As the Trails hike along a path that looks more like a tree limb, they continue their cutesy double-entendres in order to fill out the week. Hmmm, I don’t think we need to take Mark’s final comment seriously, as it is clearly the expected punchline to Cherry’s provocative come-on. And heaven help me, folks, I’m doing my best to avoid indulging in similar innuendos. It’s hard enough to get some basic commentary put together. And I’m not sure if what I write always measures up.
Not much else here. Artwork is fine, though a bit heavy on the lines, I think. It is always difficult to comment on color, since I don’t know if Jules does her own or it’s left to the syndicate. Since hardcopy newspaper sales keep falling, they turn to online editions. Their comics section is essentially links to the comic syndicates web sites, so online comics are in color. So, I’m thinking the work is Rivera’s. I think it is an important point: No cartoonist would want to leave such decisions in the hands of somebody outside of the cartoonist’s studio. And one thing I notice is that the trees along the road behind Mark and Cherry blend right in with the dark green background. Normally, she would make that front row of trees lighter.
There hasn’t been much room for landscape in this last story, and even Cherry’s adventure was limited in background details. But, if you look at the panels of Mark and Rusty back in March, just before he went to LA, I think could see how Rivera’s approach seemed different today. I might be overdrawing a distinction here, and this is just a singular occurrence.
Otherwise, we can check off the box for “Do the Trails really love each other?” and move on to something else. Like maybe that Doc has a drinking problem because he has nothing to do (so far) and gets tired of sitting around waiting for his token appearance and gloomy utterance.
Okay, what’s going on here? If Cherry restocked the roundabout, why would she put in any kind of invasive plant when she could have replanted what she originally used? My superficial research lists this plant as invasive and banned only in South Africa, though it is not recommended in our western states, where it can grow aggressively. It seems that its benefits outweigh its detriments in the US.
Anyhow, more light-hearted banter today, serving either as time fodder to pad out the week or as a means to help establish more of Cherry and Mark’s relationship. But I think we already have a good handle on that, don’t you? I’d prefer to see Rivera spend more time fleshing out Doc Davis’s character a bit more, even Andy’s. Maybe Mark’s snake avatar could make another appearance and warn him of an impending crisis, such as teenage girls already moving past Mark Trail and his videos. The newest sensation turns out to be…Professor Bee Sharp!
There has been some snarky chat over at Comics Kingdom about possible sexual undertones in the first and third panels. Anything is possible, of course, but I think the hand positions are wrong to support this hypothesis, however suggestively the flowers are drawn.
You know, I just had an odd thought: Had Rivera taken over the strip some 15 years ago (assuming she was old enough, so just play along, okay?), and somebody thought her take on Mark would make a good TV show, they could have gotten Bruce Campbell to play Mark. Campbell has the kind of personality and acting chops necessary for our new Mark Trail. But Bruce no longer looks like a perennial 32 year old. What a lost opportunity, unless some studio is willing to put out a senior-citizen version of Mark Trail on TV or the cinema. Kind of a “Mark Trail Returns!” type of movie. Well, it worked for Bruce Wayne!
Okay, more cute wordplay and flirting. Well, this helps answer a question some Trailheads had with whether Cherry’s story ever had a proper ending. I think it did, within the conventions of how Mark Trail adventures often end. But here we see, fully grown, a recreation of what must have been Cherry’s original design. And is “Roundabout Royale” the location’s actual name or just Mark’s self-coined appellation? So, it looks nice enough for a roundabout that doesn’t seem to be part of any road system. We also get to see another side of the roundabout, with two houses in the distance. I’m guessing that Planet Pancake must be behind Mark and Cherry? I may just be a slow kid from Virginia, but I also wonder how Mark found out about the hogs? Did Dirk call Mark? That seems odd, given Dirk’s anti-social habits. And why blab to Mark, anyway? Did Dirk want to ensure Mark knew that Cherry could not succeed on her own?
Geography aside, I reckon we’ll have a few days more of Mark & Cherry cavorting around before a new story begins. Perhaps ol’ Doc will make a brief appearance, pretty much as he used to. As for Rusty, since he clearly is no longer a clueless dweeb, perhaps we will find him looking to hook up with the daughter of a local land baron who wants to create an exclusive hunt club providing exotic animals for wealthy members. And thus, we would segue into a real Mark Trail crusade. But I reckon we’ll have to wait for the inevitable Zoom chat later this week. I’m still hoping it will be somebody other than Amy Lee. She’s sent Mark on two assignments; now it’s another editor’s turn.
You know, I’m surprised that Jules Rivera did not turn Bill Ellis into a lowly Messenger Boy (i.e. toady) for this mega-magazine empire, where Bill must personally contact Mark to hand over material for his next assignment. The actual editor-in-charge would still contact Mark to provide additional insights. Say, doesn’t this sound like the usual first act of almost every episode of “Charlie’s Angels”?
Let’s not take a cynic’s view but simply take some time to enjoy two people in love with each other, enjoying an early walk among the trees, surrounded by a “Hallmark Card” heart-shaped opening, flanked by two Monarch butterflies (they do not have the tell-tale horizontal line crossing the rear wing of Viceroys. We should assume Rivera knows that). Okay, that’s enough time! Is that a double-entendre in the middle panel or just a corny pun? But why does Cherry need convincing to take a morning walk? Is she sacrificing her morning fix at Planet Pancake? Something is bound to happen pretty soon…!
