Mark is called on by a Florida-based manatee rescue company to provide protection services and support so that they can release a marooned manatee in the wild before a manatee terrorist organization abducts it for their own nefarious purposes.
Public education is always under attack for one thing or another. Do they still teach grammar? Understanding the difference that word order can impart to meaning is an important skill for any writer, so let’s thank Jules Rivera for making this teachable moment possible. A “bear bandit” is somebody who steals bears. So is that what Skeeter really meant to say, class? Okay, students, submit your answers on my desk by the end of class. And be sure to use complete sentences!
Anyway, I’m not sure if Rita is bothered by Skeeter’s grammatical skills so much as being impressed with Skeeter’s ability to search the Internet with his digital camera. Or his ability to apparently hack into Florida’s secure DMV database.
But let’s move on. Our intrepid crew of ineptitude drives their continually-shrinking truck along the faux landscape setting of the Alfalfa Elementary School’s production of the play, “Go, Dog. Go!” on the way to the authorities. And once again, Max the Manatee is put on the back burner! By the time they actually get Max’s to his home waters, he will likely have shrunk about 70%. Some crisis!
“Gosh, darn! If we could only dump Max the Manatee, we would catch those fleeing bear bandits!”
In thrillers, mysteries, and crime dramas—at least on TV—it used to be that the perps were the ones who act stupid. Apparently, times have changed. Well …
…maybe it’s just me, but wasn’t the main goal here to avoid the bad guys, rather than chase them?
And doesn’t Max the Manatee need to return to his native habitat as quickly as possible?
Maybe I’m getting too old, but I just don’t get this part of the story. Mark thinks it’s okay to risk the health of Max the Manatee so he can chase a couple of costumed idiots into the bushes. Where are his supposed pro-wildlife priorities? What the hell would he do if he caught those bozos?
You know, Skeeter might be a first class moron, but at least he brought a camera along, which is more than I can say for “Mark Trail, nature journalist and wildlife photographer.” This makes Garfield look good.
Is this the secret to Mark’s Two Fist O’ Justice: Arms that bend like pipe cleaners? Anyway, looks like the snack stop is a bust as Rita and Skeeter come back empty-handed. I was sure looking forward to some of those Cheetos.
We can overlook the comedic art for a few moments while we consider the plot development … okay, that’s long enough. Still, Rita does raise a good point (panel 3), but Mark is more interested in responding like a dork, while making no sense. This includes his offhanded remark in panel 1 about “bearnappers.” Of course, these would-be abductors are not trying to kidnap bears, which is what the word implies. Perhaps Mark intends to follow up with a more helpful explanation tomorrow that doesn’t include a bad bear pun.
Art Dept. Another thing I’ve been noticing over time is Mark’s increasingly large eyebrows, reaching epic Groucho proportions. Maybe you noticed, too? Here he is in February 2024. I might be overstating the case a bit, as sometimes they are thin and sometimes they get fatter. Maybe it’s the amount of humidity or the time of year. It’s not a project I’m overly excited to perform, so I’ll just let this stand as an unsubstantiated observation.
Rocket Raccoon is apparently aghast, presumably at the totally slack safety standards that allowed this stupidity to occur.
But speaking of logic (or thinking about it), how come Bear-Man #1 is not coming to help Bear-Man #2? How come Rita and Skeezer are still AWOL?
Well, maybe the Rocket Raccoon reacts to the textual content.
I think we can all agree that the dialog and most of the narration today is weak, like a high school student trying to learn how to use similes and metaphors. Take the dialog in panel 2. The original “Wolf in sheep’s clothing” idiom was meant to suggest a person blending in with the crowd, only pretending to be like them. The idiom refers to a person’s duplicitous nature. But there is no “blending into the crowd” here, because everybody is not a bear or dressed in bear costumes. The bear-person is not pretending to be part of the crew, either. So this mixed-metaphor fails. And do mother bears really grab their young with their paws and yank them backwards? Like, I am no biologist, but I would bet not. More than likely, I think the mother would nudge the cub with her head (or mouth) or just swat little Boo-Boo into the closest bush.
I forget whether it was Mark the Contrarian or Daniel who used to complain about Rivera inserting narration boxes to describe the obvious (i.e. panels 3 and 4), but I agree.
