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Mark is invited by Cricket Bro to speak against AI at his AI Conference in New Your City. Mark has to deal with an empowered Kelly Welley, a pumped up Cricket Bro, and the discovery that everything “AI” is not necessarily bad.

Kelly Welly steps out of the shadows!

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Yes, Kelly must have been in Mark’s shadow, since we have not seen her since early 2021. Well, we have another change today:  A buffed out Cricket Bro (aka Rob Bettencourt). I’m not sure where he got bulked up, but I’d bet it wasn’t just from eating lots of crickets.

For those curious, Rivera does use the “To be continued” box now and then, but not regularly. In most cases, Rivera simply switches over between Mark’s adventure and Cherry’s without notification. As a general rule, Rivera devotes two or three weeks to Mark before switching to Cherry’s story.

Plotwise, Kelly’s aligning with Bettencourt presents the appearance of confrontation and drama, but to what end? This is just a conference, right? What could go wrong?

Art Dept. While this strip has evolved/devolved into a cartoony simplicity, I’ll give credit to Rivera for Mark’s depiction in panel 1. His lookback pose is quite solid and believable. Mark’s expression is properly curious and suspicious. He has a solidity and plausibility that is normally found lacking. To compare, just take a look at Mark’s depictions in yesterday’s strip. Of course, that gravitas gets left behind when we move on to panel 3.

Kelly Welly deflates Mark’s patronizing attitude

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As the popular cliché goes, “there is a lot to unpack here.” But first, from a storyline POV, I like the idea of Kelly Welly coming in as a counterpoint to Mark. It is still not clear how this matchup is going to work. First of all, her backstory in Rivera’s reboot is that Kelly no longer works for the same magazine Mark does (or did). She freelances, has her own large online following, and now works for Cricket Bro. This certainly seems to fill a lot of checkboxes for being a “nemesis.” But I’m holding out for more info.

In this clip from 1/30/21, Kelly reluctantly gives Mark a compliment after deriding him for playing it safe and being a big shot. She holds a lot against Mark, but at the same time, shows some grudging respect for his position. So, the relationship was complicated then. How will it be handled now?

Art Dept. By the way, you might notice a strong difference in the art then, compared to Rivera’s art these days.  Her earlier style had a “graphic novel” sensibility that gave the strip a grittier vision than even the pre-Rivera artists. And then there is what we see today. When Rivera brushed this early approach aside, so did she also cast off the best examples of real drama and mortality in the strip.

Still, Kelly Welly’s appearance at least presents us with the opportunity for seeing a more dynamic and uncertain situation develop for Mark.  But what will actually happen? Every time I think it will, it didn’t. At the same time, don’t you think it is arrogant and hypocritical of Mark to cast suspicions on Kelly’s AI knowledge, after his own admissions of doubt and ignorance on the subject?

Mark the Woodsman gets worn out walking in New York

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It’s not completely accurate to refer to Kelly Welly as Mark’s nemesis, at least in her original pre-Rivera incarnation. On the other hand, Cricket Bro is an actual nemesis.  Kelly Welly, as long-time readers know, was Mark’s journalistic rival in the pre-Rivera (or Classic) days, always trying to beat him out of an assignment or even mess up one of his assignments; but things usually didn’t work out for her. I suppose it is a matter of degree and motivation.

The last time Rivera featured Kelly—as far as I can recall—was in the first story she penned, where Mark had to investigate his Dad’s questionable business dealings (started October 13, 2020 “Woke Mark”). In that story, Mark felt the heat and wanted to give the assignment to Welly. Instead, she laid out her feelings about him and she did not hold back (this happens over several strips in late January 2021). In the end, she refused to take the story and told him to suck it up and do it himself. Kelly wasn’t about to be used as Mark’s “Get out of jail, free” card. The pre-Rivera Kelly would likely have taken the assignment. However, the current Kelly Welly Reboot is a cut from new cloth.

For a good summary of Kelly Welly’s background, check out Mark Carlson-Ghost’s index of classic Mark Trail stories and characters (https://www.markcarlson-ghost.com/index.php/2020/11/21/mark-trail-history/).

The Yokel Express keeps running

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Yes, the New York subways certainly are famous, though not exactly in the manner Mark Trail is suggesting.