But looky-there! We have yet another case of the ambiguous text balloon, this time in panel 3, where Mark is apparently sighing over himself. Clearly this was supposed to be Cherry’s response. I think I just talked about these misdirected balloons yesterday, didn’t I? Is this really a flub that got by Rivera and the syndicate editors, or is Rivera still indulging in satirizing the older strips of her predecessors? A little bit goes a long way, Jules!
I do hope that Rivera does not continue the old Mark Trail tradition of ending story lines without filling in useful details. For example: Did Cherry (who was fretting over her company’s bankruptcy) pay for the new roundabout installation? And what went into it? Did the Sunny Soleil Society officially get off her back and allow her to replant the native palmettos they hauled away?
But it’s nice to see Rivera’s return to a higher standard in her art. She is quite good. I took a look back and was amazed at how her style has already evolved since she took over last October (I believe it was then). Here is one of her early strips from late October:
It shows a definitely lighter touch in the drawing, shading, and color (assuming Rivera has control over the coloring of the dailies, that is). The overlapping tree lines create a simple but effective sense of space in the small-sized panels Rivera has to work with. The middle panel here is a subtle example of Rivera’s early interest in more unusual points of view and compositions, something that has not always been a strong feature in her more recent work. Again, I’m guessing time constraints and deadlines are forcing shortcuts, which is too bad. But that’s how it’s always been for cartoonists, even back in the early decades. But I’d sure like to see more.
Well, that was the week that was; or was it?! A six-strip installment of Mark and the Herp Hacienda Crowd slapping each other on the back with congratulations at getting away with their arguably illegal and unethical escapade. Mark was invited into the building, as Amy Lee reminded Cricket Bro, ignoring the clearly dishonest actions of his accomplices. Well, Cricket Bro seemed stymied by this technicality, but should we? I’ve already argued my position more than once on this topic, a dodgy and slippery slope that Mark has been willing to slide down more than once. Not that Cherry’s actions have been without questionable tactics, either. Given the deliberately quirky characters and setting, we could see this story line more as a “fantasy/comedy” than a traditional drama. But there is little evidence that Rivera had this in mind, as far as I can see. Parody? Yeah, sure. Satire, almost certainly.
It may be that we are also seeing (overall) a less-filtered, more “realistic” view of Mark Trail, compared with the “Aw shucks” romanticized version we’ve been spoon-fed these many decades. It’s like the difference between William Boyd’s white-bread, polite “Hopalong Cassidy” character of the movies and early TV, compared to the original Hopalong Cassidy character in the books written by Clarence Mulford. That “Hoppy” was often an impulsive, cigarette-smoking, devil-may-care cowhand, quick to judge, quick to shoot, but loyal to his friends, and honest; and free with his cussing. Yet, that Hoppy was also one of the “good guys”, not a trigger-happy sociopath. So the latter character is infinitely more interesting than the sanitized “shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand” version William Boyd created. So, Rivera clearly has done the same thing in reverse: Her Mark Trail is not the invulnerable, self-confident, fists-of-justice nature warrior of yore. Mark now displays a more complex, textured personality (to adapt a term of literary criticism), beset by doubt, demons, and reckless behavior; but also backed up with a strong personal code of honor and justice. Sort of. Mark is the kind of “hero-not-a-hero” common in contemporary literature and movies.
Moving on to today’s nature topic, the title panel is a subtle one where Mark’s last name is camouflaged. Do you see it? Rivera’s Sunday panels (as here) are usually well-drawn, in part, because of the larger size Rivera gets to work with, and friendly in their delivery. And Rivera’s title panels are almost always inventive. Now, what’s with that crazy vest Mark is wearing!? He looks like a model for LL Bean! I like the humor of using a mirror in the prior panel as a visual pun for Mark’s age comment. But the reflection doesn’t look anything like Mark; more like Daddy Warbucks, in fact!
As any faithful reader will know, Rivera selects her Sunday subjects based on the main location where Mark happens to be working; in this case, California. And last week was butterflies, which links to Cherry’s storyline. I think that is a clever approach. Unfortunately, I do not have a backlog of Sunday strips from previous years to draw on, so I do not recall if this was something that Elrod, Dodd, or Allen also did. Does anybody know?
Anyway, there is one thing I wish Rivera would expand: Subject matter. For the most part, it seems that the Sunday strip always focuses on animals. All well and good, but Mark’s universe is supposedly all of nature, so how about devoting some ink and color to the flora and geology? Maybe even branch out to themes, such as what can happen when people build/encroach on beach fronts, hills, or dense forests. That could even make the basis for some interesting story lines for Mark. How about it, Jules?
Okay, we must allow Jules to have her joke. Where is it? It is the 4th panel, where everybody is having some kind of vocal group hug and the speech balloon points to Mark, though the text seems to be something the other four would be telling Mark! Trailheads sometimes speak of older strips where dialog balloons on occasion seem to point to the wrong person, or thing. I admit that I was too lazy and tired to look through the backlog of strips, so feel free to add some footnotes in a response. In any event, it seems odd that Mark would be welcoming himself to Herp Hacienda, unless this is meant to be some kind of campy commercial where Mark and crew are actually welcoming usreaders to come back. Well, thanks anyway.
Like so many other stories, this one ends with a trunkful of dead-ends and unexplained subplots. We all know what they are, so I won’t waste my time or yours going over them, yet again. Just scroll back through these blogs, if you have the desire and patience. As for patience, I can’t say I won’t be glad to be shut of those four Herp Hacienda Hippies. But it would have been nice to at least find out what and who the two creepiest characters were. And why the hell they keep lining up, as if they are suspects in a police lineup?
