“I Lost my pack?”  Boy, that’s a long walk for a mighty short drink of water…

OK, not much else to say here… so let’s move on to another, more interesting topic.  If there are any fans of Breaking Bad out there, I have to recommend the prequel series, Better Call Saul.  I am currently resisting the Big Binge urge, but am up to episode 7 of season 1 on Netflix.   I  admit that I was really skeptical.  I really liked Breaking Bad, and I couldn’t abide the idea that a poorly done prequel (like so many are) could spoil that party… that the character of Saul the attorney could drive a back story that is remotely interesting or compelling.. well, I was w-r-o-n-g.  Wrong.  It’s brilliant.

So, with Gabe out of harm’s way, we can now re-join our cast of trapped travelers in their never-ending journey to nowhere…  stay tuned!!

Is that a planet colliding into another one behind him??  Good thing we get to see this action in color, otherwise we’d miss out on half the fun…  In almost 3-D quality, Gabe launches himself out of the way of the falling column…  With Mustache and double chin intact, he appears to have saved his sorry ass one more time…  Do you think now we can get back to the “hidden beach” and the Helldiver airplane with the disappearing and reappearing skelton?

So, how long have we been in the cave?  Since February 1, Ladies and Gentlemen.  That’s right about 100 days…  in human time…  not sure how that translates into Trail-time, but good lord…  time for an alien space ship to land and abduct them.  That’s the only way I can see out of this…

Just like Donald Trump’s…

And it’s difficult to tell whether what is rippling under Gabe’s T-shirt is fat or muscle… I’m betting fat, since it’s harder to image him becoming ripped simply due to terrifying stress… or manufactured stress, for which this strip is famous…

Funny how, even in throes of sheer terror, the kind that would have your entire life flash before you, thought balloons have complete sentences…

It just occurred to me that the approach here is not unlike a storyboard for a movie– where countless drawings envision every detail in order to get timing and scenes just right!  So as we are being asked to wade through these scenes, second by second, we can imagine this all being done to create a full length feature staring Mark Trail!  Casting, though… casting is key…  Who would take on the challenge of playing Mark Trail in the flesh?  Ben Affleck?  Fresh off his “Batman v. Superman” experience, this would seem like a natural…  Like Mark, Ben seems to be perpetually 30 years old, even though he’s half way through his 40’s…

Well good lord, Gabe, don’t stop running!!  Just to watch the column come down on top of you??  Oh dear, what’s to become of Ol’ Gabe?   Monday can’t come soon enough…

Oh Carina, you aren’t the first girl to fall for The Trail…  and you won’t be the last.  As you stand in the passageway, faintly reminiscent of… oh dear readers, you fill in the blank… and as you cop a Trail-feel in panel two, Mark is oblivious to your advances…And what’s with the  hooked arm and clenched fist?  Odd posturing, there Mark…

Gabe, what is your deal- OK I get it, you saw yourself with Carina when this all started, and now that you have invited your “Old Friend” Mark Trail to write an article, a cheap ploy to help you maintain your grant,  he really has horned in and ruined your plans…  so now you are content to be buried alive, martyred on the alter of unrequited affections?  Is there anything more sad than someone who will not save himself?  Is desperation the most difficult thing to witness?  Maybe the ol’ ticker just gave out… too much stress and excitement for one who appears to have gone to the buffet for seconds too many times…

From George Atkins.  Brilliant:

So Carina made a run for it, having apparently abandoned her colleagues to die, only to be surprised/shocked that they are still alive. And while the two hapless souls are running towards her and a possible exit (from the tunnel or the story?), the ever-informative and scheming Mark hopes to confuse Gabe by looking off to the side, yelling “Over there, Gabe!” Or maybe the injury has left Trail addlepated; and he not only does not hear Carina yelling out to them, but seems to be confused by who and what is clearly in front of them.
You see Dennis, it is not just the readers who are confused here, but the characters, themselves. From one sequence to the next, they have no idea what they are supposed to be doing, where they are going, why they are in the cave, or even if they are really supposed to get out of the cave. I’d think they would welcome Jefe and his automatic rifle about now. And point it towards Allen.

***yawn***

…and what were we doing a year ago?  Why, it was Wally and the Beavers!