I’m not sure why Rivera started making Mark act like a country rube visiting the Big City. I think Rivera could have done the “personal tour” with a standard-issue Mark Trail broadcasting his commentary to whomever passed him by. 

But this is not really a story at this point. It is more like a long TV commercial selling you on why you should visit New York City. Heck, maybe Rivera has a more personal motive in mind.

Art Dept. I don’t know how to explain this. In looking at the street dancers, they seem to have a real sense of mass and volume in their bodies, unlike the more cartoony, flat figures Rivera usually uses for Mark and the other regulars. 

Mark discovers California Pizza in New York City!

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The New York pizza store pictured here is called “Pizza My ❤”, which is really a popular family-owned pizza empire in the San Francisco area. There do not appear to be any of their stores in Manhattan, or anywhere outside of San Francisco! Well, if Rivera gets free pizza for this plug, good on her. It’s always been a tried-and-true marketing ploy.

Alas, Rivera seems to relish making Mark seem like Goober from Mayberry: “And they even have indoor outhouses!” Let’s face it: the wide-eyed “Hick from Hicksville” expression that Mark is wearing wears on my ability to avoid pure snarking. And how does this self-indulgence add to the main plotline?

Art Dept. Worst drawn pizza I’ve ever seen.

Mark walks and talks to himself!

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Is Mark talking for our benefit (as opposed to using standard thought balloons) or is he recording this for his blog site? Let’s give Mark some points for deciding to blend in a bit by wearing a summer jacket. At least we know that Mark actually is capable of modifying his attire when needed. Oh, there was that time when he sported cowboy boots, a kerchief, and Stetson hat to trick out his lumberjack attire. 

So, Mark discovered The High Line elevated walkway in West Manhattan. Good for him! We can see in panel 2 and panel 3 that Mark must be very impressed by the walkway, given those elaborate triple emenata lines extending above his head. I wonder how he’ll react if he goes far enough north and discovers Central Park?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Action a-plenty this past week! Mark flew into the Big Apple, impressed and overwhelmed by the city’s size and activity. Mark took on a kind of “country cousin goes to the Big City” persona. Strange.

In the airport, Mark continued to be amazed and dismayed by the crowds and the noise. His anxiety cleared up upon hearing a callout: “Someone help! Is there a nature expert in the house?” The words were music to Mark’s strained ears. He navigated around the milling crowd of passengers to make his way to the caller. There he saw a raccoon hanging on a cord from the airport’s ceiling! 

It’s a bit confusing at this point regarding the number of people involved. Hair colors kept changing, as did clothing. It’s possible these were airport skycaps, as regular reader Daniel P. suggested; or maybe animal control staff; or maybe a mix of “security” people and others. Take your pick. Also, one person was holding a cage!

As Mark approached, the raccoon fell to the floor and started running towards the cage. Along the way, the raccoon jumped up and snatched some airline peanuts that Mark apparently was holding. Then he ran into the cage. Mark was no actual help, but he also spent no time finding out what actually was going on. He just walked on! Seems odd behavior to me. Regular reader, Mark “the Contrarian Commenter”, testified that “…it appears the past 3 days the dialog and artwork is more legible,” and thought maybe a ghost artist was filling in for Rivera. That’s quite a positive comment from Mark! So, what do you think? There is certainly a brighter tone and mood, perhaps contrasting with Mark’s earlier dark mood and the darker hues seen in the first several strips this past week.

Rivera sneaks in a subtle comment on immigration into today’s nature strip dealing with pigeons. I’m afraid I’m too dense to figure out the point or significance of the special typography of the title in panel 1. Any ideas? But as she often does, Rivera links the nature subject to the locality of Mark’s current story. From what I’ve read, pigeons use a variety of navigation techniques, in addition to sensing magnetic fields. But I have no idea what “Bungle the air” means (panel 5). Do you?

In your … er, his face!

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Well, I reckon regular reader Daniel P. and I were both wrong. Those uniformed individuals look to be animal control officers. At least, that’s what I’m going with, since who else would have a cage on hand? On the other hand, why would two—presumably trained—animal control officers need assistance? Some questions just can’t be answered, like some punchlines (panel 4) shouldn’t be delivered.

