While a rogue bear is possibly munching down on a lost reporter, Mark spends quality time with his pals. The criticisms today are just too obvious:

1) Exactly how did Andy help Mark and Sharp? He seems more intent on doing an imitation of Little Orphan Annie’s dog, Sandy.

2) How is Sharp able to even stand up with his compound fracture?

3) As Sharp warned of impending shock (something we remarked on two days ago), why did Mark put him in the back, sitting up, rather than lowering the back seat so he could lie down with his legs elevated?

4) Is Rivera ill-informed, indifferent, or vengeful?

Okay, that’s all I can write. I know it’s lame, but I’m dreadfully behind in my Italian homework, which is not a good thing. I have an exam on Monday, an oral presentation the next day, and a trans-Atlantic conversation with my Italian TANDEM partner later. Oh, and I forgot about the meeting with our tax preparer before the exam. Hell, I wonder if Andy will help me!?

Well. WTF is Andy supposed to do, pull the day bed!? This is mostly Mark’s own fault, since he could have loaded Sharp into his station wagon when they first got back to the retreat. Talk about a contrived situation.  What’s with this “we” business, Mark? And why are you still concerned? Call the bloody paramedics. Then find the bear and lost reporter. Just do the job you were hired to do, Mark!!!

<Sigh!> Yes, I know, another story gone off the rails. This could have been an interesting adventure of investigation, hidden agendas, and drama. Instead, it is once again Mark wasting time with the same people he’s dealt with before (except for the cargo ship owner and his assistant, who appear to have disappeared).

A few days ago commenter Downpuppy brought up a salient point about the missing reporter. My hypothesis is that he got fed up with these whackjobs and just ran away. But at least Sharp has a sense of humor.

Craziness ensues, as does Rivera’s continued slagging of tech nerds. With regard to panel 4, why didn’t Mark just put Sharp in the back of his station wagon and take him to the hospital to begin with? Did he even call for an ambulance? Hard to believe this nature retreat would have been erected in a location with no cell service. But frankly, I’m also surprised that Mark did not position Sharp in anticipation of oncoming shock. Definitely don’t want the head raised.

Side Note: It seems that most of Mark’s nemeses are involved in technology. If this is going to be a continual source of threats to nature and the environment in the Trailverse, then I think Mark could use some help, such as a partner well versed in technology. This could also open up move avenues for better story development! But who would be that person? Somebody completely new? Certainly, not any of the current stable of misfits. Kelly Welly? Haven’t seen enough to know. But Diana Daggers has some tech skills, as well as the ability to handle rough stuff. Sure, she can be a thorn in Mark’s side, but partners-in-tension is a popular TV and movie meme. It worked for Peanuts, so it should work for Mark Trail.

Wait. I recall from my boy scout training that a compound fracture indicates a bone brake that pierces the skin, causing real pain and sometimes extensive bleeding. I don’t think we saw any of that, did we? Major incidents like that are not handled in the casual manner we saw. So, either Jules Rivera doesn’t understand the seriousness of the term or Mark overstated the break for dramatic effect.

As for Stump’s erratic reaction, this seems to follow Rivera’s usual characterization of tech nerds (think Cricket Bro and Professor Bee Sharp) as unhinged or even bipolar. One has only to compare today with Stump’s polite and seemingly sincere welcome to Mark when they first met (see Feb 28 – Mar 4).

This sequence just looks so out of place, as I noted earlier. This confab should have taken place before Mark went to the rescue. But we’re not surprised to find no medical resources on site, are we? If there are any state or federal requirements about how private camps must be managed, Sid sure doesn’t act like he’s aware of them. So far, this follows Rivera’s typical take on tech-nerds. In short, how does this rescue mini adventure support the storyline?

On the other hand, kudos to Rivera for not including redundant narration boxes today.

Not to be too snarky, but shouldn’t Mark have warned Sid before rescuing the guys? Maybe Stump actually does have an emergency plan in place, and maybe a medic on staff, as well. Wait, when did any operation Mark dealt with have any semblance of actual organization or logistics? So, we’re not breaking new ground here, as Jules Rivera continues her ongoing beat-down of tech nerds. Maybe they are a favorite target of disdain in California, but this is at least the third story to feature clueless-in-life tech nerds. Mark needs new enemies!