Art Dept: I was surprised that nobody brought up the shape-shifting manatee truck, which seemed to change its size. Check out yesterday’s strip and compare panel 1 to panel 4. This is definitely not a case of foreshortening. Otherwise, it is not well-executed when you see that the truck in panel 1 is drawn at a more acute angle than in panel 4. I find no graphic reason for this abrupt resizing.
Rivera likes to employ a “one step-back, two-steps forward” technique used by writers and producers of serialized stories. As we see here, the first panel recaps prior activity. This kind of “as we saw last time…” technique normally finds its greatest value when the interval between installments is long enough for the summary to be helpful. However, Rivera uses this recall technique even when the interval is just one day, as we see here.
Does Rivera believe that her readers have that short of a memory? A cynical belief, if true. Or is Rivera employing this technique just to pad out the story?
Aside from my simple deconstruction, I think a bigger issue here is Where The Hell Are Rita and Skeeter!? After getting knocked down by the faux bear, did they just get up and head inside the store to buy Hot Cheetos and Big Gulps? They’ve had plenty of time to “recover” from getting pushed to the pavement.
But what happens if Bear #2 successfully steals the truck (along with Sam the Manatee)? Will Mark commandeer a car to follow it? Or maybe he will heroically leap onto the rear of the truck as it’s driving away and try to make his way to the cab.
Art Dept. Rivera normally has a decent sense of proportion and depth, but I don’t know what to say about panel 1 (see the January 3 strip for comparison). It’s like Rivera took saved images and simply pasted them onto the panel with little regard for cohesion. The less said about the flora, the better. Anything else (the strip or this blog) worth bringing up, dear readers?
Breaking Industry News: Tea Fougner, Editorial Director of King Features Syndicate, has left her position and the company, possibly for a variety of reasons (see comments for details). Fougner was responsible for bringing in Jules Rivera as part of a general shakeup of the syndicate and its online comics site. Will her replacement exert any influence on the future of Mark Trail? I imagine that Mark the Contrarian Commenter will be salivating at the possibility! (Source: The Daily Cartoonist.)
Well, if being right was money, I’d probably be poor. Now, if you bet against my prediction on the diversion, pay up! Then again, I think this situation was about as predictable as the return of Haley’s Comet. Apparently, Mark doesn’t follow astronomy, so he followed the diversion, instead. And what did he do when he finally discovered he’d been fooled? He stood still (panel 3) and issued a monologue for the sake of a joke.
The more clever of you readers will have also discerned that Mark apparently left the truck unlocked. All along we have seen an alarmingly shoddy regard for proper security measures, starting with hiring Mark instead of professional security. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an “inside” job. Ah ha! Another prediction and you heard it read it here, first!
Mark is finally on the “Save Max the Manatee” job at Storm Brain, the non-profit run by Rita and Skeeter. After some desultory rehashing of conspiracy threats by “The Whether Men”, it was time to hit the road in their specialized transport truck. Was Max the Manatee already in the truck or did he have to be picked up? That was left unsaid and we never saw Max. In fact, most of the dialog was about the kidnapping threat. They finally left, only to make a surprisingly unnecessarysnack stop at a gas station along the way. While there was no practical reason to stop for such a short drive, it’s the kind of staged moment we see in countless shows where the protagonists do something pointless so they can be caught off guard by the bad guys.
As Mark, Skeeter, and Rita got out of the truck, a hilariously “fake bear” jumped out of the bushes (How did he know where to be?), knocking down Rita and Skeeter. Mark was not deterred, but rushed the phony bear and removed its headpiece, exposing the person inside. Unless “The Whether Men” group is actually just one lone whacko, such an obviously inept attack has to be a diversion for a secondary raid on the truck. We’ll have to wait and see where Rivera takes the story.
Art Dept. Maybe some feedback got to Rivera or she acted on her own initiative, but I noticed that Rivera has been experimenting more frequently with using tones and shading in her panels, as seen in this newspaper version of Saturday’s strip. Whether these tones are applied primarily to give more texture to the colors, they certainly provide a welcome enhancement to the usual stark newspaper versions.