Art Dept. Well, today has to be a first. Has anybody ever seen a full-face image of Mark? I certainly don’t mean the common three-quarter faces we usually see, but an actual look-in-the-mirror face (panel 2). Let me know when and where, if you recall. I also don’t mean background occurrences, either. It has to be a foreground, “portrait”-sized image.  

Mark’s full-face is a bit dodgy, as the mouth slants while the jaw remains centered. Still, this face breaks new ground in another way, as Mark “breaks the fourth wall” and appears to interact directly with us, his readers. This fourth wall narrative technique goes back at least to ancient Greek tragedy, with its Chorus being the narrator to the audience. The technique has been used ever since, in theater, movies, and animated cartoons.

But I think one of the most inventive uses of this “break the fourth wall” narration technique was in the early seasons of The Burns and Allen TV show (1950 on).  George Burns would sometimes literally step out of the set (or stand in front of it) and talk to the live audience about the episode in progress. Then he would walk back into the show. You can find episodes on YouTube. If you are lucky, you might find an episode or two where Burns goes upstairs in his garage to turn on his TV and watch some of the very show he is in. Genius! It was just surreal.

Incredible! The raccoon finds Mark’s hidden bag of peanuts!

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Sometimes you read a story so amazing you just have to sit down (or stand up), take a deep breath, and ask somebody to slap you upside the head to see if you are dreaming. Then again, in this episode we are supposed to accept the fact that a raccoon supposedly found its way into an airport, located an opening in the drop-ceiling, and decided to swing on some of the electrical wiring. Until it fell.

Then the raccoon illogically decided to run towards a cage that just happened to be available, while at the same time stealing some airline peanuts from the hand of Mark, en passant. Well of course, Mark just happened to have them (Never mind that airlines have not served peanuts on flights since 2011 because of peanut allergies and the fear of massive lawsuits). And then the raccoon continued towards the cage trap, rather than skedaddling away. 

Sounds incredible? Ludicrous? Far-fetched? Well, let’s remember that Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail strip is more absurdist comedy than drama; more Crocodile Dundee than Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter. 

Well sure, this could turn out to be a raccoon that escaped from this very cage. But would that be just too conventional? Too predictable? Too “Ed Dodd”?

Art Dept. And furthermore, I think that Rivera’s art is not designed this way because of her inability to mimic Ed Dodd; but rather, to support the absurdist comedy of her writing (whatever we think of it). It seems to me that Rivera’s irreverent tone is designed to attract younger people to better help spread an appreciation of nature in a way that the Original Style can no longer do.

Mark arrives in New York and suddenly begins speaking strangely.

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Hoo-boy, don’t we have a chestful of fun today!? Continuing from yesterday, a shout for a Nature Expert brings Mark out of his stupor and off to the rescue. Of a raccoon. I find it terribly interesting that Rivera chooses to show Mark simultaneously in different places. In panel 1 Mark is just a few feet away from the raccoon, or aroughcun, as the Powhatan tribe used to call it. Yet in panel 3, Mark is in full running form to reach the hanging mammal.

Of course, this is one of those curious coincidences that almost always occurs on TV shows and movies, where a character gets to (or has to) use a special set of skills to resolve the immediate situation. You know what I mean, like when a loser bursts into the corner grocery to rob it while a police detective happens to be checking out the Charmin in aisle 2.

Yet, I am confused:  Just which direction is the raccoon? Is he to the left of Mark (panel 1), the right (panel 2), or across the terminal (panel 3)? Could just be me, as I’m still gobsmacked by Mark’s curious use of antique phrases.

Fear and Loathing in New York: Mark continues to self-criticize until a voice calls out.

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No, wait. Really! I’m sure there’s a perfectly valid reason that somebody in a blue uniform (a cop?) in Manhattan would suddenly yell out to the crowd for a “nature expert.” It must have happened at one time or another, right? Well, here is one possible scenario:

Perhaps a fellow traveler spotted a wounded monarch butterfly on the pavement and prepared to step on it, but a policeman intervened and stopped the stomp. Wanting to be sure of his actions, the cop calls for a nature expert to advise whether the butterfly is a Federally Protected Species. 

So, we have an out-of-town country woodsman in the Big Apple rendering assistance to unenlightened city folk. Maybe Mark could get a movie deal or TV series out of this!