I think many of us will agree that this is not the strongest ending to a Mark Trail story, though it is not much worse, either. Aside from the dodgy animal air check app, this story seemed to be a series of unresolved, random vignettes. I’ve never been a professional comic strip artist, but I’ve played one in my head, and I know that there can be tremendous pressure to put out a 7-day comic strip. In fact, have we not seen other cartoonists these days going on hiatus every so often, content to rerun older strips in order to get away from the pressure? Or, perhaps to catch up? And perhaps Rivera deliberately constructed this story in a way that would mimic or rip some Mark Trail story memes sure to raise the blood pressure of Trailheads. Or, maybe Rivera is just ripping the old-fashioned notion that a MarkTrail story should follow conventional norms.
MOVING FORWARD:
Well, my biggest request here is that Mark gets a chance to do a story for one of the other 7 or so magazines that make up part of the holding company that Woods & Wildlife get rolled into. Let’s see how Mark gets along with a different magazine editor for a bit. And let’s get some more conversations with snakes! Too bad he didn’t try to talk with any snakes at the Hacienda. A missed opportunity, if ever there was one.
Readers who are coming to Mark Trail without a lot of knowledge of the strip’s history could do worse than read the Mark Trail Confidential page of Mark Carlson-Ghost. It is an in-depth review of the strip, its characters, artists, and a lot more. You’ll learn, for example, that Woods & Wildlife magazine had been bought out at least twice before; that recycling old stories and subbing difference characters was a common practice; that under James Allen’s tenure, Mark starting showing a more sculpted physique, Cherry became sexier looking. Mark started getting clumsy and not always winning fights, in spite of his ripped abs. And he was destroying boats as if they were enemy invaders! Carlson-Ghost also has created a yearly summary of major stories and characters, which is linked on the Confidential page. I might have written on this before, but I think it bears repeating.
There appears to be a total lack of reprinting Mark Trail strips. For some twenty years or so we have been seeing (and buying) sometimes lavish reprints of entire runs of vintage comic strips (Peanuts, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, etc.). But where are the reprints of Mark Trail? I reckon that King Features does not believe there is enough public interest; or maybe much of the older art is no longer available or in good shape. Instead, they have recently started just posting old strips online.
Okay, looks like Amy Lee knows a lot of what went on, but still backs up Mark after getting tired of Cricket Bro’s immature and arrogant manner. I reckon spoiled billionaires are getting to be pretty common these days. Today’s panels were apparently designed to showcase the many faces and emotions of Amy Lee. Now, where is Amy getting these photos from? Mark certainly wasn’t on assignment with his camera. But I wonder if Amy is now going to want a story based on Mark’s adventures in Loony Tunes Land? That would be quite the assignment for Mark, trying to figure out a way to describe the events without criminally implicating himself or his “new friends”.
And this is Friday, folks! There is one more day to see if Mark suddenly transports back to Lost Forest to signal the end of this story, or we buckle down to view another week of Mark sorting things out in California. According to the Mark Trail Confidential page, Mark has been fired more than once in his career. I wonder if he once again gets a pink slip, getting Cherry upset and worried about their finances, since her business also looks like it is in bad shape. Just like old times!
I certainly don’t want to turn this podcast into a one-dimensional snarkfest, which is not only unfair, but unoriginal and boring. Besides there are other sites that handle that well enough! Nevertheless, this storyline is really pushing my buttons.
Panel 1: Mark’s face looks like he’s a daydreaming teen fantasizing and drooling over some Internet babe.
Panel 2: Mark’s head morphed into some kind of pushed-in face, with the wings of Mercury above his ears. Of course, those are his standard “older man” hair lines, but appearing as if they have their own independent identity. And making me wonder if Rivera has been watching reruns of the original “Twilight Zone”, the four Herp Hacienda Oddballs are once again pointlessly lined up against the fence, as if to ensure we haven’t forgotten them from yesterday’s strip. And to date, no explanation for the two goofiest characters on the extreme left and right. I’d certainly keep my kids away from them. Also troubling is that Mark has, for some reason, bonded with these nerds! After all of his discomfort, ineptness, and questionable activities, you’d think he would be satisfied to never come back.
Panels 3 and 4: Amy Lee brings up Cricket Bro, who has been spilling the beans to her about Mark and his new friends. Well, I suppose he might have discovered the connection with Amy Lee, based on Mark’s prior story she published about his family’s business. Nevertheless, she is definitely not looking like the hip, coffee mug-holding, exuberantly mouth-wide-open editor we’re used to seeing. No, indeed! She is clearly upset with what she’s heard. And it appears Mark is trying to downplay his guilt and embarrassment at being caught out once again. I’m betting he wished his gray hair lines really were the wings of Mercury at this point.
Well, Mark. What did you expect!? You got involved in something you had no knowledge of, something completely outside of your wheelhouse. You let personal fears of inadequacy lead you astray and got you to help complete strangers commit likely illegal acts. You never came across any of your traditional crime-busting situations, such as poachers, drug runners, abductions, animal or insect cruelty, or missing pets. You never really came across any criminal activity at all, except for what you participated in. You did not even get a chance to fully bring out your vaunted Fists O’ Justice™. And now, you actually want to come back to hang out with your new friends?! Worst of all, you didn’t get photographs of anything! Amy won’t like that!
Well, if the mission of Jules Rivera is to totally make a mockery of Mark the Pro-Nature Hero and his paternalistic value system, I think she’s done a bang-up job so far. But Mark seems too wrapped up in his sense of self to be too bothered by this. Always the optimist?
