Looks like the rain storm that hit Mark and the cave missed Cherry and her section of Lost Forest. That’s interesting for a rain storm that caused such flooding, too! Also, it’s unusual to see an accent slipping out of Cherry, along with some old-school patois. It got me curious.

I know the phrase “my dogs are barking” but not where it originated, so I did some searching and was happy to see that it appears to have originated with the early 20^th century cartoonist, Thomas “Tad” Dorgan. Tad was a master at coining (and popularizing) catchy phrases, some of which are still used today, including dogs (for shoes), dumbbell (used as an insult), “for cryin’ out loud”, 23-skidoo, the cat’s pajamas (Tad just popularized it), drugstore cowboy, and cheaters (for eyeglasses). Okay, that’s our history lesson for today.

Well, the last time we saw Cherry (September 12), she was fighting with Honest Ernest about protecting mother and baby bats in the town’s music hall. Ernest had just been knocked off his ladder by the bats. Cherry advised him to go get checked for rabies. Not sure if he did that. But he’s back to try again, looking no worse for wear (and that’s a phrase going back several hundred years!).

Unlike the earlier versions of Mark and Cherry Trail, Jules Rivera’s two rebooted protagonists don’t seem very determined to send their lawbreaking antagonists to jail or to the Hereafter. Instead, they tolerate, if commiserate over, these troublemakers every time they return. But that’s about as far as it goes. No doubt, the fault isn’t Mark’s or Cherry’s, but the economics and time involved in creating and developing new troublemakers in this strip. Well, that’s my hypothesis.

The plot of this adventure still follows the general outline of the earlier “bat story” I mentioned before. If you are coming in late or just have a memory as leaky as mine, the prior story is catalogued on this site under the name “The Good, The Bat, and The Ernest.”

Well, even though he didn’t get a chance to spray the bats, Honest Ernest did get the bats out of the music pavilion, though we don’t know if the young bats went along with the parents. So Cherry should check to see if any remain behind. Check carefully! Contrary to what Cherry advised (and based on what I’ve read), doctors don’t check for rabies, because symptoms don’t appear right away. Instead, they give you shots. In fact, once symptoms appear, it’s too late for the unfortunate victim. Scary stuff, rabies.

Art Dept. I was immediately struck by the difference in handling today, especially compared with earlier strips this week. The heaviness of the lines gives the strip a whole different look to it. Rivera was never bothered by such details as precise perspective or even straight lines, and the heaviness makes that more apparent. I know that Rivera has often talked about going “old school” and drawing strips by hand, rather than rely only on her digital tablet. I think this is one of those days, but I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong. Regardless, it’s almost as if a different artist drew today’s strip.

As comic strip fans know, “ghosting” (strips drawn by unnamed assistants or other cartoonists) has been a characteristic of comic production since the early 20^th century. Example:  A lot of Mark Trail strips once thought to have been drawn by creator Ed Dodd were almost certainly drawn by his Sunday nature artist, Tom Hill. But I think I’ve stretched my observation far enough, so I’ll just fall back on Rivera changing her drawing tools.

Following up on my post yesterday about the BAF! sound effect and its implied cause, frequent commenter Hannibal’s Lectern offered a more interesting and more likely explanation:

Look at panel 4 in yesterday’s strip once again. And notice the placement of the sound effect, which escaped me (like “natural gas”). Well, I think HL’s interpretation passes the sniff test, anyway.

Anyway, onto today’s installment. Honest Ernest must be in his element, as he displays a serene expression on his face in panel 2. Perhaps euphoric is more accurate? In any event, his adrenaline has certainly spiked by the time he climbed up his ladder in panel 3. But it’s quickly downhill (or downladder) from there on. I hope Cherry kept her distance, because she wouldn’t want to be near that chemical tank when Ernest makes contact with the ground.

