I am suddenly reminded (by what I couldn’t tell you…) of the bear that gnawed on Cherry’s shoulder in the epic yarn of “Wes and Shelley go camping and light the forest on fire…”  So here we are again with a bear playing bad (breaking bad??) in hot pursuit of our hero, who is running as fast as he can with a bad wing and only bipedal locomotion at his disposal…  and what happens?  Why Mark is about to go DOWN, boys and girls.  That random exposed root (in a rye field??) is going to bring him to his knees for sure!  And the reflex action of Mark throwing his arms forward to break his fall will only drive his left shoulder deeper out of whack… OUCH!

But where would we be with Rex, now the “Territorial Grizzly?”  Mark is about to introduce “Cranky Black Bear with sore foot” to “Get off my Cloud Rex” in hopes that he can stand back and watch the battle, confident that he will no longer be the main course…But of course, Rex being “old” would suggest that he may not be a match for CBB, or may even have gone home to the great honey pot in the sky!

…and Mark, you are no Chuck Norris…  So rather than stare down the angry beast and make it high-tail out of there… you let your fear show and choose to run… Hoping that What? That “Old Rex the Grizzly” will help you out?  Brilliant, Mark.  What on earth have you ever done for Rex, and you may be giving that Old Bear way too much credit…

Got to hand it to James Allen…  Mark has become a much deeper character under his pen than he ever was under the doddering Dodd and Elrod…  and while in the past every strip would have the obligatory, throw-away nature shot, Nature is now featured, front and center, made part of the plot, and drawn with the danger and ferocity that it deserves!  Oh my!  Look at the ruby red tongue and saliva dripping from the pursuing beast…  Hopefully Mark can maintain a 20 MPH pace all the way to the bluff, otherwise he’s toast!

Never probably in the history of the internet have Mark and Chuck shared the same page.  I am proud to bring them together…  Never occurred to me how much these guys have in common- the least of which is not their propensity to bring down bad guys with their fists of steel and the occasional crab-kick…

Now of course the problem is back- the crabby bear with the pinched paw…  And inasmuch as this blog is all about “What Would Mark Do,” right now Mark, you need to be asking yourself, “What Would Chuck Do?”  Jeez, I don’t know…  I doubt whether Walker Texas Ranger ever had to fight off an angry bear…  but who knows??  <check this out Mark, this might give you a clue…>

Cutter’s Bluff… you never looked so good!  Is it me, or does it look like Mark is about to break into song??   Meanwhile back at the flat tired Jeep, Cherry and Dusty (but not Rusty) are just as worried as can be!!  And there’s Mark all slinged-up and sauntering.  Yes, SAUNTERING through a “rye field…”  If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye…  Holden Caulfield, where are you??

Sorry gang, a little delirious today.  Brain firing in random sequences.  Not to dwell on Mark’s bare bodkin, but seriously.  We haven’t seen this much flesh in all the years leading up to this moment…

Offered thought:  “Does Mark have a Total Gym at home?  Does he know Chuck Norris or Christie Brinkley??”

And finally from the Comics Curmudgeon:  “Mark Trail is in newspapers everywhere walking around with no shirt on, which seems like it should be at least as big a news story as this missing plane thing.”

OK, Mark you are navigating by looking at the rising sun…  basic skills.  But your thought makes no sense.  The more I read it the less sense it makes…  Knowing which way is which (sun rises in the east…) is only one step in knowing which direction you need to go…  One needs to orient oneself to the map (mental or otherwise) and then establish the bearing…  Never mind the fact that you know this land, are familiar with where major landmarks are relative to home (I recall you pointing out every animal and geographical feature leading up to your current predicament…) you should be focused on landmarks in order to get a bearing…

And are your squinting in panel one?  Grimacing from your shoulder pain? You can’t really see the tracks with your eyes closed, can you Mark?  But such a build!!  Holy cow.  This may be the first shirtless example of our hero…

And completely as an aside to this current story, I don’t think that James Allen has drawn Rusty since taking over the strip… Since April 11, not a single shot of the shape-shifting imp…

Well of course it’s an angry and unreasonable and wounded bear that keeps coming after Mark when clearly Mark did nothing to rile or threaten it… And the bear was wounded by… Poachers again!  Well, I hope these are interesting poachers, since this is exactly the same entry point as the last 100 story arcs in the Trailverse…  But some things have not changed.  Dusty could have just called Mark, but instead planned to make a day out of delivering the news that there are poachers about… I mean, what else is there for a Ranger to do?