One of the pundits on the Comics Kingdom site proposed that the result of Cricket Bro’s phone call was that he buys up Amy’s magazine and gets his revenge by firing Mark. Plausible. I wish I had thought of that. I think none of this nonsense would have happened had Mark taken the time to talk with his snake friend back at Lost Forest, before he flew out here. But as Gregory Peck told David Niven in “The Guns of Navarone”, “You’re in it now, up to your neck!”
So, Mark’s last night on assignment? Looks like Amy Lee once again called “right on time”, at the wrap of Mark’s adventure (so we must assume). Apparently, Mark has gotten into Cosplay fun at the Herp Hacienda and is wearing a “Walking Dead” mask in panel 1. Or maybe it’s feral hog.
Hard not to notice that Amy Lee’s depiction in panel 3 is quite decently drawn in comparison with Mark’s two images. It’s not as if Rivera could not have drawn a half-length image of Mark in panel 1 instead of that sketchy and flat scene with the too-small figures. Perhaps this is one reason (other than laziness) that former Trail cartoonists liked to use head shots of Mark to fill panels as much as possible.
So, this is Day 3 of the Epilogue, tying up several loose ends. Critics less charitable than I might call this a week of padding the ending to accommodate the entire week, as if Rivera is getting paid by the word, like some 19th century writer. But do we deserve perfect closure? Do we always find out what happened to that person at the Motor Vehicles Office who rejected your vanity plate slogan? Do we know the fate of that lover we abandoned because she needs to read Tarot cards to decide what to wear for the day? What will those weirdos do after Mark leaves? Do we even care?
Life is full of dead-ends, unexplained absences, and detours. People come and go, many not even speaking of Michelangelo. Life is messy, but stories are expected to make sense and have a clear Beginning-Active Middle-Meaningful End. Yes, stories need to have Endings. You can’t just pull the plug on a story and cut to a scene of Mark leaning against a porch rail as Cherry extols his manliness and professes her undying love and devotion. Rivera seems to be bucking the standard Trail Story ending technique and I’m down with that.
But the biggest black holes are still the so-called antagonists. Where are they? What are they doing? Why did they bother with this entire farce? The entire story still seems like a con. What was the point? How is it that Mark’s childhood nemesis just happened to be the Sugar Daddy for Reptile Man and the Herp Hacienda crowd?
Well, dear readers, looks like Rivera is content to continue this adventure by wrapping up some loose ends. While we might grimace at the less than stellar art that has lately been showing up in this strip, we can revel in the Herp Posse’s self-congratulatory post-game analysis as they awkwardly stand around. The “supporting cast” of Herp Hacienda Oddballs, having fulfilled their pointless and thankless task of being present at the celebration, have once again been relegated to that “Mark Trail Phantom Zone” of isolation previously inhabited by Mark’s family and other characters who might have had something more to offer, but were mysteriously sidelined (e.g. Dirty Dyer).
Reptile Man seems content with things, overlooking the fact that Cricket Bro has been bankrolling him. For that matter, I believe Cricket Bro has also been funding Herp Hacienda. Nobody seems to care about the consequences. Mark’s phone ringer underscores his obvious old-school sensitivity, while he tries to sound like a modern, sensitive hipster. As George Harrison once sang “It’s all too much…”
Well now, to get to the main point: Who is calling Mark? All kinds of interesting plot possibilities come to mind:
Cricket Bro, who still wants to settle scores but may be content to simply offer more lame insults
Professor Bee Sharp, who may want a rematch or at least force this crowd to detail his car
Diana Dagger, who would like to introduce her foot to Mark’s gonads
Cherry, who is brimming with sisterly love, having made up with Violet and forgotten that her company may now be bankrupt
Amy Lee of “Teen Girl Sparkle”, who confesses that, yeah, she knew beforehand about Cricket Bro’s involvement and his past relationship with Mark, just like Mark was set up in his prior assignment!
Bill Ellis of “Woods and Wildlife”, calling to see if Mark can get him out of the Phantom Zone and back into the strip
The insurance company, calling to cancel Mark’s coverage, based on viewing the security video footage posted by Cricket Bro
The Florida State Patrol, requesting he voluntarily return to the state for questioning
So many possibilities, indeed! Now, which one do you think it could be? Or do you have a different idea?
Thanks again to Dennis for stepping back onto the Mark Trail Soapbox to wrap up the presumed ending of Cherry Trail’s latest storyline. I was away for the weekend attending (not participating in) a wedding. It was so hot and humid that the responsible people decided to hold the ceremony inside. Unfortunately, my wife and I got accidentally stuck sitting at a table in front of the giant air conditioning units. No criticism of the families; it’s just how things worked out. But, it was a pretty nice wedding, all the same. Glad we could make it, too.
Speaking of working things out, what do we have here? Ladies and Gentlemen—and those claiming no allegiance to those categories—are we looking at the further emasculation of Mark Trail? Once again, we have a typical Mark TrailSegque, jumping from hiding out in an all-night farmers’ market to standing in a lineup, er, cluster of weirdos at the Herp Hacienda (BTW, we never did learn why these people are dressed as if they just got back from some costume party or Cosplay convention). Aparna notes this is a couple days after the theft, meaning we have no idea what took place in the interim, or why they are only having their celebration now. Furthermore, where are the ersatz villains? They know where the Herp Hacienda is, after all.