And now, on to the Sunday nature exposé!
Rivera produces another interesting topic, as well as a creative title panel. I found some supporting information on this topic on the Smithsonian and National Forest Foundation’s web sites. Of course, trees do not have brains or central nervous systems, so this interaction may be a function of their DNA. However, an article in Scientific American states that all of this is still very hypothetical and relies on limited studies. In fact, competition between trees for limited forest resources seems to be more common (as with humans and animals), and the sharing of “danger or stress signals” was based on a single study in a greenhouse, not in the wild. Tolkien may still be a bit too fanciful with his Ents, but the idea of some kind of communication network among trees is slowly taking root (sorry about that!).
I reckon that all of those prior instances of running from bears (as any sane person would do) pays off for Mark as he easily unmasks this absurd fraud, who didn’t even put up a fight. Yet Mark’s dramatic boast in panel 3 is uncalled for, given the hokey amateurishness of this assault and the obvious bear costume. Well, we’ll have to wait to find out if this Whether Men attack includes a follow-up. However, I doubt even a well-made bear costume supports variable emotional expressions like we see in panels 1 and 2.
Art Dept. Props for Rivera’s attention to details regarding the filling station in yesterday’s and today’s strips. Rivera even included those bump-outs atop the roof posts showing the pump numbers. It’s too bad that this attention did not extend to other elements in the panels.
Really!? Is this phony bear plot twistthe best Rivera could come up with? And why would these three stop for snacks (and maybe gas)!? They’re not driving to New Orleans! If we must have an abduction attempt, Rivera could at least make it more plausible. You know, like having Mark need to stop at a pharmacy to pick up some camera film because he never upgraded to digital. Then discover that he left his camera at home.
As for the phony bear, Rivera should know that Florida only has black bears, not brown bears. Shouldn’t Skeeter and Rita know this, as well? Or the Whether Men? Rita and Skeeter should also know that bears don’t act like monsters in a 1950s horror movie.
I suppose this would be a good time for Mark to make good on his Two Fists O’ Justice boast …
… however, this could also be a classic diversion: If Mark moves to take on the phony bear, the rest of the gang jumps into the truck and steals away. Best choice: Let Skeeter and Rita take care of the “bear”.
Finally, a belated thumbs up to reader Downpuppy for making me aware of the Harry Potter source for the names of these two characters. I just plumb missed the connection, having seen the movies years ago, but without reading the books. And I’ve never been good with proper names.
(January 2, 2025) Military commanders like to say that a plan never survives contact with the enemy. However, you need to have a plan in the first place, right? With all of the time that has passed between Mark learning about the assignment and right now, I would have thought the Storm Brain NPO could have put something together by now. Anything!
And just what the heck is going on in panel 1? Is this another instance of dialog balloons getting mismatched, intentionally or accidentally? As even a blockhead like me knows, “I’m glad you called me” isMark’s line. And that “brilliant” analysis that transit is the best time for grabbing Max could have come from non-other than the impulsive Skeeter. Of course, he is wrong. The best time to grab Max is now, while they are standing around plotting strategy. And the Whether Men won’t just grab Max; they will grab the truck with Max in it.
It’s really hard to not laugh at the sheer naivety of these people, acting like little kids participating in their first school football game. This storyline and dialog force me to consider whether Rivera is once again mocking her readers or maybe her syndicate. I’m not criticizing the basic story idea—which is just fine— but the way it’s being developed.
So, am I wrong (again)? Is my analysis off, or is there anything else on your mind?
Rivera brings in real events and (absurd) beliefs that have been in the news during 2024 (if not before). In the Real World, crackpots accuse meteorologists and the federal government of controlling weather, specifically, hurricanes. For this story, Rivera redirects that blame onto manatees. And not just manatees in general, butspecifically to Max the Manatee. Somehow, teaching climate change is wrapped up in this stew of stupidity.
I may be just a slow kid from Virginia, but I found Skeeter’s comment in panel 1 problematic. Based on that comment about the influence of teaching climate change, I don’t know if Rivera wants us to think that Skeeter is acting a bit too paranoid or if we are supposed to believe that the members of the Whether Men are even more mentally unbalanced than originally presented . Well, maybe Skeeter is a bit too involved, anyway, as he thinks Max is their manatee.