Today’s strip would have been a decent cliff hanger for the week when Mark first heard about the accident. But that crisis is apparently past, so this week could turn into a Mark Trail PSA on safety preparations and training. Oh joy.

Bee Sharp is thinking of something, as we see from his thought balloon in panel 1. Just what it is, however, remains a mystery, owing to its minute size. Another mystery! Well, if you can figure out what he’s thinking, drop a comment.

Now the story moved on to a successful conclusion, I think. They are all safely out of danger, Mark proclaims in another “feel-good” story arc. Don’t those two have to get to a hospital or urgent care center? But enough, already! I had hopes that this rescue sidebar would push the story along by injecting some actual drama, like how dangerous it was for Mark to get to those two boobs (No, I’m not talking about Molly!). Maybe we could even have had a bear sighting during the rescue, something to remind readers what this story is supposed to be about.

In any event, behold the two week climax of the story arc for Mark. I’m sure we all had a few moments of nail biting, didn’t we? If form follows tradition, Monday brings back Cherry and whatever she was doing. Oh, right:  Arguing with Honest Ernest.

Ah, I do so not wish to continue to take on the role of snarkmeister, so popular with commenters on the Comics Kingdom web site. Sure, I could write about the truly clumsy perspective in panel 1, whereby Bee Sharp would be about ten feet tall if he could stand up. Nor do I want to once again play the Gilligan Card and riff on how Mark was able to get Andy and a wagon all the way over to this location so quickly. I also won’t step on Rivera’s toes by wondering why Mark didn’t just call for an ambulance or rescue service in the first place. No, I won’t.

Perhaps it is reasonable to guess why Mark is having such a great time over this near tragedy:  Seeing several of his “enemies” get the short end of the stick and knowing they had to depend on him to rescue them. Maybe Mark is more vengeful then we think.

One of the running gags on the old “Gilligan’s Island” TV show was how the castaways were always able to bring out all manner of equipment, new clothing, and other props when needed, as if their island had a shopping center hidden behind the palm trees. I was wondering if something like that would happen here; and thus, a first aid kit magically appears!

Unless Mark secretly enjoys seeing Sharp in painful distress longer than necessary, let’s hope he simply decides to call home to have Cherry or Doc bring his “secret weapon” to the rescue. I reckon we’ve already established that there is no help to be had at the retreat, itself.

Talk about protective coloration, Jadsen should bottle it and sell it. How did he slip by us so easily? He’s literally been out of the strip since last Tuesday, while Cricket Bro (aka Rob Bettancourt), Bee Sharp, and Holly By-Golly (whatever) took up all of the picture space. But suddenly, here he is, a “survivor” of a collapsing trailside.

Methinks this is suspicious. Could this so-called “accident” be a trap-gone-wrong, set up by Jadsen (and maybe Rob) to get rid of Bee Sharp? If true, it could provide some complex plots and character development. We have not seen any complex plotting here. To be fair, this is just a comic strip, not a novel. Elaborate plotting would likely not hold the interest of readers who expect to see jokes or direct action; not read Neal Stephenson. I doubt that even the pre-Allen Mark Trail stories would be popular today, except to Trailheads. Otherwise, KFS could save a pile of money by just reprinting them, the same way we see other legacy comics in perpetual reruns. Good grief!

Yelling at two injured people is not exactly leaping into action, as far as I’m concerned. Of course, Jadsen is completely useless as he always has been. Not even a good comic foil. At least Holly had the wherewithal to run for help. I’m sure curious what Mark will do, since he has no rescue equipment on hand. I’m not sure he has any rescue training, either. Maybe he knows some emergency first aid? I’ve done enough guessing, so I’ll just wait to see what Mark does.

“It’s not as bad as it look. It’s worse!”  Call me Mr. Ignorant, because I’m not sure what that means. Is Mark being sarcastic? Sounds contradictory to my pea brain.

Well, that’s a well-drawn terrain in panel 1, by the way. Good variety in flora and perspective. The bird’s-eye-view in panel 3 is another welcome return to Rivera’s early use of varied viewpoints to highlight a story. It’s good to see her getting back to some more creative compositions, rather than the flat, straight-on close-ups she has been using for a long time.