Aparna continues her tunneled focus on how popular her uploaded app is. Mark looks sheepish over his narrow escape from the possibilities of: a) having to fight Diana Daggers; b) getting arrested for theft and fraud; and c) having to face Cricket Bro and admit that he has no #(@)! idea why he took part in this ridiculous invasion, much less fly to California to appear in some still unknown and possibly bogus video shoot. And to really build up his fan base, Mark confesses that the online forums of “Woods and Wildlife” magazine make him have to sit down and fan himself to avoid getting the vapors. “Steady on, Mark! You were the perfect patsy. Now you have even more people who hate you!” And what is he going to tell Rusty when he returns with no autograph of Professor Bee? Should make for an interesting homecoming.
Hey, at least Jules Rivera is catching on to the standard trick for ending Mark Trail stories: Ignore details and just cut to the reunion (or home) shot. After this, we’ll likely see Mark back home, with a soon-to-be-disappointed Rusty.
On another topic, I, too, have noticed a simplification in the daily strips over time. The extreme flatness and lack of volume in figures and surroundings stands out to me. So do the somewhat clumsy compositions in a few panels, above, especially compared with many of Rivera’s earlier panels. Not that all is lost: The second panel is actually nicely composed. Still, the overall figures look cramped; and that right arm of Mark in panel 1 is painful to look at! I know some critics on other sites have mused whether Rivera is using a ghost-artist now and then to help explain these artistic variations. It seems early in the game for Rivera to do that, and I don’t believe she has any history of using such people.
Still, this can’t be the end of the story, can it!? It’s just Monday! Perhaps this just a red herring Jules is throwing at us. We have five more days of the week to fill. Maybe Rivera will just teleport Mark back to Lost Forest for the rest of the week, where everybody can trade anecdotes of their adventures. Except for Rusty, who still doesn’t have much of a comic strip life. He needs his own version of the Mexican vacation!
Welcome, Readers! I will be out of town this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Until I return, the Scarecrow—by virtue of his highly superior…er, that is, Dennis—by virtue of his starting this blog, shall post in my stead. Be sure to take notes, Readers, as there may be a quiz after I return. But until then, on with the show!
Oopsie! Cherry thought she was being clever with her sneaky plan to get her plantings redone, but put her cloven hoof in her mouth, instead. Surely, Cherry will be quick to come up with a believable response to her gaff, such as “A friend of mine saw the hogs attacking the roundabout when she was driving home from the movies. She slowed down but was too afraid to stop.” Or something like that.
Still, it sure looks like Violet Cheshire came out of her funk pretty quickly, don’t you think? Could she have been setting a trap for Cherry, all along? It is certainly hard to imagine that she would not consider Cherry as Prime Suspect Number 1. It is beginning to look like another mental chess game where Violet is playing the black pieces and has lulled Cherry into advancing too far, too quickly.
Still, what if Violet had not been sitting for days at Planet Pancake? What was Cherry’s Plan A? Clearly, this situation was a spur-of-the-moment opportunity (at least from Cherry’s point of view). But if this entire sequence was a trap, Cherry may soon be wishing she was somewhere else. At the very least, it would help make sense of what is going on.
Did I miss a week of strips some place? Cherry really wants to cheer up her arch-nemesis?! And here is Violet, unloading on Cherry like the two of them are BFFs from the time when “BFF” was a new expression. So, Violet peremptorily destroyed Cherry’s original installation, then put in her own. Then Cherry secretly destroyed it. Now, Violet is bawling to Cherry as if she has forgotten all of this history between them.
I sure as hell do not understand what is going on here, folks. Call me unenlightened, a nincompoop, a total blockhead. Just don’t call me early. Well, the least Cherry could do here is give Violet a big slap upside the head and tell her to get a grip. Maybe two slaps, just to make sure.
Violet is suddenly stuck on how to repair the roundabout garden when all she has to do is prep the ground and replant the same stuff she did the last time. I expect that we are supposed to see this as a premise for the upcoming kowtowing of Violet Cheshire, in which she pleads with Cherry to fix the roundabout and save her job. I hope Cherry remembers to first get an approved contract for payment!
But getting back to the bigger question: While we stare in shock and disgust at the Picasso-inspired, pancake-stuffed face of Violet in the fourth panel, we might ask: “What would Mark do!?” But that is clearly the wrong question. This is Cherry’s story, not Mark’s. And given his own current inability to deal with crises, we’re better off waiting to see how Cherry saves the day and her business. Mark may want to take notes.
Okay, so we know now that this is not “the next day”, but a few days after. What’s been going until now is yet unknown. For example, Cherry does not seem bothered by her still unresolved problems with the Sunny Soleil Society. It’s as if Dirk’s hogs consumed all of her anger. But it isn’t bringing back her plantings or saving her company.
As for Violet, her face looks stuffed with pancakes (or attacked by a swarm of angry wasps) and she certainly looks like someone who has been on a bender for a long time. She definitely does not match up with her original arrogant presence. I think she might be in a better mood if she had some bacon to go along with those pancakes; and maybe some syrup or fruit, as well. I know that I would certainly be pretty glum eating pancakes with no topping. In fact, I’d skip them in that case.
Now, is Violet wearing that hat or not!? Yesterday, it looked like it was draped over the booth; panel 1 today shows it on, panel 2 is ambiguous, and panel 4 shows it on again. I must be standing in the wrong position, I reckon.
