. Oh dear, I feel like I’m being pulled to the Dark Snark by forces beyond my control. I’m doing my best to look at this dispassionately. Really, I am.
So, there is an effort here to move the story along by explaining the reporter’s disappearance and the motives behind it. But every panel today is a source of ambiguity: First, has everyone really been looking for this flake? Jeb’s own testimony in panel 3 seems to contradict Mark’s platitude. Second, what truth was Jebediah looking for? Clearly, he was not ready for the truth, and I don’t think that was covered in Mark’s briefing for this assignment. Third, who are the “they”: Sid and some of the guests or Sid and some staff that we haven’t seen yet? Fourth … well, you fill that one in, if you wish.
So it looks like Mark’s assignment just took another left turn, which might wind up reprising the “sneak into the office to get the goods” dodge he pulled while in Palm Springs investigating Cricket Bro’s operation.
Ow! Stabbed in the back again! Rivera tries to get cute by having Mark respond to the narration box in panel 1, as if it actually is his own thought. Actually, that is kind of clever, but not here, not now.
The big stab comes as Rivera pulls the rug out from under her suspenseful buildup and returns to her comfort zone of farce. Farce has its place and I enjoy it, but once in a while I’d like to see some actual drama play out here, without oddball jacks-in-the-box popping up or suffering Rivera’s inexplicable reliance on retreading the same opponents, over and over, like the 1960s Batman TV show and its rotating list of villains. Okay, so Jebediah Jeter is a “new” member of the troupe. Journalist? He looks more like “Jebediah Jeter, Professional Hobo.” And he has to portray another joker familiar with Mark and his work. Small world.
So what the hell has Jeter been doing, wandering around the woods for the past several Trailverse days or more? After all, he went missing before Mark was even called to take on this assignment.
Good, this adventure is turning into a classic mystery. And our shipping tycoon finally floats back to the surface for a moment. Mark conducts his search with a bright flashlight, so I suppose that stealth is not a priority for his investigation. Just as well, since he’s also been talking (or “thinking”) out loud to himself. Rivera has not gone with the traditional thought balloon. As we know, Rivera already relegated the thought balloon to its new role of showing a “reference image” for what is being discussed. While this function has merit, it does mean “thoughts” become another problem to portray in a comic strip. Should a dialog balloon also function as a thought balloon? We are left with this weird vision of Mark talking to himself, a situation sometimes diagnosed as a symptom of a mental illness.
Granted, Rivera needs to reveal additional information for the sake of the story. Maybe, for once, this would have been better handled by using narration boxes rather than dialog balloons. They would not be obtrusive but would help maintain the air of secrecy and silence that a night-time investigation normally requires. And they would make Mark look less weird.
Normally, when characters talk to themselves, the artist uses a thought balloon, not a dialog balloon, as we see here. If this was a 1940s film noir—think Double Indemnity, where Fred MacMurray confesses his participation in a murder told in flashback—Mark would here be reflecting back on how he broke the case of an attacking bear and uncovered a sinister plot. But, this is not a flashback. So who is Mark talking to?
Based on Mark’s research, the obvious next question is Sowhy are these losers here? And how will this trip salvage their crumbling careers? Riffing again on film noir, maybe that narcissistic rich boy who owns the resort invited them here so one person has a chance to gain favor and funding by fulfilling some really difficult task or puzzle. Of course, this type of story usually involves one of the hopefuls getting rid of the competition to better the odds. Can anybody say “booby-trapped cliff”?
Now if this turns out to be the way this story is going to develop, it could be an exciting adventure!
Nothing says “diving deeper” better than climbing a hill!
Okay. Today’s installment makes less sense to me. First, how can Mark be staying late when last we saw, he was home with Cherry? Did I oversleep for a week? Second, who said this was a resort for the rich? It is supposed to be a retreat for STEM professionals. That could mean teachers, too. Third, when and how did Mark check into the financials of the residents? Fourth, Mark’s “faces” balloon in panel 2 fails to display the shipping owner and his assistant, who were present when Mark first showed up. Don’t they count, or did they check out immediately after Mark arrived? Fifth, why is Mark searching through the hills at night if the issue is financial? Does he expect to find a hidden workshop printing counterfeit thousand-dollar bills?
Any answers or explanations, other than Rivera must have been cuckoo or stoned?
I won’t have much to say this week because I have a head cold and I’ve messed up one of my oral discussion projects in my Italian class. Mama mia! Che schifo!