Goober Trail comes into contact with city buildings

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Well, Mark, you might feel more comfortable if you were not dressed like a lumberjack. Perhaps normal “city clothes” would help you fit in. 

In your pre-Rivera days, Mark, you used to wear a jacket and tie when the situation warranted. Now, you always look like a walking advertisement for L.L. Bean. 

I suppose we should take Rivera’s occasional hints more seriously and consider that these stories are from the early days of Mark’s journalistic career, before he became a seasoned world traveler and world-famous nature reporter. That might also account for a lot of the poor humor.

Mark gets easily impressed!

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Wow! Mark actually flies into New York City! Gawrsh! That’s some dramatic opening narrative you wrote there, Rivera. You betcha! There are so many exclamation points today that it gave me flashbacks to the writing in the former Mark Trail! 

Also, please notice that I’m taking the high road in my post and avoiding the bad jokes and questionable references that are probably floating around in your heads. And mine. 

But gee whiz! How much of a hillbilly can Rivera make Mark appear to be? It’s like he’s never traveled to any place where people stay up after 10:00 PM. Next thing we’ll learn is how amazed Mark is to find indoor plumbing in his hotel room.

But let’s face it: This is really just more time-killing, mind-numbing filler. What’s the point, anyway? Is Rivera paid by the word, like Dickens? Or is she paid by the strip, so she keeps throwing in pointless submissions instead of developing a better storyline?

Art Dept. Okay, who can figure out the logic of the weirdly changing altitudes of the plane? The anatomically-challenged picture of Mark in panel 2 offers nothing new but might be worth a few words. 

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Olive and Rusty returned from their successful altercation with the Grungy Boys, only to get a tongue-lashing from Mark and Cherry, who don’t like other people infringing on their right to give beat-downs to local bums and bastards. After that, Duke the Plumber arrived and told them to prepare to sign over their retirement accounts to pay for a new water heater. While all of this was taking place, Mark was preparing to head out to New York for that AI conference he reluctantly agreed to speak at. 

It took eight panels for Mark and Cherry to get their Goodbyes done so he could fly out. Regular reader Daniel Pellissier noticed a squirrel in the last panel, apparently holding a stick or club. Daniel’s comment was that the squirrel would use it on Mark and Cherry if they didn’t finally break it up so the story could take off, so to speak. That’s how I took his comment, anyway. And that was the week.

Raccoons certainly are a bloody nuisance. Even some of my family members seem to think it is okay to leave food for them. I finally got my dad, at least, to quit leaving food scraps for them down by the ditch. It was starting to look like a raccoon convention!

The last panel is, alas, another attempt at humor, wasting a panel for what could have been additional helpful information. Besides, it’s a non-sequitur. Any visit by a raccoon is unwelcome, regardless of the length of stay.

Two days to say “Have a good trip, Mark!”

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Sometimes I get the feeling that Rivera is parodying the saccharin “bon voyages” that Mark and Cherry exhibited in the pre-Rivera era, such as in this James Allen contribution:

But I’m not here today to compare the artistic approaches, though I’ll agree that Jules Rivera’s version of a kiss is certainly more of a cartoony smooch like you’d see in an episode of The Flintstones. Okay, maybe it’s not limited to just the kiss, either. The contrast is startling.

But cartoonist James Allen and his predecessors didn’t think it was necessary to spend/waste so much time on the usual Mark Trail’s Departure Scene as Rivera does. On the other hand, Cherry was certainly more of an old school, wifely worrywort before Rivera invigorated her.

Cherry advises Mark to bring a club.

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Pre-Rivera, it used to be the case that Mark would say goodbye to Cherry on their porch, so getting driven to the airport these days at least gives us a bit more of what was most likely kept “behind the scenes.” Other than that, it’s kind of the same ol’ thing, except for Rivera’s humor.

Speaking of airports, for those of you coming in late: The “Tom Hill Airport” name is a reference to one of the earliest and best Mark Trail artists, who not only handled the earlier Sunday nature strips but also ghosted a lot of the dailies that had Jack Elrod’s name on them. 