…and a year before that??  This was Allen’s Maiden Junket with a focus on the Trails…

I don’t know what exactly happened here, but this is interesting… could it be that the death of Jack Elrod in February, 2016 has left poor Mr. Allen adrift?  A competent artist but with little skill in storytelling?  Jim, (it’s OK I call you Jim?) I’m sorry if you see this, but really?  This is becoming just about unreadable…  I mean, Josh, the Comics Curmudgeon, doesn’t even comment on you anymore… It’s like whatever made Mark interesting has left the building…  I can’t believe that I am actually pining for a shot of Rusty and Cherry!  Here’s a hint… there needs to be a Villain.  Oh, I know, it’s Jose Jefe and Human Trafficking, but good lord, man, they are such a distant memory that they can’t even be considered part of the plot line anymore… Even the movie San Andreas, which mostly featured man against a rumbling and unsympathetic earth had character development, back story, love interests burgeoning- some things to keep us interested…

So whither thou goest Mr. Allen?  Find yourself a script-writer and get this train back on the tracks…

Yes, I am back to the notion that Mark is Superman… what with his restorative powers…

By now he is back to normal, no longer needs Gabe’s assistance and is in fact leaving Gage in the dust- literally- of the crashing columns being brought down by the constant tremors…

Please be sure to let me know where you live!  I have had a few responses, but not enough to complete my study!

An astute reader from last week, rustysrealdad, (ha!  just saw that name for the first time!  priceless!) noted that Gabe must have sweated is mustache off… thank goodness it’s back…

So with Mark’s arm wrapped around the now-noble professor, they are making their way out of the cave of crystals, laid to ruin by Madre naturaleza (Mother Nature…) Good thing that they were able to witness the beauty before the whole thing came crashing down around them!

How about, ‘I got this?’

With what I thought would be the strength of 10 Grinches +2,  Gabe hoists the column off’a Mark.  But he asks Mark to help him, broken ribs and all?  Weird.  But Gabe seems able to muster the strength that many “big men” possess, if they can only summon it in times like this…

So let’s see how mobile Mark is with smashed innards.  We should know that by Friday…

Thanks again for your comments… funny, but it would seem that many (at least a couple) of you are from Minnesota… what is it about us?  Trying something new- can you send me your name (first is fine, or just a handle…) and location, submitted in the form below?  Thanks!

With Mark on the ground trapped (?) by a column of Gypsum, he encourages his “friends” to save their own skin, leave him for dead, and make good on the foreshadowing provided months ago… remember La Cueva del Muerto?  Well, someone has to die here… and it might as well be Mark as this would put us all out of our misery…

But really?  It would appear that the center of gravity on the “I have fallen and I can’t get up” column is all wrong… the longer and heavier base is suspended in the air, seemingly held up by the downward pressure from Mark’s right arm, hugging it like a teddy-bear…  Never mind that it hit him on the head and shoulders, so no telling how it ended up  in this position, not to mention the fact that mark is fully conscious and able to speak… so despite a couple of crushed ribs, one would imagine that it’s not as serious or desperate a situation as Mark would declare…

Yes, Gabe, Mark did stick with you, and with a touch of his magic hand, made you miraculously skinny in order to get you through that impossible thin crevice…

If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Mark has the ability to take a blow and recover…  maybe not immediately, but eventually… remember that this is the man that doesn’t shave and doesn’t age…

So with a THUD and an UNNNGH, We see Mark go down… it was destined to be.  Anything to manufacture a bit of drama… I like the plot suggested by the comments, where they make it to the surface only to be met by Jose and Jefe, but then rather than being killed, they are taken into bondage to serve in their human trafficking enterprise…  Carina is given some kind of harem outfit to wear- like Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi, at the, um, foot?  tail? of Jabba the Hut…and kept in their lair as a sex-slave…  all the while she spouts on about cave formations and other such nonsense…

Unless one considers Mark’s “KEEP MOVING” with the implied “you” in the same category.  Bitch-ass Gabe can only come up with an “AAHHH!”  That’s two A’s and three H’s…

A CRACK and a CRUNCH later, we see our intrepid band (yawn) at death’s door (again) and we are left to wonder if they will ever get out of this (yawn) scrape…