As for story ideas, why not take on the Keystone XL pipeline, or Climate change, or something topical like that?  I know, it’s all very risky since Mark Trail would have to take a stand on these controversial items and weigh in the “Settled Science” aspect of it all…  Keep the carbon in the ground, or let it out and allow man to continue to seal his own fate… Keep the carbon in the ground and make us all figure out how to power our devices with wind and solar energy…  We need to know where you stand on this stuff, Mark.  We really need to know.

Broad daylight again; when last we saw Cherry, it was pretty dark out… Did she spend the entire night pondering the flat tire and it took her until daybreak to think to call Ranger Dusty??  Well at least she changed into real BLUE Jeans before she headed out… And she appears to be more adept at holding and using a cell phone than Mark and that Newspaper guy are…

But again time is a confusing concept.  Dusty says he “was planning on coming by tomorrow to speak with Mark.”  Does that mean literally after another sunset, moon rise, moon set and sun rise?  Maybe it’s just that the people who colorize this strip need to be able to read English and understand what backgrounds to put in.  Or is it that the Sun always rises on Cherry?  No, because she arrived at Obie Falls in the dark…OH so confusing!!

… an Escalade?!? What the?  That’s a $60,000 vehicle if it costs a dime!  NVOS.  No visible means of support.  Is Mark on salary at the magazine?  Doubt it, and if he is it can’t be much.  Cherry doesn’t work, and I can’t imagine that Doc Davis’ patient docket is that full…  so how is it that the two are driving around in such finery??  I mean, look at the WHEELS on that truck!  They have to be 22’s at least!!  Total after-market upgrade!

And now that it’s dark again, the plot really thickens.  No way Mark will be able to hear Cherry over the roar of Obie Falls…  Good of her to notice right away that the Jeep has a flat, but then based on her ride, we can see that wheels and tires are her thing…

…on Lost Forest.  When last we saw Mark, there was a full moon rising, bathing our hero in its glow.  Now we are back at the big house and it looks to still be full daylight.  And Cherry has seen fit to wear her pink jeans with matching pink belt and pink blouse…

More thought balloons.  C’mon… doesn’t anyone talk out loud to no one in particular anymore?   I miss that.  And boy, that’s an interesting expression in panel two.  From outright concern in panel one to what?  Is that anger, frustration, suspicion?  Panel three is pure resignation, as if you can hear the heavy sigh that accompanies the realization that, again, Cherry will either sleep alone tonight or, this time, she will go out in search of her man…

Paybacks are a bitch, Mark…  by now Cherry is so used to you NOT coming home she’s barely giving your absence a second thought… “probably chasing some tail,” or “on some bad guy’s trail,” she’s no doubt thinking to herself as she rolls over an hugs the pillow…  “but that’s my man…”

Meanwhile, back in the tree, Mark’s backside is growing impossibly numb as his opportunities to shift position are extremely limited…  looks like he managed to shinny himself a little farther up that tree…  He sure is in a pickle, though.  Trusty dog back home, cell phone with improbable range and coverage is in the jeep, shirt now turned into a sling, exposing the left haymaker…  looks like Mark might be sporting a wife-beater t-shirt…

OK, that’s enough!  Too much inner monologue…  this is just strange.  I want Mark Trail to talk out loud!  All these though balloons are freaking me out.

As Mark sizes up his attacker (three-and-one-half bills!!) he reminds us of the Bear’s injured foot.  I follow these things pretty closely (OK, too closely I am sure) and unless that Bear arrived with the injured foot, I don’t know where that came from.  That’s good, I guess, but now Mark is going to have to what? Live the rest of his life in a tree?  If he can manage to get himself slinged up and not fall off that skinny branch then he’s a better man than me.  But then I guess he’s a better man than most, if not all…

Does James Allen enjoy torturing Mark?  I mean seriously…

This doesn’t look good, boys and girls…  Mark’s got a bad wing and that Bear, for whatever reason, has his number…  It’s all terribly surreal… with the all the background turning a lovely shade of green.  Almost a dream sequence…  Wait- that’s it!  Mark is going to wake from a nap and realize that not only is he NOT being chased by a bear, he NEVER SAID ANY OF THOSE THINGS TO CHERRY!!! PHEW!! That really was a close one!!