Anyway, I’m kind of surprised. This is the usual set of panels that I would expect to see published on a Saturday, as Rivera wraps up the prologue for the week. So, what will we see tomorrow? It occurred to me that it would be very interesting if Rivera would include a sequence of Mark trying to get through TSA Security. If there was ever a situation where humor and bad luck was called for, that would be it. 

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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A peaceful, bucolic day in Lost Forest revealed Rusty Trail and Olive (of the Florida Pitts) taking a peaceful, bucolic walk. But are they bird watching? Looking for Spring flowers? Taking soil samples to test for changes in soil nutrients? Uh, no. They are on another cryptid hunt.

Olive, an aunt who genuinely likes Rusty, played along until they heard a buzzing sound. When they went to investigate, they spied The Grungy Boys fooling around with a riding lawnmower in a clearing. Olive began recording their antics on her phone. 

Honest Ernest, the chief Grungy, saw Olive and Rusty and became irritated. He approached the interlopers, demanding Olive’s phone so he could presumably erase the video. Honest Ernest claimed their activity was in protest of being arrested for breaking up office equipment in Lost Forest and leaving the debris behind.

Unfortunately, as Ernest tried to grab the phone, Olive, who has a long history of scrapping, planted a solid right cross that knocked Ernest off his feet. The hapless Stooges looked on in disbelief as she read to them from the Book of Olive.

I’m guessing this is a draft of Mark’s AI talk for the upcoming Cricket Bro Tech Convention in NYC. It’s a good start, at least. It has the added virtue of avoiding bad puns and jokes, and I think we can all appreciate that!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This week was the prologue for a new Mark Trail adventure. I’d like to think that it has the makings for real suspense and action, but I can only beat up on myself so much. Bill Ellis called Mark and spent most of the time this week stroking Mark’s somewhat cautious nature to get him to accept a speaking engagement at a technology conference in New York City. The topic is about artificial intelligence and the environment (so I am calling this adventure “A-I A-I Oh!” Catchy, huh?)  Mark was properly skeptical, as he could only speak on the negative effects of AI on the environment. Ellis told Mark he will get a big payday for the talk. Mark was even more skeptical and dismayed to learn that the conference is hosted by long-time serial nemesis, Cricket Bro. Bill Ellis must get his kicks making Mark squirm.

In spite of mounting pressure all week, Mark found a clumsy, if effective way to back out of the engagement (“let me think about it“), only to be undone when Cherry suddenly popped up to announce they had an emergency water heater leak that required a lot of money to fix. The last image we saw was an unhappy Mark giving in to Bill Ellis. NYC, here we come!

Was anybody looking for river giants, as Mark concludes? I wasn’t and I don’t recall Mark being curious any time recently. Until now, of course. Anyway, we get a topic that is unrelated to the current or most recent adventures. Unrelated nature topics were common in pre-Rivera times, whereas Rivera often focuses on creatures and environs related to Mark’s or Cherry’s current adventure and location.

And that is a good thing, I believe. Why? Well, it provides continuity throughout the entire week, and it serves as a way to highlight aspects of the location where the current story takes place. Still, it has never been required and takes nothing away from the Sunday topic, itself. But it does make me very curious to see what Rivera comes up with for topics related to New York City.

Mark gets double-teamed.

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Oh, poor Mark. Thrown into the fires of fate by reality, or at least by a diabolus ex machina (by the way, I like that fiery symbolism in panel 4. Good imagery!). We know that sometimes reality bites. And it sure looked like Mark was about ready to turn down Bill’s proposal, too. So sorry, Mark!

As for the cost of fixing or replacing a furnace, I reckon I’d have to know more before I could say that Cherry’s estimate had any accuracy behind it. And what is a small fortune to the Trails, anyway? It would be nice to get a professional estimate before making this decision, but I have the feeling that too much reality would ruin the point of putting Mark into the position of having to accept this assignment.

Bill Ellis lays it on thick and creamy, with a straw.

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Oh, Mark. Keep your values in check and Just Say No! Don’t let Bill Ellis gaslight you again. Ask for something in your wheelhouse: There must be a stranded penguin to rescue, somewhere; a mining company possibly sinking illegal shafts on protected lands; or maybe a corrupt editor setting up rigged assignments of dubious merit, just to gin-up ratings.  Just don’t give in, Mark. We’re with you! Don’t do it, Mark!