So, our blue-tailed skink shows up after its Sunday premier. Yet another Rivera shakeup!  I reckon that my joke of a short shrift of the video shoot in order to jump to the after-party panned out. But isn’t that a cop-out? I mean, the whole point of coming out here was doing the video, right? We were all hoping to see Mark look goofy, out-of-step, and unintentionally funny. Instead, all we got was a few partial views of equipment and crew in the desert. Like the windmills, we are left twisting in the wind. Well, perhaps the actual video will show up in a flashback later this story. But consider: James Allen sometimes employed story arcs that suddenly disappeared and never returned (e.g. Dirty Dyer in the Caribbean).

Speaking of rivalries and regarding my passing reference to “Pearls Before Swine” cartoonist Stephen Pastis, today’s panels remind me of a video posted on YouTube several years ago of him visiting the home of “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams and challenging Adams to a drawing contest. On entering Adam’s somewhat lavish house, Pastis quips “So, ‘Dilbert’ really built all this, huh?” It’s worth watching!

Overall, I’m liking the art, not trying to make direct comparisons to the prior artistic conventions. Don’t think we have any “clip art” going on here, anyway. One minor quibble for me is the typography. Is it me, or does it seem a bit harsh or heavy? Perhaps that is meant to overcome the size reduction that takes place for newspaper printing. So, here is a section of the black & white Saturday strip, courtesy of my newspaper and my camera phone:

Apologies for the poor photography. Frankly, I think it may read easier in the actual newspaper. On the other hand, I think this example also highlights how much color does to liven up and define the artwork. Compare this to last Saturday’s post and you can see a world of difference. I would have liked to make that comparison last Saturday, but I don’t get the paper until later in the morning. But I may make a similar comparison later this week, on the same day, if I can work out the timing. I may have to post a bit later in the morning.

Jules Rivera continues to add light humor to her Sunday nature strips, as in the central panel, below, of the escaping skink; and more generally, in the first-panel titles. In this week’s entry, the “Mark Trail” title appears on a trail sign (take that, pun-master Stephen Pastis!), whose distance is marked in kilometers.

This time, the Sunday animal-of-the-week is not specifically depicted in the past week’s strips (I think), but is offered as a thematic compliment to Reptiliannaire, the eco-rapper. As Sunday sequences go, I would have liked to see something unique to the California deserts, as opposed to a lizard “endemic to North America.” But is it even a California lizard?

This may surprise readers, but I’m no herpetologist. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the subject matter and did some limited research on the “Interweb” (as local radio personality Joe Soucheray likes to call the Internet). I stand ready to be corrected here, but it seems that the “five-lined skink” is not specifically found west of Minnesota! Wha..?! Perhaps this was a simple “lookalike” mistake, as California does have the Western Skink, which very closely resembles the five-lined skink, and which also allows its tail to be captured by predators in order to escape with the rest of its body and life, intact. Still, the predator does get a snack, so this as a Nature win-win.

Note: I’m dropping my “gka” tag from here on. I started using it so that readers who might take issue with any entry will not assume it is Dennis’s post. However, I realized my name already appears at the top of the blog entry, anyway.

I’m glad readers enjoyed the old strip/new dialog mashup in yesterday’s blog. It was fun to create, but sure took more time than I figured. Just finding a compatible old strip was my biggest chore! Anyway, let’s move on to today’s exciting installment…

The strip today is not merely a time-and-space killer to pad out a storyline, as we have often seen in previous Trailverse adventures. Instead, it introduces what will certainly turn out to be the more important plot device of the current story.

So Rob Bettancourt is simply here to see how his money is getting spent, eh? As for his company’s name, what does Brotein actually mean? And just what kind of “huge gains” has his company made?  Perhaps the protein supplement allows people to make “powerful leaps in a single bound” or develop a tendency to chirp at night. The mind fairly hops with suggestions! But it also hints at some kind of nefarious mutation of Nature, which Mark will certainly have to remedy. I’m ready to jump past the video shoot and head straight to the villa! Aren’t you? Okay, that’s all I’ve got. -gka

Talk about a small world…! And quite the wind farm in the background. Unlike Dennis, I have not had the experience of being adjacent to, or working on, a wind farm, so I cannot testify to the overall sound level. The issue is fairly politicized, though with proper maintenance, it does not appear to be the significant problem detractors often claim. However, their proximity here indicates the sound will be a contributing factor to the video.

As we now see the production crew setting up, Mark one-ups his grade school friend with a clever comeback. So Mark had to suffer the indignity of an actual nickname? Perish Forbid! Unfortunately, with my own name—George—I never attained the high status of having a nickname <Sniff!>. Not even my own detractors found “Georgie” worth pursuing. Nevertheless, Rob Bettancourt must have been an annoying kid back then.