Panel 1: Everybody sing: Do you see what I see? <Do you see what I see?> Well, do ya?
So, the story moves on, though the forced dialog for the sake of a joke (panel 4) is meh. On the other hand, it’s a good facsimile of how regular people sound who don’t have the benefit of professional joke writers at their beck and call.
I’m wondering how come we see no interest in checking on Max the Manatee’s welfare, unless Max is not yet in the truck, but in a temporary holding tank someplace else, ready to be picked up.
Art Dept. Today’s strip is an improvement over yesterday’s work, as picked apart by commenter Be Ware of Eve Hill. In fact, Panel 1 presents a well-balanced, detailed composition. Sure, I could quibble about the blocky and heavily outlined bush beside the tree … and I will. If the aim here is to just present a sense of “bushiness”, then at least make the outline of the bush look less like something cut out by a kindergarten student using plastic scissors!
Compare the bush to the tree: It is not any specific type of tree, but at least its depiction of the trunk and canopy are naturalistic enough to create a plausible image. Here is a good example of plausible bushes and flora, from Rivera’s earlier work in November 2020.
Is Max the Manatee already in the rescue truck!? Hasn’t anybody been monitoring and guarding him all this time!?
Well, if this Storm Brain NPO is so connected, who needs Mark to publicize Max the Manatee? With Mark’s puny social media following (just a few hundred more than mine, I think!), it’s a wonder how his name even wound up at the top of any Internet search (see Saturday’s strip for that reference, if you missed it).
As for “getting” the manatee rescue truck, I assume they mean “renting” the truck, since the actual cost has to be pretty high (>$100,000), owing to its special construction and gear. There really are manatee rescue/transport trucks, by the way.
One such truck was featured in news stories in Palm Beach, Florida in 2022. The one pictured in this photo was donated to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which counts rescuing and tracking manatees as part of its mandate.
It bears a striking resemblance to the one Rivera drew. And that is perfectly fine, of course. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to.
Art Dept: For today, I’ll let you all handle that analysis.
Okay, how many of you reallydid an Internet search for “Manatee Fighter”!? Let’s see those hands! …well, I did, too, of course.
Needless to say, most of us are familiar with the many tales of Mark Trail: Manatee Fighter as relayed by Rivera’s predecessors. The earliest adventure was probably “Mark Saves Cherry Davis from pet Manatee.” Then there was the notorious “Don’t Manhandle My Manatee!” One of his more recent stories was “The Manatee Make-out Caper”, where criminal manatee kidnapers chase Mark, Carina, and Gabe the Manatee through a dangerous cave that took several months of newspaper time to traverse. Gabe was so feisty that Carina barely had an opportunity to flash her assets at Mark
It appears that there is more manatee backstory in Rivera’s Mark Trail that hasn’t yet made it to print. And I know a lot of you are hoping it remains that way..*
Now, keep in mind that Rivera’s MarkTrail is not yet the internationally known and respected nature reporter his “dad” was. This current incarnation of Mark is a fringe up-and-comer, eager to take on just about any project that will get him more exposure. That might also explain Mark’s willingness to continue moving between reporting and activism as well as crossing that red line of legality when he deems it necessary.
Internet: Speaking of Internet searches, you will not find the “Whether Men”, but you will find entries for “The Whethermen.” I’ll leave it to you to find out who they are and what they do.
* I hope readers realize this is just sarcasm. As far as I know, Mark has no manatee history.
I think we can all agree that there are some aspects to this “feel-good story of inspiration and hope” that don’t make a lot of sense (at this point). And I’m not referring to the fact that Rita and Skeeter immediately reintroduce themselves to Mark, after having just done so a moment before.
Skeeter and Rita claim their lives have been upended as a result of raising funds to transport Max back into the ocean. So … 1. Who put these two civilians in charge of arranging transportation? Are they qualified? 2. Wouldn’t the first people you turn to for a project like this be actual marine biologists and other specialists? (I think I mentioned this point, previously.) 3. Where the heck is Max right now? According to Bill Ellis (see the December 6 strip), Max had already been removed from the freshwater pool and put into a van (“Oh The Hu-Manatee! Manatee Movers”) apparently containing sufficient ocean water to keep it healthy and alive. So why wasn’t Max immediately driven to the ocean and put back? Did they have to put up a GoFundMe page to buy gas?
