So, I missed something earlier. In the December 28 strip, Rusty greeted two friends, one being named Robbie, who is Rusty’s rival. I thought his name had not yet been mentioned. But maybe I only saw it subconsciously when I came up with a possible Rob Bettancourt-Mark metaphor. Still, I would have made the connection anyway, it was so obvious.
I dunno though, from his exaggerated expression in panel 3, Rusty seems more interested in the girls in the front row applauding him, rather than the general class appreciation. Would that mean Robbie is merely jealous of Rusty’s growing popularity?
Okay, Rivera, it’s getting tedious. For one thing, “see you later Bassigator” makes no sense, since Rusty is trying to find the cryptid, not wish it farewell. Yeah, I know. . . humor.
Mark still plays the Clueless Dad role. Sure, the old Mark Trail was likely clueless, as well. But he never had to worry about it, since the old Rusty was mostly a cardboard cutout.
I have questions: Just where is Mark taking the boys? Do Bassigators have favorite watering holes? And why invite a bunch of Rusty’s friends, when failure could result in great embarrassment to Rusty?
Finally, why did Mark state that they would be backsoon? Doesn’t he think the boys might now realize that this hunt is phony? I sure hope that Rivera’s plot does not have one of Mark’s friends plant a fake Bassigator for them to discover.
“I’m a woodsman.” So what? I think “I’m a sailor” might carry more weight in this situation. Hey, maybe Popeye could make a guest appearance. Anyway, it’s been a week and they still have not left the dock! Furthermore, exclamation points are running riot!
But this is the local river or lake (not sure which), so Mark’s heroic pledge seems as pointless as Cherry’s need to track their movement. Oh, it’s humor. Well, we are at a juncture in the plot. If this were a book, we’d be reading the last page of a chapter where somebody states, “So, what could go wrong?”
As I close out the week and the year, I’ll mention a new comment from long-time reader and sufferer Mark, who admitted that he never figured Rivera would last this long. I’m sure many Trailheads agree. She is now into her third year. I worry that she seems to have listened to somebody, as some of her more recent stories do not have the quirkiness, grit, and craziness of her earlier efforts. So I’m hoping for some significant hyperbolic action in Rusty’s current adventure, as opposed to his earlier cryptid hunt.
This week saw Rusty’s Bassigator hunt become more of a reality with the addition of several friends and the loan of a boat from the De-Bait Team. At least one of Rusty’s friends (still unnamed) turns out to have a personality, even if it is as a rival in the same vein as Mark’s childhood nemesis, Rob Bettancourt. Rusty’s temper (and pride) flared some but remained in check. But for how long? There are bets on who screws up this trip the most, Mark or “Cricket Bro, Jr.”
Surprisingly, Rivera focused on Rusty for most of December, which is a first. Not even Mark gets that much coverage at one time. Rivera’s usual procedure is to split story-time between Mark and Cherry. So, will Rusty continue to hold Rivera’s focus into January, or do we cut over to Cherry, to see if there is any aftermath to the uncovered love affair between Honest Ernest and Violet Cheshire? Got me, but I’m gonna spend some time looking at today’s notes from the natural world.
Regarding the health of the salmon population, local tribes have pushed for the demolition of the dams for 20 years or so. Salmon are important to the local tribes in the areas. Sources state that this is probably the largest dam demolition project in the world. Tens of thousands of area residents also benefited from the electricity produced by the hydroelectric dams, though their performance has suffered from aging and the impact of draughts. What energy source they will get to replace the dams was not specified. Perhaps very large solar farms will be installed.
Also significant is that this Sunday nature chat is not based on the current location of the main storyline in the strip, being Lost Forest. I suppose that is because the location of Lost Forest is never specified.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who surmised that the De-Bait Team would be involved, as I noted during the pre-dawn fishing trip.
It also seems clear that today’s strip was deliberately composed only to set up the punchline about Mark’s reputation for destroying boats, the same way Capt. Kirk destroyed his uniforms. But it doesn’t move the story along.