This week should have featured Cherry and her concrete adventure. We got to it, but not until Thursday. The strips for Monday-Wednesday were devoted to Mark and Cherry trying to share an intimate moment sitting out a nighttime storm. Normally, such lovey-dovey events appear after completed adventures. In fact, it originally seemed that Cherry’s concrete driveway story was done and buried under the concrete when Violet Cheshire went ahead with plans to lay a concrete driveway, using the services of Honest Ernest. Of course.
After the nighttime storm, Cherry showed up at the Sunny Soleil Society the next morning with Violet, only to discover pools of water on the floor inside the house. Somehow, water also got onto Violet’s work desk! Is there a leaky roof, too? Well, Violet acted as if she had no idea that there could be bad consequences to a concrete driveway, in spite of Cherry’s earlier warnings. Cherry volunteered to help clean up, issuing an odd warning about the (very remote) possibility of spadefoot tadpoles showing up, presumably to lay eggs in the pools of water. Somehow, this flooding disaster was supposed to have made Violet more sensitive to Nature, the Earth (e.g., Earth Day), and Conservation.
Okay, the Saturday strip was not a lead-in to today’s discussion, as I guessed. Fool me once, shame on me… fool me uh … won’t get fooled again!
So, we have another topical subject, still in the news. Rivera provided another great custom title panel. From what little I read in a Scientific American discussion, rather than one giant blob (or “mat”) of Sargassum, it is more like a lot of separate chunks floating together. That distinction may not matter much when we are dealing with some 5,000 miles of moving seaweed. This might not be the best time to take a vacation to the Southeast, Caribbean, or Gulf coasts. The NY Times reported the seaweed contains arsenic, so it should not be used as fertilizer or in animal feed, as some entrepreneurs are wondering.
Finally, why is Mark’s figure outlined in white in the central panel? Is this some kind of “flashback”? I don’t think so; rather, it was probably done to ensure Mark’s image did not get obscured by the Sargassum background. I don’t think it was necessary, given she didn’t do it with the other images. Perhaps we are looking at an example of digital copy-and-paste.
Why did Cherry back down when Violet questioned her about the driveway? Cherry certainly did not lack backbone when she confronted Violet before the concrete was laid. But, spadefoot tadpoles, Cherry!? Adult spadefoot toads would have to make their way into the house, lay their eggs in the puddles, then move out. And it takes a few days just for the eggs to hatch, so what’s the emergency? They will get mopped up when the floor is cleaned. Maybe Cherry is just trying to put a scare into Violet.
I’m going to go out on a limb and prematurely give Rivera credit for having Violet’s comment in panel 4 set up what I think is a clever segue into Sunday’s nature lesson. We’ll see if that limb I’m on gets cut, sending me down into a puddle of embarrassment.
Yes, dear readers. April 21st is the traditional (modern) date for the mythical founding of Rome. Having noted that, my prediction about how this flooding incident would be characterized by Cherry is hardly inspired. But Cherry was wrong. The storm did not cause the damage. It was the incompetence of Honest Ernest for not properly angling the driveway to funnel water away from the building. I’m betting he didn’t partition the driveway concrete pouring, either. But none of this explains the water on top of Violet’s desk.
Blimey, who knew Violet was British? As for the water, I’m sure we’ll hear something from Cherry about how the concrete driveway must have been involved. No doubt there is a way that sneaky concrete also caused water to form on Violet’s desk.
As an aside, the Sunny Soleil Society is supposed to be supporting the interests of a local HOA, which is how Cherry first got involved with them. So, since Cherry appears to be under contract to the Society, why wouldn’t they have Cherry provide landscaping and gardening services to homeowners served by the HOA, rather than have her work only on the Society’s grounds? Where’s the money in that?!
Anyway, I’d think Rivera could generate more story ideas through the interactions of Cherry, the Society, and various (quirky) homeowners. Got that, Jules? You can’t keep milking the old Society Cow forever. Dodd didn’t make Mark catch the same poachers, over and over.
If this is Rivera’s take on the “vintage” version of Mark Trail with its 1950s social mores, she should stick with the current crazy version of Mark Trail, thank you. Blech!
I have to admit that that is the worst drawing of lightning that I have seen in years. Sorry, Jules.
Um, in panel 1, Cherry’s hands are pressing against Mark’s chest. Doesn’t looks like a willing embrace to me! But it does look like Rivera has been looking at old-fashioned woodcuts. Why do I think this? Well, the composition is unusual, as is the straight-line hatching surrounding Mark and Cherry. We just don’t see that technique in her work.
The example on the left is clearly not the source, but it does show the linear hatched lines and a tightly-framed composition, like the window scene.
Or maybe Rivera was inspired by 19th century Victorian art, as in the example on the right.
Or maybe she has another source. Any ideas, people?