Skulking around in a subterranean cavern with sharp objects jutting out of the floor and ceiling?  Hot as Hades, no apparent connection with the blue sky above?  What made this an attractive option in the first place?  So Mark the Alpha takes the lead again and suggests (loudly) that they get the heck out of there…

It’s really cool how Mark and Carina can finish each other’s thoughts now… heck they have been tested in the Octagon of Nature, Mother Earth’s Crucible, so it’s only a matter of time before they start to get inappropriate…

“But Mark, you are a Married Man…”

“Oh it’s really just a marriage of convenience… My readership is largely from the south and they were getting all up in arms over the fact that Cherry and I had been sharing a roof without the formality of a ring… we have an ‘arrangement.’ Who knows what she does when I am away…”

Does placing your large hand on your square jaw help you come up with these inane thoughts?  Yes, gypsum is used in Sheetrock (an also tofu, for that matter…) but it’s not mined in crystalline form, but rather found in sedimentary rock formations…

Your knowledge of the commercial world is fairly wanting Mr. Trail, but then you’ve never really had to pay for the roof over your own head… a living off expense account and the largess of your father in law has left you wholly unaware of what it takes to turn a profit…

Mark, why don’t you and the Cub Pack head back to the opening of the sinkhole?  At least there you have open sky and a WWI (or II) Biplane to ponder… If you are frustrated and bored by the crystal cave, imagine how we must feel!

And where are the Feds when you need them?  In the past they have always arrived in the nick of time, whether threatened by forest fires or evil, megalomaniacal kingpins bent on acquiring radioactive material, we saw our precious tax dollars being spent to save your sorry ass…

But Mark is never too frustrated to crouch and point and remark on the wonder of Nature… “Wow, a forty-footer,” he exclaims…

OK Kids, sorry I bailed on you yesterday… but I have to bring a couple of  comments to the surface:

From Faithful Reader George:

Maybe this pointless, extended sidebar is really background “research” for a class paper for one of Allen’s grand kids and he doesn’t want to be accused of simply writing it for the kiddo! Or maybe Allen has just lost it a lot earlier than Dodd or Elrod!
By the way! I’m now using exclamation points for all of my sentences, just like Mark Trail! If comic strips had audio, they would all sound like infomercial talent!

Or from Greendog:

A new addition to Mark Trail’s resume … human thermometer.

So… Let’s return to the “story…”  as Carina continues to instruct Mark on “Geothermal Processes,” Gabe is getting himself tangled up in the crystal maze…  is he coming or going?  What the hell is he doing?!  And for that matter why is Mark talking about “looking for a way out,” when he had spotted one a while back in the Sinkhole??  Or was the “passage” he pointed to what led to the crystal maze?  I guess so…  Hang on everyone, we are going to be underground at least through Memorial Day…

Ah, a mere tick of the geological clock- it’s probably been “cooling” for a million years or so… Good thing they stumbled upon this formation when it was set on simmer and not roast…

…and the lesson continues… what they have stumbled upon here (presumably in Texas…) is not as hot or damp as the Mexican Cave of Crystals, but appears to generate crystals of like size and kind. This beggars belief as nature, chemistry and science follow strict rules of their own and I would imagine that the magnitude of said crystals are directly correlated tot he conditions found in the womb that brings them forth…

Mark looks pissed as Carina is clearly stealing his thunder… “Hey,” he must be thinking… “This strip is called ‘Mark Trail,’ not ‘Carina,’ and I’m the one who gets to dish out the Nature Knowledge here…” Gabe can only muster a small, “wow” as he stands there sweating and utterly gobsmacked…

Never mind that there are now two, count ’em, two features that ‘remind us’ of Mexico – first the Hidden Beach and now the Cave of Crystals… As Carina impresses us with her knowledge of Rocks and Minerals, along with her striking profile, Mark jumps in with his knowledge of same- rocks and minerals, that is…

And while Mark and Carina are maintaining their relative composure under the oppressive heat, Gabe’s face looks like it’s sliding off his skull…

So now that (let’s hope) the geology and geography lessons are complete, let’s get back the plane and MacGyver our way out of here, people…