Moving on to the art, it has been consistently competent in its layouts and figures this week. However, the image of Duke in panel 4 is bizarre. Duke’s face looks like two different drawings (from different views) were stapled together with little regard for continuity, proportion, or skill. For example, the beard does not fit the face, looking like a fake beard glued on (think O Brother Where Art Thou?). Duke’s mouth—at least, I think that is what the white shape is in the center of the beard—is outrageously large, missing teeth and tongue, and just too big for the top half of the head. Rivera also accidentally elongated Duke’s neck, probably to subconsciously match the relationship of the collar to the beard, as we see in panel 2. In fact, the collar should be up and behind the chin of the opened mouth, along with raising the torso.
Yep, looks like Rivera is really milking this rivalry. Is this really the reason for Rusty’s fascination and determination? I dunno, but if so, it seems like it might be an excuse for Mark to intervene and bring up his childhood rivalry story.
Anyway, Rivera again sticks in an overly large text box that is largely irrelevant . . . and also a bit over-stated. There is only one friend who has openly opposed Rusty’s belief.
Well, Mark, you do mean well. Taking you literally, you are giving them permission to start fighting once the boat ride begins, or maybe when it ends. So, what ethic are you pushing, Mark?Not that I disagree, mind you.
As usual, more thoughts run through my brainpan: Rusty exaggerates Mark’s physical actions, especially in the Rivera Age. Perhaps he recollects events from their pre-Rivera existence.
Moving from story to art, that’s a nice composition in panel 1, though I’d move the woodpecker up a tad to not crowd the scene. Also, the textbox is too wordy and also crowds the composition. We don’t need the “before the cryptid river boat hunt” explanation, as it is clear from the image. Rivera sometimes gets carried away with textboxes, using them to describe self-evident current activity.
Cool! Kid rivalry. Gotta love it! And it’s nice to see this Rusty showing some spunk. It’s kind of like a reincarnation of the famous Markey vs. Cricket Bro’—that is, Rob Bettancourt—rivalry. Hey, that kid even has the same first name!
Gotta add that the art has been much better and consistent, if you are hoping for more representational figures, that is. Of course, the figures lack the modeling techniques (e.g. shading, contoured lines, and proportions) that were popular in past incarnations of the strip.
But I wonder if Rivera is making an in-joke, having all the dialog today end with exclamation points, as was standard practice in the past incarnations of Mark Trail! Rivera normally avoids that trope. But if you are still suffering the change to Rivera, and you get the strip in your newspaper, you can pencil in the exclamation points for all the dialog in each day’s strip.
Lost Forest is clearly a small community. Jeanette from Planet Pancakes happens to have a kid who’s a friend of Rusty. As we have already seen, this incarnation of Rusty clearly has a more robust social life. And this father-son adventure has clearly turned into something of a classroom field trip or a boy scout jamboree. I reckon this could make Rusty’s search a lot more fun, so maybe this will be a win-win for Team Trail.
But happy-happy does not an adventure make. Something dangerous or completely crazy is bound to happen. Given the fact that this strip tends towards the outrageous rather than the gruesome, I’m going to go with crazy.
Monday’s Mark Trail blog can be found below, but this is an “extra”! As we just saw in the Texas tiger zoo story (category: Puff Piece Zoo), Mark had to deal with Gemma, the “rampaging” elephant who tromped her way across four states to seek revenge against Tess Tigress for a past bad deed.
In addition to the popular reputation for an elephant’s memory (no, not John Lennon’s backing band), we now have evidence that even bears can find their way home!
Rusty looks even more naturalistic than he often does, whereas Mark looks more cartoony than usual, especially in panel 3. At least most of the family is together (once again, Doc Davis is left out).