The needs of the story outweigh the needs of logic and reality.
4. Still, why contrive the context of two aspirational meteorological educators working in underprivileged schools when Rivera could have fashioned a more plausible setting by making them members of an underfunded marine biology research center, a zoo, or the Department of Natural Resources? Heck, any of these positions would be even more likely to receive threats and harassment from conspiracy theorists and other nut jobs.
I reckon we might want to gear up for an Armadillo Sunday. And it’s nice that Mark was able to tear himself away from his family chit-chat long enough to get to the emergency situation he was sent down here for. I’m glad to see I was wrong about the stalling continuing. Rivera actually is moving the story along!
You’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, conventional wisdom says. We shouldn’t prejudge these hipsters employed by the Manatee Transportation Company as if they are anything like those laughably bad “hippie” portrayals that were a common staple in the old Dragnet TV show. Still, are these two people marine biologists or veterinarians? If not, where are the scientists? There are two more days this week where Rivera can introduce some support staff. But then again, if we insisted upon strict realism and proper protocols, where would the fun be? Mark is in the Land of Lunatics, Scammers, and Oddballs, so let the weird begin!
<Sigh!> Will this desultory dialog mark the content of the week? (To paraphrase Rusty, see what I did there!?) Rivera tends to parse her stories into weekly chunks, a simple and convenient technique that functions as book chapters. But do we need an entire chapter devoted to this phone call? That is to say, if Mark is off on some important and potentially dangerous assignment (according to Bill Ellis), is distracting Mark with Peach’s bipolar ex-boyfriend a really good idea right now?
Long-time readers of Mark Trail know that Mark has a long history of dealing with poachers, so even just mentioning the word is enough to set him off, as we see here!
Historical Note: Interesting use of the slang, “moxie” in panel 4. I remember it as a popular term often used in MAD Magazine when I was growing up. In case it isn’t obvious, the term refers to personal audacity, nerve, or spunk. The term originated in a once-popular beverage of the same name that was advertised as “nerve food” and a health beverage.
Here it is Christmas Eve and Rivera wastes another day on meaningless drivel that does not move Mark’s story one iota farther along. So today we see a possible example of Mark’s narcissism, as played out in panel 4. Should we take his statement seriously? Perhaps Mark is just being melodramatic to evoke more sympathy from Cherry. Otherwise, Mark is developing an alarming sense of self-importance. Sarcasmmight also explain the narration box containing that hackneyed phrase “Thoughts and Prayers”, normally reserved for people at death’s door or for their survivors.
Anyway, what is Mark talking about in panel 4? Nowhere does Bill Ellis assign the role of manateebodyguard to him. Instead, Ellis simply pointed out some dangers related to the assignment. Even Bill Ellis knows that Mark is just a reporter (or “journalist” if you want to be charitable), not a Navy Seal or trained bodyguard.
Hoo-boy, a plate of crow for me. Now I can see a really good reason to keep these characters in their normal, identity-based clothing. And there is Mark in bed wearing pajamas, which brings up another point: What the heck time is it, anyway!? Unless Lost Forest is west of Georgia, they’re both in the Eastern time zone. Mark is ready for bed, while Cherry and Rusty are dressed to go … someplace: Christmas Service, perhaps? An invitation to a 1950s social dinner at the Sunny Soleil Society?
It’s really disappointing that Rivera builds up a story of a manatee-in-crisis down in Florida that demands Mark’s immediate cooperation and participation; yet, wastes a day giving us nothing but a pointless throwaway strip with Mark loafing around in bed at a time when everybody else is still in their day clothes.
Gag me with a spoon! Okay, I get the joke; it’s actually a funny contrast and it doesn’t involve a lame pun. I’m impressed that Rivera carried it off. I might even go so far as to think that panel 1 is also a dig on pre-Rivera departure scenes where Mark and Cherry are always so lovey-dovey. It’s an attractive and plausible scenario, but that may be reading too much into it. Do you agree or not?
The Daily Trail 