Once again, Mark proves that you can’t keep him or his hair down for long… and it’s great that he has the quick-dry denim…  again, not sure where the bear acquired the “injured foot,” maybe he arrived that way.  But at least it slows him down a touch and allows Mark to fire off a few more thought bubbles.  What Mark wouldn’t give to run into Ol’ Eddie the small-time poacher right now.  Even a small caliber bird gun would be enough to drive this Black Hairy Menace off…

I DO like the artwork, though!  Especially the colors.  VERY dramatic.  Keep running Mark, it’s your only chance…

So now that you have tested your bad shoulder, maybe you see that doing yoga is not the best idea at this point…  And good heavens.  You aren’t out of the woods yet, are you Mark?  I guess I have never thought about that phrase having a literal meaning, but now I see that it does…

Such anguish, such feeling.  This is not my father’s (or mother’s) Mark Trail!  I am glad that Mark seems to know who he is and what’s going on, although I wonder how whacking the bear on the head causes it to LIMP…  Not to suggest other thoughts, but perhaps something like “I may have slowed that Old Bear down a bit, but it’s STILL coming after me!”  might be a bit more on the mark…  Note the use of the word “Old” as opposed to the term of affection “Ol’”  Mark knows that this bear is not his friend.  Why doesn’t he have Andy with him?  The big dog could have taken care of this in a flash!!

Poor Mark!  “Oh, life is like that.  Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.”  (OK, that was the adult Ralphie from “A Christmas Story…”  and that’s when the Bumpas Hounds descended upon the turkey sitting on the kitchen table…)  In mark’s case, it’s a tumble over the falls and an apparent separated shoulder…

Glad you made it clear that it’s your left shoulder…  otherwise it looks like you might be thinking of starting to rip off a set of one-armed push-ups… but actually there are thought balloons galore in this sequence…  At least we know what is going on inside the Trail-head… we could have had a series of narration boxes along the top of the strip, but we get to hear it right from the nature-writer’s brain!!

And to acknowledge the eagle-eyes of others drawn to this lunacy, it DOES appear that Mark’s face is MELTING in the third panel!!

James Allen catches us up…  but wait- Mark DESPERATE??  Never.  He was always in control.  And we know one thing for sure- Nature always provides.  The symbiotic relationship between Trail and the natural world has been shown and proved countless times in the past… Which is exactly why I am not concerned that mark “stumbled” and has now gone over the edge of the falls…

Although it doesn’t look so much like a stumble as it does a celebratory moon-walk… as in, “Oh yea, I got your number, I caved your head, I’m the king… OOPS! What the?!? Oh crap here I go…”  But don’t fear boys and girls, The strip is, after all, NAMED AFTER our falling hero.  He will be fine…

The previously brown, now black bear, not Ol’ Rex the Grizzly, takes one on the noggin from Ol’ Mark… Good thing that Stick grew in length, width and weight compared to what we saw Mark diving for yesterday…  That ought to send a message…  Doesn’t this Bear realize WHO he’s (or she’s) dealing with?  I AM TRAIL!  DO NOT CROSS ME!  I HAVE A NEW ILLUSTRATOR and he still has some testosterone in his blood!

I must say, that second panel is well drawn…  you can see the intensity on Mark’s face, the size and girth and muscle mass of the Bear.  Heck, even Mark seems to have bulked up a bit in response to this Call of the Wild…  Ah such lusty tales he can tell back at the house where Cherry awaits, confused and trembling…

ROWWR says Mr. Bear!  I find that Mark’s style of running in frame one a little curious… it’s almost as if he has tripped and is going down!  But on second glance, this was the only way to fit all of him into the frame along with the bear, who by design runs on all fours…  Or perhaps Mark sees the stick lying on the ground up ahead and he is making a dive for it!

Will we actually see Mark tomorrow haul off and whack the Bear on the shnozzola?  I am sure that’s what he has in mind- his one and only “chance…”  The artwork by James Allen is more intense, more foreboding…  The anguish on Mark’s Face is palpable…  I am back and will now stay for a while!

Spare not one drop of green ink, boys!  Not one drop of perspiration, let’s have 10!  It’s not “Rex, the Ill Tempered Grizzly,” it’s a BLACK BEAR… and it’s not happy with Mark being on its turf…

And you are right, Mark…  Something IS wrong.  Saturday that bear was BROWN, and today that bear is jet black!

A black Bear can run, what?, 20 MPH?  and out-climb anything on two legs…  so unless Mark has somehow become a master at bending time, his time may soon be up…  Gee whiz, Mr. Allen, way to lull us into a sleep before springing instant fight-or-flight, Cortisol-inducing terror!

I can think of any number of ways to get the flat away from the drop-off…  and what on earth has anyone done to “enrage” the bear, unless there are cubs involved, or something like that…

But OK, let’s play along.  We needed SOMETHING to go down here… another day without any drama was going to test my ability to return and read another installment!