But the characters look different, especially Holly Folly. There’s her strange posture in panel 1 where it looks like she’s falling over. We can possibly excuse the crude images of Sharp and Cricket Bro at the bottom of the hill in panel 3, owing to the very small size the panel has to be.

Another remarkable thing (to me) is seeing Mark’s normal rough stubble suddenly looking like a smooth, carefully tailored “5 o’clock shadow”, defined using an old-school ziptone-like pattern. Back in the day, several cartoonists used specially printed transfer sheets to apply patterns to their drawings, largely as a replacement for hand-drawn shading. This technique has largely gone out of fashion. Rivera draws on a computer, so the beard pattern is rendered digitally.  I assume that Rivera is experimenting with her style. So far, I prefer the hand-drawn stubble.

Again, with stating the obvious in textboxes!? Tell us something different that the illustrations don’t, Rivera. You know how to be creative, right?

I have to say that I’m not at all happy with how this nature retreat is run. For one thing, where is the director/founder? Shouldn’t he be directing something? If this is a nature retreat, how come there isn’t a naturalist on staff? I suppose Rivera’s satiric goal here is to point out how ill-prepared and naïve tech-weenies are in the real world. That’s fine. It’s a popular theme that Rivera has used before. I just hope that Rivera has added some original, creative, twists to give this story some interest.

For example, just why is Mark’s usual collection of opponents all here at this camp at the same time? Why is it they seem to be the only people at this retreat? Did Bill Ellis pull strings behind the scenes to engineer this entire setup because he secretly loathes Mark?  That might account for the serendipitous matchups that keep happening on Mark’s assignments. I have an hypothesis:  Kelly Welly is having an affair with Bill Ellis and pushing him to hamstring Mark at every turn so that she can more easily ascend to the top of the nature-reporting hill. It’s not as if she’s had any real part in any adventures since Rivera took over. That’s a missed opportunity.

I was studying for an Italian test when I posted the Wednesday blog. Thus, I was distracted enough to miss a better title pun, “Beware the Idiots of March”, rather than going with the lame “Beware the Ides of March.”  But it’s too late to change it, so I lamely stuffed it in here. Let’s recall what Omar once wrote: “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.”

So we’re moving on. Okay, Listicle? How many of you knew what that meant?  I had to look it up:  An article based on a list of headings/titles/categories with supplemental text. Is this a necessary word?

It seems as if Mark “took my advice” and ditched the duds (for the most part) to do his job. Molto grazie, Rivera! This is a nature strip, not a game show. And it seems—on the surface—that Mark has solved the case in the first week on the job. Now that is efficient work! Therefore, he must be wrong.

Once again, Rivera seems to have gotten too enamored over “Reality TV” contrivances and has lost track of the storyline. Is she just making this up as she goes? I’m doubtful of that, since a fair bit of her background was in storyboarding; that is, outlining in graphic form, the development of a story or event.

No, I think she is just indulging in a preference for double-entendre and cheap laughs. This is not story development, but story padding and making fun of stereotypes. Wasting a week’s worth of strips. Again, why is Mark even concerned? He supposedly has his own agenda, which has been largely forgotten.

And speaking of being put aside, where is Cricket Bro’s brother, Jadsen? He was here earlier. Did he just start on the hike by himself or is he hiding in the bushes? Does anybody really care? Forget these idiots, Mark, and just do your job for once.

Okay, we finally find out who the gal with Prof. Bee Sharp is. I suspect that, in Rivera’s eyes, she is meant to satirize one of the thousands of gals on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok (BikBok!) who are self-declared experts on being hip, pretty, fashionable, or just au courant on whatever they want to talk about. In short, a bimbo. And that accounts for the grade-school behavior of those two losers.

What I don’t get is Trail’s sudden need to accompany these bozos, as if he’s their den mother. Why should he care one way or the other? This is not logical, Ms. Rivera! How will this help solve the attacking bears mystery, unless Trail thinks that bears prefer their meals to be on the narcissistic side? He should be happy they are leaving the area, since he was clearly bothered that they were here in the first place.

On the other  hand, I appreciate attention to detail when I find it, such as Rivera differentiating the backpacks the hikers are using. She could have given everybody the same “generalized” backpack.