Did Honest Ernest just physically push Cherry!? That isn’t what the text says, but is implied by the aggressive “BAF!” sound effect we see in panel 4. “BAF!” is a curious term, not normally used to represent physical contact, like “BAM!”, “POW!”, “ZONK!” and other Batman-like sound effects. I couldn’t find it online, even as a slang term.

However, “BAF” (“Burbank Athletic Foundation”) is used in the context of a punishable infraction (like a BAF Suspension) for such actions as pushing, shoving, or tripping players in various athletic contests. Just a coincidence, perhaps, or a term that Jules Rivera might have overheard and had in her memory bank
(This is just another example of the kind of extra duty deep dive effort you get at this site, beyond mere criticism. I support the “SNORE”—snark and more— standard.)

Anyway, if Honest Ernest really did push Cherry out of the way, then if Cherry doesn’t deck him, I look forward to seeing her more aggressive sister, Olive, stepping up.

Art Dept. Yes, the recital hall in panel 4 is ridiculously out-of-proportion not only to the figures in the foreground, but to path it sits on. But maybe that is really just a decorative object, reflecting the actual recital hall.

This brings back the good ol’ days in Lost Forest, with Cherry and Honest Ernest getting into another one of their wholesomely obstinate arguments. What great times they were! And aren’t these two just too cute!? I’m waiting for Cherry to remind Ernest what happened the last time he tangled with bats. (Cue the laugh track)

At least Cherry got around to finally bringing the law into the argument, which Honest Ernest unsurprisingly dismissed. I wonder if Violet Cheshire is going to finally make an appearance and have her say. Ranger Shaw could settle this, but he’s too busy tearing Cricket Bro a new one back in the Peligroso cave.

Perhaps some pillow talk took place with Violet, resulting in getting Honest Ernest read into this story. It doesn’t sound as if he was specifically hired, so much as he is volunteering (once again). But why is Jules Rivera redoing the bats in the recital hall plot? Perhaps she has a “Some people never learn” moral she want to promote. It does seem odd that the characters act like this is not a story replay; especially Honest Ernest, whose last attempt at bat removal sent him to the ER to get anti-rabies shots from a bat bite. Now, if he gets too close to Cherry, she might wind up biting him.

But Cherry’s response in panel 2 is ambiguous and sounds like it is more a personal choice than obeying an existing law. She could simply have said “The law says we can’t move the bats until the babies can fly!” Not sure that Ernest is that much of a law-and-order kind of guy, but at least he would know the situation better.

Bats protected during breeding season? Well, that is a fact, in fact. Too bad Violet might have to reschedule. Such a tragedy it is, too!

However, I am still in the dark as to why Jules Rivera appears to be revising a plot from a few years ago. If this is all Rivera can do, perhaps it is time for her to make Cherry branch out and get some different jobs with other Lost Forest citizens or businesses. At the least, it could lead to new plots and characters. And Cherry’s stories could use some freshening up in the character department.

Art Dept. Oh, I like the “dripping paint” on the wall behind Violet in panel 3. It nicely reflects the disaster she is experiencing.

Don’t forget that Violet Cheshire has some kind of British background (in case you are confused by “Blimey” and her last name, “Cheshire”). However, Violet seems to have forgotten how her “Just make them go away!” approach worked out the last time. But Jules Rivera has learned a bit more about bats. So now she has instituted the “baby bats” plot twist into the story, based on a comment Mark mentioned last Sunday about not moving bats during baby raising.

But it’s too bad that Violet didn’t put any effort into “Bat Prevention” for the music hall after the first occurrence.

Art Dept. The salvation of today’s strip lies in the different layouts in the four panels. In fact, each panel offers a different and interesting viewpoint that reflects the dialog. This is reminiscent of Rivera’s earliest work on the strip. The top-down view in panel 3 is especially well-designed. The foreshortening of Violet works well enough to make the composition believable. This variety is a welcome advance from the usual one-view-fits-all layout that she too often relies on.