I’m not sure where they are right now. They seem to be standing on some kind of inclined wooden platform, with some undefinable structures behind them. Must be a lake or river behind Rusty. Maybe they are going to rent a boat, as Rivera implies in panel 1. Whatever, I’m hoping for some actual excitement here, even crazy stuff. Even an environmental hazard or a cryptid.
Well, Ho! Ho! Ho! Mark continued to court Rusty’s favor by sucking up to him, while at the same time deriding Rusty’s ongoing fascination with cryptids. But Rusty really wants to hunt down the Bassigator and Mark finally agreed to the hunt.
Is Jules Rivera trying to build more nuance in Mark, or just pile on more contradictions that reveal him to be a typically clueless dad trying to stay relevant in his son’s life? As every parent knows, a child’s belief in imaginary beings can seem cute, but it is hard to strip away that belief without looking like a hypocrite or liar to your child.
Anyway, let’s hope that Mark gets through this adventure without making Rusty even more jaded. Next thing you know, Mark will tell Rusty that Santa is just a marketing gimmick to sell toys.
Rivera brings up a timely issue that has a lot of bark on it. I thought that Christmas Tree farms were a good alternative to cutting down trees in the wild. But are pesticides truly as rampant as she suggests? They almost certainly are used in virtually all commercial tree farms, but there seems to be an ongoing trend to minimize their usage, relying more on a process called integrated pest management (IPM). And tree farms are essentially managed forests. These are some points that Rivera could have brought up to provide more balanced reporting. Here are some links that explore these issues:
Mixed signals from Mark. Poor Rusty, once again treated like a ki . . . oh well, Mark is not exactly building up his kid cred with his attitude and platitudes. Even Rivera, based on her caption boxes, is not exactly pulling for the red-headed kid. We’ll have to wait and see how Mark follows through on this. But maybe (to his own relief), he’ll get “The Call” that will send him off on another assignment.
Still, if Mark thinks snakes (e.g., Ralph the rat snake) and other animals can converse with him, why should he not believe in a Bassigator? Come to think of it, Mark just might get earn some respect from Rusty if he fessed up about Ralph.
Amazing, isn’t it? Mark asks what a Bassigator is, while forming the exact same image in his head that Rusty did, yesterday. Is he deliberately playing Rusty?
And could Mark act any more condescending? In panel 2 Rusty declares he wants to prove the Bassigator is real, only to have Mark in panel 3 first claim he understands (“I see.”), then ask if Rusty wants to prove whether the Bassigator is real. Duh! Perhaps Rivera just made a mistake, since she could have left out Mark’s second sentence and stuck with the first and third statements in panel 3. Leaving it in fortifies the impression that Mark is patronizing Rusty.
How did Mark miss Rusty’s interest in cryptids, or even his attempts to find one in Oregon? Oh, maybe it was because Mark was focused on his current project at the time, and nothing comes between Mark and his Calvins . . . er, project. But, better late than never. Right, Mark?
Will Mark attempt to patronize Rusty in hopes of getting some brownie points? He certainly looks like he’s trying too hard. I suspect we are seeing some of Rivera’s social politics leaking through the newsprint.
Is this going to be an actual adventure or merely an extended sidebar that will get thrust aside with a phone call or email? I’ve rolled the dice on it being a real story, and it might be if Mark gets involved in Rusty’s quest. But if he doesn’t, the story will likely be a part-time filler, as we saw in the Oregon Trails story, and that’s a shame. It would cool if they both go on Rusty’s adventure and something bigger and more dangerous or criminal surfaces instead.
Well, okay then! Maybe we’re going to get the sequel to the Seaside Spector hunt and see Rusty get another shot at adventure stardom. It’s a bit early to say, but we can hope. Not surprising, the “Bassigator” is a known cryptid figure of the Real World, so to speak. Its nickname is “Buford”. There is even a tourist attraction of a constructed Bassigator in the Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs, LA, assuming it survives the really bad weather.