Okay, I’m wandering, but that’s pretty much what’s happening this week in Mark Trail, as Cherry’s Week gets the short shrift with this inane series of bad puns.
Am I the only one who thinks the strip looks a bit different today? Perhaps it’s the somber coloring or maybe the different look to Cherry’s appearance. Perhaps that is just a deliberate choice to set the proper tone for Cherry’s despair, as well as her usual exaggeration. Perhaps Mark and Cherry would both feel better after a nighttime “nature walk”. I think the avian “lovebirds” in panel 1 have already set the stage.
In any event, a welcome return to Cherry’s World. But where does the story go from here? The concrete is down, so there is not much she can do about it. I doubt she is up to sabotaging the fresh pouring by doing something really bad, like walking on it or taking a pickaxe to it. Her isolationist brother might be interested, but wrecking a concrete driveway isn’t the same thing as destroying a flowerbed. Does this mean Cherry’s adventure is over, having hardly begun? That would be fine, as long as she is ready to jump back into something else right away. The way Mark usually does with his assignments.
Another week that wasn’t. Or was it? Aside from a welcome cameo by Ralph the Rat Snake, we saw Mark jump on Rusty for slamming “Professor” Bee Sharp because a) Sharp posted incorrect information Rusty used in a report that made him a laughing stock; and b) Rusty discovered Sharp was not a real professor at all. For his part, Mark shamed Rusty for dissing Sharp because “the Professor” was in the hospital suffering a broken leg. But how was Rusty to know this? Didn’t matter to Mark the Moralist.
Given Mark’s own history with Professor Fraud you’d have thought he would be sympathetic to Rusty, but ‘twas not the case. Instead, Mark was fixated (as we have seen) on Sharp, as if he was a long-lost brother. Mark has been unusually focused on Sharp and his health, to the point of ignoring his own assignment. He didn’t have much to do with Cricket Bro, either. But Mark has started pondering whether there is a nefarious hidden conspiracy underlying the accident as well as the missing reporter. This presages a change to a more dramatic mood. But, can Rivera pull this off without making it a farce?
Warning: At this point, you can keep reading or skip down to the Sunday strip and avoid my rambling analytical musings on Rivera’s art. You’ve been warned! No take-backs.
Comments on Rivera’s drawing came up again, so it’s an opportunity for me to respond: I reallydo share people’s frustration with Rivera’s art. It certainly conflicts with the more naturalistic styles of Dodd, Elrod, and Allen. But honestly, some of their work was crude, mawkish, and just mediocre. We’ve all joked on their overuse of clip-art (cut-and-paste) and hokey stories. Of course, that was part of the charm: That unintended corniness. The traditional Mark Trail style could be cloyingly sentimental, like a petit point embroidery. The old Mark Trail was everybody’s grandfather with silly jokes. As “Mark Trail Confidential” author Mark Carlson-Ghost cataloged, Elrod (and maybe Dodd) even went so far as to recycle older stories. Hey, you want to see great adventure strip art? Look at Alex Raymond, Hal Foster, and John Prentice (Rip Kirby, in the vintage section of Comics Kingdom.). Daily newspapers focus on quantity over quality, so reduced-sized formats can no longer faithfully reproduce their work.
Rivera’s art (and writing) was originally a wake-up call and a bold redo to bring the strip into the 21st century. Bravo for that! But Rivera’s current flat, sketchy style with virtually no modeling and a deliberate disregard for proportion mirrors her sometimes chaotic, weird storylines. I like a bit of parody and weirdness; but I also like variety of mood.
I still believe Rivera’s original visionand style was more appealing, sophisticated, inventive, and fitted the grittier storyline she had. Start back in October 2020 and view those earlier strips. Even the storyline moved between drama, comedy, and social issues. I don’t know why Rivera abandoned all that, unless she didn’t have the time to keep up. Her predecessors had assistants, which certainly made it possible for them to maintain their traditional Mark Trail style.
Okay, a good, informative Sunday strip! Nice try on the title panel. As long-time reader Downpuppy commented earlier this week when he complimented Rivera’s awareness of this recent event: “The reordering of Artiodactyla [is] based on molecular biology.” I do have one nit to pick: In the penultimate panel, Rivera notes that “…new information can shake up established beliefs”, which I think includes a careless term. Neither science nor scientific results are based on beliefs, but on the results of observation, experiment, and testing to arrive at a supportable conclusion based on the evidence. New evidence can cause scientists to revise their conclusions. These are not beliefs, since the concept of belief does not have to be based on research or evidence. It would probably be more accurate to state that new information can shake up established knowledge.
The Daily Trail 