Lots more riffing on the bats-in-the-music hall story, though it’s the Fall concert instead of the Winter concert. But what’s all this shrieking business? Bats sleep in the daytime. So I still think Jules Rivera is throwing out a red herring. You’ve probably already figured this out, right? No!?

It’s one of two things: It’s a group of not-very-talented people practicing inside the music hall. Or we’ve just discovered what became of the cat family left in Violet’s care (“Kittens and Kablooey”, 2024).

Anyway, Cherry is being unnecessarily catty (panel 3) when referring to Violet’s harp recital. Recall that it was Cherry who interrupted Violet in the middle of her recital at the Winter concert in order to introduce her dad playing banjo with a feral cat “singing” along. Wait … Singing cat; shrieking horror sounds. I’m getting a bad feeling here.

Finally, because I know you’ll mention it if I don’t, I realize what Rivera has drawn in the window in panel 1. But I like my theory and I think it would be terribly disappointing if Rivera is playing this straight and just borrowing the “bats” plot from her earlier story. If that were the case, I’d have expected Cherry to say something about that, as well, to lean into the joke.

I think we’re all wondering just what a “stubborn rosebush” is, yes? It certainly can’t be for lack of budding roses.

Well, today’s strip threw my neck out of joint for a minute! Is Jules Rivera reviving a Mark Trail practice during the final Jack Elrod years of retooling old stories? The bats-in-the-music-hall plot device was first used back in 2023 (“The Good, The Bat, and The Ernest”), where Cherry and Violet were thinking about holding a winter music festival in this very hall.

Or is this just a windup to another joke? Recycling older Mark Trail adventures is well-documented by Mark Carlson-Ghost on his Mark Trail Confidential website: (https://www.markcarlson-ghost.com/index.php/2020/11/21/mark-trail-confidential/). You can read the article for more information. The pertinent section is labeled “Maddening! Mark Trail’s Recycled Tales (1979-2004).” But perhaps today’s strip is a nod to Mark Carlson-Ghost’s article. Frankly, I’d be surprised if this turns out to be anything other than a humorous reference to the 2023 adventure.

Well, well, well … looks like Cherry still has her life and her job! But I can’t say a lot about her gardening expertise. That’s how it is with stories, it seems. Characters get twisted and turned to fit whatever the story needs, rather than making the story fit the character. After all, Cherry is supposed to be an expert gardener.

It’s like Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation: An android supposedly possessing great strength, remarkable reflexes, and a mind the size of a planet (sorry, that’s Marvin, the depressed robot). Yet, the writers sometimes created stories where Data acted slow; was sometimes out-thought by mere humans (e.g. Kivas Fajo); or was physically bested by his “evil twin”, Lore. It’s like some kind of unwritten rule of the Fiction Universe that characters with impressive powers must have flaws and cannot appear superior to mere human beings for fear of making TV viewers feel paranoid or depressed. That’s why Superman wound up with kryptonite, I think. But that was a self-inflicted injury, as fans know; because Superman was not originally the super-flying, invulnerable character he morphed into. But I digress …

All in all, it is nice to have a change of scenery here, even if it is just for six days. But are we going to get anything of a worthy story out of this unimpressive episode? There must be something else afoot, other than the complications of transplanting rose bushes. Not that stubborn rose bushes can’t be a worthy problem in certain contexts, such as a person calling into Gardener’s Question Time on BBC 4 for advice. So we’ll have to wait a bit to see what Violet really has in mind for Cherry, after the audience laughter has subsided.

Art Dept. Today’s strip shows elements of rushed work: Boring fixed-camera views; characters and objects out of proportion to each other; schematic scenery. Some cynics <ahem!> will blame it on good weather and good surf, while others might respond with “Nothing new here.”

I sometimes make joking references to Stephen Pastis because of Jules Rivera’s love of puns. But Pastis’s puns are constructed from the text of the lead-up panels. On the other hand, the humor I see here looks more like what I find in Hi and Lois or Family Circus.