But why would Mark be gob smacked about Rusty’s cryptid kick? After all, he was already exposed to it during the Oregon pseudo-vacation trip.
(I managed to drive to Virginia from Minnesota last week, always one day ahead of the storms sweeping across the country. It’s a bit chilly and sometimes rainy, but nothing like the mess back in Minnesnowda.)
This is painful to see; not because the art is bad, or the writing is poor. But watching Mark trying to be Rusty’s friendly dad is not easy. And what is also curious is why Rusty and Mark are raking leaves when they live in a log cabin in the woods. Environmentally conscious Mark would not support a yard made up of Kentucky Bluegrass, would he?
Still, I shouldn’t kick too much as I’ve generally applauded Rivera for delving further into Mark’s family than her predecessors normally did and giving them more face time, so to speak. But I’d much rather see Rusty become the star of his own story, more than he was with the seaside cryptid in Oregon, an adventure that failed to gain real traction. James Allen did a good turn with Rusty down in Mexico a few years back, so I hope Rivera will try again.
So, we have learned over time that Rivera likes to put Mark into situations that are not his usual go-to projects. This makes him sometimes look incompetent, blustering, or just plain clueless. In some ways, I think it is a good idea, as it can stretch Mark’s story options. But it can also just make Mark look like a sap, rather than a successful journalist and environmental avenger. Here, Mark continues to play out-of-touch dad. Mark tries to rebuild his relationship with Rusty, while overplaying his hand.
At first, I thought this Rusty-and-Mark situation was just going to be another comedic interlude. Maybe, but we are now into the third week, so I think it qualifies as at least a mini adventure on its own.
As we sometimes experience—and from observations of others—it can be hard to weigh anchor and sail on from a favorite, comfortable port in our mental stream of memories. But streams are not pools, and they never stay the same. All this is to say that this week saw Mark getting gently led out of his illusory notions of Rusty’s wants and expectations by Cherry. We’re still not convinced that Mark got the whole message, but he did grasp the fact that Rusty is no longer the pre-adolescent father-worshiping kid he knew. There is a point in a father’s life when he realizes his children no longer feel the need to rush to the door when he comes home from work (think The Dick Van Dyke show). However, Mark seems to be taking it rather well, in fact. Good on him. (This is not to say that mothers do not have similar experiences, as I’m sure they do; but we are talking about Mark, not Cherry.) While you reflect on your own experiences, take a break and reflect on the Sunday nature chat, below.
Another good Sunday title panel!
“Well, class, let’s thank Mr. Mark Trail visiting with us to give this most educational and . . . uh, most entertaining . . . well, let’s all thank Mr. Trail for coming in and showing us a bunch of pretty pictures of moose and deer . . . What’s that, Kathy? No, Santa does not use moose to pull his sled. That’s Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’s job. Have any of you ever watched “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”? No? Well, I’m not surprised, given the generally unimaginative, homogenized, and boring dreck that passes for animated cartoons these days. Anyway, class, let’s pick up from where Mr. Trail’s talk left off . . . now, Ahmed, “Nowhere” is not a nice thing to say! So, your homework tonight, children, is to research moose and write a page on where moose live, what they eat, and how they interact with humans.
This sitcom-ish morality play gives the impression that it is ending on a typically corny bit of self-parody. However, I don’t recall much in the way of heroic action on Mark’s part, lately.
If this was a sitcom, it would cut to commercials, then return for a brief epilog, perhaps Rusty and Mark exiting the theater together, as Rusty tells Mark what a great time he had going to the movies. Or Mark would be chatting up the actions of the superhero, whereupon Rusty would say something really treacly and overly sentimental about Mark. Mark would then ask Rusty if he wants to stop at the ice cream parlor for a cone of Rocky Road…wait. That’s Ozzy Nelson’s trademark.
I’m guessing readers will get the reference here, since I’m not convinced that the younger set is thronging to this updated comic strip. Has anybody seen any stats on readership?
The Daily Trail 