So why is Cherry concerned about the state of her current nemesis? You’d think she would be happy to see Violet in such a disreputable state. And what, exactly, is Violet’s problem? That is, why is she taking this personally? According to her original profile, she should be angry and scheming, preparing her response to the only obvious suspect. Instead, she seems to be turning into a weepy, pathetic pancake junky. I suppose, as another critic suggested, this may turn out to be a device to draw Cherry in and make her feel sorry for Violet. Is this, indeed, a clever trap set by Violet or has she really gone over the edge? Will Cherry catch the scam in time or will she bond with Violet and work out a mutually agreeable solution? It certainly does appear that Violet has the “evil eye” fixed on Cherry’s back in panel 4.
Well, we have 5 more days for Jules to answer these questions before we suffer another two weeks of MarkLosing It in LA-LA-Land.
Here we are, back in the not-quite-so-weird world of Cherry and the Butterfly Bushes. And to ensure we remember, we have a Monarch to set the stage and mark the scale from where we stand, watching Cherry pull up to the diner once again for her morning fix.
But wait! What do we see here? Not the smiling, Jeanette wearing her “My Favorite Martian” antennae; but a downtrodden Violet Cheshire, glumly working on a plate of pancakes. Well, maybe glum. It’s hard to tell if she is glum, desperate, or just pissed. But it isn’t hard to figure out that she has seen the results of Dirk’s feral hogs. That might be the interpretation of the textbox in panel 3. Volet looks like she slept in that shirt and just woke up. Where is her sophisticated pose?
It could be that Violet is reacting to Cherry’s voice as it fills the diner. With her Kentucky Derby hat draped over the back of the booth, it’s hard to visualize this is the same arrogant and manicured danger that she was the last time we saw Violet. In fact, I would not recognize her at all, except for Cherry’s amazing powers of observation! Anyway, I’d like to have one of those coffee mugs with the outer space logo. They look pretty cool.
Have to say that I like this devil-may-care version of Cherry much more than the more limited, shallower version we’ve been used to. I do believe that Cherry’s descent into “background character” grew over time, because her earliest appearances showed a more active, independent person. In recent years, she seems to have drifted (ie get pushed) into a kind of lifeless, supporting cast role. So it’s a real plus to see that she is getting stories of her own now.
Well, I reckon Tuesday we’ll start to find out what is going on with Violet. Who knows, maybe something will come out in her explanation to Cherry that will draw them closer to each other. You think? Or will she turn around and start throwing silverware and plates at Cherry?
Prof Bee Sharp and Diana Daggers continue their incompetent chase-down in their Mustang, somehow always allowing Mark and “his friends” in their Prius a means for escaping. It might be different if their near-catches were actually deliberate and designed to mislead Mark into making a big enough mistake to ensure they were trapped and properly captured on video for an eventual police arrest.
However, it is hard to believe that Bee and Daggers are really “law and order” types, only doing their civic duty to bring the alleged criminals to justice. Diana’s irrational hatred for Mark and Bee’s juvenile fixation on bettering Mark seem more aligned to personal satisfaction than community safety. And what about the supposed master mind, Cricket Bro? I have already pondered his role in this and whether he is the king or the pawn in this off-the-board chess game. Common consensus seems to be that this story makes little sense, that it does little to highlight Mark’s morality, his job, or his self-appointed purpose. The story is disjointed and does not seem to follow any logical development. The obvious response to this is “That’s how Life is!” Unlike a TV drama or adventure story, our lives do not run in convenient time intervals that have a visible structure. Most of us are reactive to what goes on around us. Life may be habitual, but we have unexpected delays, diversions, short-cuts, and dead-ends throughout our lives.
But that is not what makes a good adventure story or adventure comic strip. As most of us know, so-called “Reality TV” is anything but real, with its manufactured crises, contrived events, and shockingly over-the-top participants. Yet, these shows are popular, though maybe not as popular as they have been. Still, people watch. Perhaps that is what we have here: Mark naively getting involved in a kind of “reality show” filled with odd characters, outrageous scenarios, and melodramatic acting. Perhaps a take on “The Truman Show”, the movie where Jim Carrey’s character ultimately learns that his life is really just part of some big hoax, a world-wide reality show in which he is an unwitting and unwilling participant.
Or not. It could just be Rivera is trying out a storyline with Mark to see how the character can work in an environment for which he is totally unprepared. And the answer would be “Not very well!” So, on with Sunday!
What a surprise: The Roadrunner. I’m a bit surprised that there are no “coyote” jokes here. But Rivera still manages a bit of humor and inventiveness in the title panel, with “Mark Trail” composed of snakes that the roadrunners are preparing to eat. I also noticed that the “sun” shape with the concentric circles in panel 3 are repeated behind Mark in the penultimate panel. Is this just some compositional inventiveness going on? I don’t think there is any symbolism of Mark being some kind of target.
It’s too bad Rivera could not find room to discuss some of the spiritual significance of roadrunners for indigenous tribes in the Southwest and Mexico, or even to mention how their “X” shaped footprints confuse predators (such as the faster coyote) and also provide a sacred symbol to ward off evil spirits. But, there is only so much space here.
So, while Rivera can be accused of stretching Mark’s daily strips into new geometric shapes, she can and does respect the traditional format and purpose of the Sunday panels.
It’s interesting to see these vintage Mark Trail strips being published on Comics Kingdom. A kid Mark gets to know thinks his sister’s boyfriend is involved in poaching and asks Mark for help and advice. Apparently, Mark’s concern with animals must have been at an all-time low, as he only offers non-committal, “don’t-bother-me-kid” words. Mark does not seem willing to get involved and will not even tell the kid if turning the poaching boyfriend in is the right thing to do. I reckon Mark feels this is one of those life lessons the kid must work through on his own. How different that Mark is from our current Mark Trail, ready to jump into somebody (anybody) else’s problems at the drop of a hat, even if it has nothing really to do with animals or Mark. Let’s get to it!