Rivera’s different drawing style certainly deviates from the original Dodd/Elrod/Allen tradition; but it suits the new narration, I think. Imagine how the dialog would work in the traditional “Mark Trail” style:

Anyway, will Cricket Bro accept Mark’s bitch slap or attempt to brush it off with feigned laughter? – gka

I am filled with questions: Mark gets picked up at LAX, then driven out by East Malibu to spend the night; then driven all the way back across LA to Palm Springs to film a video. Couldn’t they have just checked into a nearby hotel? Well, if they did that, I reckon we’d have missed the novelty of the reptile house and its weird inhabitants. Oh, and the reptiles, too.

We were already forewarned on this blog, and it seems Mark really is doomed to keep getting dragged back into his colorful past. In this case, it is some dude (possibly the investor known as “Cricket Bro”), whose right leg seems attached to his body in a way that is not typical (unless you are a cricket, perhaps). How long ago can this guy have known Mark, as he seems to be a good ten to fifteen years younger. Maybe Mark was his babysitter back in Florida. I’m sure we’ll eventually find out, though this story is getting more and more jagged as it jumps along. Mark does not look happy.

What do you all think? Is that dude just well preserved? How could he have known “Marky” as a young kid? Is he going to prove to be a real pain in the . . . neck? – gka

Frequent commenter Mark (presumably not Mr. Trail) tipped us to the 75^th anniversary of the Mark Trail comic strip, whose history is summarized in this Sunday’s installment. I wonder if anybody has been following it for the entire run?

Another regular comment poster, Daniel Pellissier, recently compared Jules Rivera (seen in the last panel, above) to a new cook stirring up new recipes at your familiar corner diner. Good point. And while her drawing is often exaggerated and bold, I noticed a certain relationship between her new Mark and the original Mark Trail 1.0. Tell me what you think:

Okay, maybe this is a bit lame and not an extremely precise comparison. However, I’m picking up on the leaner, more rectangular structure of the Dodd and Rivera heads along with the longer chin. Whereas James Allen’s version retains some features, such as the arched eyebrows and falling hair lock, the face is more square, with a softer nose. Okay. Big deal. Perhaps I’m making too much out of too little. But I do think they share a similar gusto for adventure that the Mark Trail of intervening years had lost. As for the pipe, Trail kicked that habit back in 1986. -gka

Special note: I have a tendency to blather on. Even though I’m having fun, I’m trying to write less and write better. I’ll start appending my initials to entries, but readers should easily identify my stuff from the posts of this blog’s founder. And as always, reader comments are always welcome.

Mark is once again being a good sport, realizing he’s walked into an environment where the reptiles are more familiar and comfortable. We still don’t know what these people actually do. Does Mark? Even though you are the Guest of Honor, Mark, there is no spare bedroom for you! Not even a suite at a local Holiday Inn. Star treatment, indeed! Well, we did note the hacienda is small. Blame those high California real-estate values.

Not to infer anything, but had I not known better, I’d say that panel four looks like an examination room in an episode of CSI: Miami.

Like Mark choosing which room is the more comfortable sleeping environment, Jules Rivera’s art and her Carl Hiaasen-like sense of the absurd may take a little time for readers to absorb and come to feel comfortable with. Still, it’s kind of refreshing to see Mark Trail sometimes having to roll with the punches and not be the dominant (or dominating) figure in every scene, even if he wants to be. On the other hand, we already know that our noveau Mark Trail is not a weepy, wimpy pretender. He is ready to bring out his “fists of justice” whenever or wherever the need arises. Just stay away from palm trees, Mark! – gka

Been noticing that our real world pandemic has not yet made it into the Trailverse. It was an unfortunate time to reboot this long-running comic strip and re-introduce everybody masked up, looking like they are ready to join The Wild Bunch and rob stagecoaches. I think we have to go with a parallel universe theory for the time being. This is a comic strip with its own laws of physics.

Herp Hacienda is quaint, if not plain. I’m not sure that wrought-iron fence does much to keep the reptiles on the property. Nobody there seems to care, anyway. Now, how many of you readers were stumped by the second panel? Just me!? Looks like everybody has a nickname. “Aparna”, I discovered, is a Sanskrit name meaning “leafless”, a name sometimes applied to the Indian goddess Pavarti.  That must impress somebody. Perhaps the caption box in panel two is a clue . . . .

“But he didn’t prepare a cool RPG nickname for those friends.” I presume RPG means Role Playing Game, as opposed to rocket propelled grenade launcher. Still, it’s confusing:  Which “he” does the caption refer to? And what’s the point of preparing RPG nicknames, anyway? Are these people in the middle of a D&D scenario? I see that “Forage” sports a mask, but it looks more like a costume mask. And I’m totally not sure what to make of Ambrosia, sitting on that armchair.

If you’ve been following the rebooted Mark Trail strip, have you noticed something else different from its prior incarnation, other than the drawing, the new personalities, and Rivera’s take-no-prisoners attitude? Every declarative sentence no longer ends in an exclamation point!  That has to be a plus! . . . ooops! . . . I mean . . . Grrrrrr.