Okay, lots to “unpack here”, as one of the trendy phrases states it. So, the incompetent driving of Diana Daggers allows Mark and “his friends” to once again slip through their net and escape. She finally makes her way to the Farmer’s Market, so she could not have been that far behind; just far enough to not notice which car drove in and parked. I reckon everybody either ducked or bailed out of the Prius in time?
Now, Diana is pissed because the Prius she tried to block with her car somehow scraped her front end? Heavens to Betsy, those cads!! Well, what the hell did she expect, anyway? This reminds me of some writing from the late Jimmie Breslin, writing about New York Mafiosi chasing down a target who gets away, because the Mafiosi kept dodging rain puddles to avoid messing up their imported hand-made Italian shoes.
So here they are, at last in the Market, full of green Priuses (see yesterday’s post for a discussion on the plural form of “Prius”!)! And this is just too much information for Bee and Diana, while Professor Bee shows that he is just as juvenile as Cricket Bro. In fact, they all are. This is like one of those summer high school movies with the wimpy good guys trying to avoid the rich bully and his pals in his expensive car. And how many other dreadful movies or episodes of the 1960s “Batman” TV show did Professor Bee have to watch in order to come up with that really “menacing” threat in panel 4? Perhaps he was in “drama class” in his college days.
Well, now what, Diana? By your own standards (such as they are), if you cannot record the Herp Hacienda Gang in the Prius, or coming out of it, then you have zilch. At this point, those three could simply saunter around, even stand in plain sight in the parking lot; but you would have nothing, Daggers. No direct chain of evidence. Time to cut bait and call it a night.
As a villain, Professor Bee Sharp should stick to his academic pursuits. He’s no Professor Moriarty. And neither is Cricket Bro, for that matter. Mark needs a real flesh-and-blood villain to bring to justice; not a bunch of arrogant California weirdos.
I trust, this time, that we are heading back to Lost Forest to learn more about Cherry Trail and her fight for botanical justice! At least Cherry has a legitimate motivation for her actions!
I mean, could a person look any more desperate and ready to cave!? I think Mark needs another slap upside the head from Killer Bee. Or a Valium. Another thing I noticed is that the interior of that Prius is looking a lot roomier. Wish my Prius could do that. The three “friends” look especially tiny in that Prius in panel 3. Or is this actually a Prius V, Toyota’s SUV version? Still looks too big.
Anyway, against all odds, the “little hybrid that could” once again loses the Mustang and glides into a Farmer’s Market that actually keeps evening hours. That’s another new one on me. Apparently, “cool cats in hybrids” prefer to shop for organic eggplants and homemade tofu at night, after the hoi polloi have left for the day in their American gas guzzlers. Come Midnight, the Prius owners will have left and soon be replaced by members of the Confirmed Cyclists Club who will bike 30 miles to get there and fill their pannier bags.
Apparently that roadrunner is excited enough to take to the air and try to fly, something it is not well-designed to do. Is it trying to avoid an approaching Mustang or just hoping to flee from this story? That is a bit of snark, of course, but I’m sticking with it. Personally, I think they should have driven on until they found one of those Toyota dealerships I mentioned several days ago.
I was going to write a sentence or two about all of the conveniently green cars here, but ran into a question about the plural form of Prius. When we talk, we would simply say “Priuses”, right? But that’s just talk. According to a 2011 article from cars.com (https://www.cars.com/articles/plural-of-prius-prii-not-according-to-latin-experts-1420663174060/), Toyota settled on the faux Latin word Prii. A Latin instructor thought the plural should be either Priora or Priores, based on the fact that Latin nouns have “genders” and different written forms based on grammatical case. Most of you over 40 might remember some of these terms from your English grammar classes, along with possibly the most damaging pedagogical device ever inflicted upon students in order to destroy any appreciation for writing and reading: Diagraming sentences. Anyway, as Latin is no longer the official language of the Western World, we can stick with the plural “English” form Priuses. Sorry, Toyota. Sorry, Caesar!
Do people barely scraping by to pay for food and housing feel like they have freedom? I wonder….So, why should Mark “and his friends” feel any different, since they have not yet been able to shake the Mustang off their tail, in spite of their escape attempts.
I’m sure many of you (to use that phrase somewhat loosely) have watched movies like The French Connection, Jason Bourne, John Wick, and even Fast & Furious XIX, with the white-knuckle car chases that create more mayhem and destruction than driving on the first snow day. Outlandish maneuvers, exploding vehicles, and improbably escapes are ramped up through close-ups, quick editing cuts, and lots of real or artificial speed. Well, folks, this ain’t one of those!
Instead, we have a lot of desultory driving and nudging. No driving onto sidewalks sending pedestrians into the street; no crashing through large windows and conveniently landing in the middle of a shopping mall where customers just don’t happen to be strolling. And still being able to drive on. Then again, this appears to be late night, and everybody with any sense is home watching the chase scenes in Mission Impossible.
I’m wondering if this is meant to be some kind of parody of “Hollywood” car chases. The whole idea of a muscle car (Mustang) pursuing a pokey Prius across highways and through alleys seems preposterous in the sense that it wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes before the Prius was run off the road or pushed into a lamp post. Yet, the Mustang simply cannot close the deal. The Prius keeps slipping through, as if it was actually nimble and had sufficient pickup in its 4-cylinder motor. Maybe Daggers is afraid to cross a solid yellow line. Mark, whose face seems to keep getting worse each time we see him, looks to his right (though the Mustang is to his left) to warn Reptilionnaire. Somehow and somewhere Reptilionnaire must have graduated from the Advanced Defensive Driving School run by the FBI (or something like that). How does he do it!?
This storyline began back in late March, so we’re just about at the four month milepost. Now, I’m not at all against long stories, as long as they remain interesting. By my quick mental estimate (that is, being too lazy to review all of the dailies), I’m thinking that this adventure has taken up only about 5 or 6 days in the Trailverse. Where do we go from here? Again, I think Mark and “his friends” have to return to the lab and have a showdown with Cricket Bro to bring closure. But I’m also still trying to figure out where the crime or even the dangerous practices are. The programmers got paid for their work. We’ve seen no evidence of “slave labor” or illicit drugs. No phone or Internet scams. No extortion, blackmail, kidnappings, or animal cruelty. Nobody making fur coats. Just Aparna stealing software she doesn’t own.
In any event, this car chase has run its course. Parody only works for so long before it gets weary. I’m for switching back to Cherry’s storyline now. Either that, or let’s get on with it. Please? And I’ll leave it to you, dear readers, to ponder the significance of that calligraphic swish drawn over top of the bushes in panel 1.
As usual, I’m late to the party. As regular viewers on Comics Kingdom know, and as recently highlighted by Joseph Nebus on his blog (https://nebushumor.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/comics-kingdom-has-vintage-mark-trail-now-and-prince-valiant-for-the-past-18-months-already/), King Features has started republishing old Mark Trail comic strips on a daily basis, starting with the July 13, 1971, where we find ourselves in the middle of a story involving sheep poaching. Mark is working with (or advising) a teenager named Scat (https://www.comicskingdom.com/Mark-Trail-Vintage/2021-07-09). The strip is from the classic team of Dodd (mostly writing); Hill (most of the drawing), and Elrod (backgrounds and lettering). Although old Prince Valiant strips are also being reprinted, I’m thinking King Features may be posting these Trail strips at this time as a kind of damage control to help placate Trailheads who are pretty worked up about the new direction the strip has taken. The reprints are in black & white, as they were originally published, so you will see that the artwork exhibits standard b&w drawing techniques (hatching, cross-hatching, and solid blacks) to define volume and shading.
A good example is the 7/16 strip, with Mark and Scat working in a Darkroom. Now, don’t be confused by the republication dates at the top of each strip. As far as I’m concerned, while we might view these as “more realistic” or even naturalistic, to me, the characters look stiff, like marionettes…especially Mark. On the plus side, this panel in particular has a nice “woodcut” feel to it.
And frankly, looking at some of the later strips drawn by Jack Elrod, I wonder if Trailheads think this is better art, or prefer it because it is more familiar to them. Some of this stuff looks like bad manga.
Next: When did Mark Trail start getting clumsy and losing fights?
Critics of the current Mark Trail may cry foul (or something worse), but Rivera did not start the trend of Mark getting clobbered and tripping over himself. I believe it was James Allen, at least as far back as 2014. Thanks to this blog (started by Dennis Williams), we can view strips starting from January 2013. So, with our WayBack Machine running, check out December 31, 2014; the epic “Mark stumbles over a cliff to avoid a bear” adventure in April 2014; and the infamous cave adventure of 2016. No, the real question is how far will Jules Rivera try to push Mark’s machismo before he turns into Inspector Clouseau?
But now, on to TODAY’S INSTALLMENT!
Urban jungle!? Well, they must have managed to find a city of some size, it seems. Downtown Palm Springs, perhaps? We finally get a bird’s-eye view of the chase, where the Prius is presumably making lots of quick turns to increase their chances. But the caption is wrong: Diana Daggers is driving the chase car. That’s been a problem all along. In spite of their inability to catch Mark, suddenly Dianna figures out how to shift and is able race in front of the Prius to cut them off. Swell. Now, how is getting them out of the car going to incriminate them?
Okay, I’ll contradict myself. I have come closer to agreeing with several commentators regarding the haphazardly drawing. Compared with her earlier work, even as recently as March, these more recent drawing are flatter, less tonal, and more exaggerated and roughly drawn; except for the cars. Rivera is likely using reference images from an online resource. That, itself, is nothing new. Cartoonists have been using picture references for many decades.
Diana Daggers looks particularly on edge and getting older by the panel. In panel 3 she looks like Dian’s mom! So, is Rivera under deadline stress to get these strips done? Is she just freewheeling the drawing for some reason? Even her sound effect in panel 4 looks anemic: “STOP!!” in barely visible text. Really? I mean, if this is a power stop, as it seems, it should be a much more dramatic font: Super-Extra Bold. And wouldn’t the sound be more like SCREEEEEECHHH!!
Frankly, this scene looks pretty much like the alley ambush from Monday, seen from a different perspective. So how is this cut-off going to work any better? Or will Reptilionnaire get confused with all of the extra getaway space around him and freeze? From a storyline point of view, I really don’t see where this extended chase offers anything new, but let’s see what Thursday’s installment will show. River has three more days after today to get this story to a meaningful break before we return to Cherry.
Okay, I’ve worn down your patience enough for one day, or maybe two. If you made it all the down here, thanks. if you didn’t, thanks for trying!
The Daily Trail 