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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.

So Cherry’s sisters arrive just as Mark leaves? Some coincidence!

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Taking out a lot of the pointless and repetitious dialog, I think Rivera could have reduced the current sequence of strips to three days. Yet, arising out of all that bland chit-chat I believe we see the beginnings of Cherry’s next story come to light. With the arrival of Cherry’s sisters I reckon we should get ready for more sibling fighting. Still, I’m anxious to see if Rivera fleshes the sisters out a bit more.

Speaking of which, why didn’t Mark already know about their visit? Do spouses really invite relatives to visit without clearing it with their Significant Other? If I tried that, I’d be the one staying in a motel.

Unofficially, Lost Forest is supposed to be in or around Georgia. So why is there a moose hanging around (panel 4)? It really has to be lost to have wandered down that far south, especially given the moose’s preference for colder climates. Based on last Sunday’s nature study, Rivera had to know about the moose’s habitat. I reckon in her zeal to integrate animals from the Sunday topics into the dailies (or vice-versa), Rivera must have forgotten a few inconvenient facts.

What the government won’t tell you! Send $49.95 for the truth!

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Hmm, let me see if I grasp the essentials:  Mark was told that a group of conspiracy nut jobs think this particular ocean-based manatee was chipped by the government to help track and control weather. Okay, that conforms with the kind of stupid ignorance we see on social media and some news networks.

Furthermore, as Max the Manatee is in danger of being abducted, it also makes perfect sense to send Mark Trail the Nature Journalist to Florida to protect it, rather than employ armed guards, for example.

But if there is any hope for sanity and logic, Mark’s idea of being a guardian will turn out to be a fantasy when Mark discovers there is already a crew of private security along for the ride to the ocean, and he’ll be restricted to actually just being a reporter.

Mark does his imitation of Honest Ernest

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To get this out of the way, today is just rubbish in terms of story development. Mark inexplicably thanks Cherry again for the ride then immediately jumps into how wonderful a guy he is. A “guardian” he calls himself? What qualifies him as a guardian of a manatee when there are scores of professional marine biologists at hand? Maybe he means “bodyguard.”

Mark seems to have an overstated sense of self-worth and importance. I’m not sure where the narcissism comes from, since we have not seen much of this behavior in the past. What is Rivera’s motive here? Maybe, just maybe, Mark is being portrayed as sarcastic, but we’ll need to see some evidence for that interpretation. But this is the kind of annoying boasting that leads to embarrassment and failure. In fact, this is generally how Honest Ernest is portrayed.

Art Dept. Today’s drawing is nowhere near as sad as yesterday’s. With the exception of the mirror and door handle, panel 1 is actually well composed and drawn. The angle of the truck and proximity of the interior is close enough to easily see Mark and Cherry while still leaving room for dialog. It helps that panel 1 is a double-wide. Panel 3, however, is another story. Both figures are way too small in scale for the truck. In fact, Cherry looks really bulimic.

Mark packs a business suitcase but still dresses like a lumberjack.

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An all-too-common complaint is Rivera’s supposed lack of artistic ability. I don’t believe that. I think it is deliberate. We have seen many some examples of finely crafted panels. However, today is not one of those days. The everyday banality of the scene, itself, is perfectly fine and hardly different from similar pre-Rivera scenes, except for the difference in Cherry’s attitude. It’s nice to see that Cherry is not the mewing, tearful housewife of “the old days.” Rivera’s attempts to create “greeting card” maxims (panel 3) is the only real jarring text.

Art Dept. Here is where, once again, I am perplexed and frustrated. From the cabin bedroom in panel 1 to the outdoor scene of panel 3, if you removed Mark and Cherry, I’d almost swear I was looking at panels from Snuffy Smith and Li’l Abner. Well, maybe not quite that good. Panel 3 is especially galling in its crudeness. It makes me wish Rivera would go back to using clipart and tracings. Is this another case of “Gotta go, surf’s up.”? Or maybe a challenge to the syndicate to see how much she can get away with? This is the kind of stuff that draws out regular scanner, Mark the Contrarian Commenter. Except that I stole his thunder.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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As Cherry and Mark celebrated the completion of the catio, resolving the issue of where to keep the cache of found kittens (and possibly their mother, though I’m not certain), Mark received his usual just-in-time phone call from Bill Ellis. Interesting how that always seems to happen. Have we ever seen an instance of Mark getting a call from Bill while he was in the middle of a project or adventure?

Bill engages Mark to head to crazy-land (Florida) to assist/report/confound the transportation of Max the Manatee back to the ocean from his landing in a resort pool as the result of recent storms and/or floods.

The problem:  It seems there are some militant anti-climate activists that have been making threats to the company moving Max, because meteorology is evil. What that has to do with Max the Manatee is a mystery. But Mark is gung-ho to go and help save Max! Not that we know exactly what Mark is supposed to do or why, but if this sounds whacko, remember two things: The action takes place in Florida and this is just another Mark Trail story.

A nicely-composed title panel leads us into this brief presentation, including some sound advice for presumptuous tourists and distracted drivers. You likely won’t run into a moose unless you live in or visit the upper United States, Canada, or northern Europe. As bad as it is to collide with a moose on the road, colliding with something as small as a deer on the road can also be dangerous to drivers and bikers. I always get a bit nervous and cautious driving through forested areas, especially in the Fall during mating season. When driving in northern Minnesota, the only way I want to see a moose on the road is in my rearview mirror!

Just when you think it is safe to move a manatee ….

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Another twist in the story:  A conspiracy theory that meteorology is evil. Sure, why not? There are plenty of real world, goofy—that is to say, paranoid and stupid—claims about government controlling the weather. Real meteorologists get harassed and receive death threats. And what does a business that moves manatees have to do with meteorology, anyway? Sometimes I wonder if the Middle Ages really ever ended.

I’m sure if scientists could figure out a way to mitigate weather and climate extremes, we’d all benefit. The idea that government wants to make weather worse is just plain moronic, especially since government resources (including taxpayer dollars) have to be used to assess and fix the damage. Nope! Government prefers to spend our money on more dependable projects, such as the Military, congressional pork barrels, and energy industry subsidies.

But Mark is correct:  Florida is one of the Capitals of Crazy. Still, what the heck is Mark’s role in this incident? He is not in law enforcement, not a trained bodyguard, and not a private detective. So, I’m quite anxious to see just what he will do when he gets to the scene of the slime.

Bill dribbles out a little more detail about Mark’s assignment

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Ding! Ding! Ding! One of our longtime commenters, Downpuppy, expressed more or less the same flashback thought in Wednesday’s comments that Mark expressed today in panel 3:

Indeed, Downpuppy! Now today’s strip does clear up one thing:  Bill Ellis stipulates in panel 2 that Max the Manatee “needs a quick ride back to the ocean.” That means he was originally blown out of the ocean and into the wave pool. I suppose Max must have gotten his name after being tagged by marine biologists.

I have presumed Max the Manatee is male. Bill Ellis also refers to Max that way. But what does he know!? That assumption could have been wrong, as there are plenty of women with the name or nickname “Max.” Perhaps that’s what Mark was thinking of in panel 3 regarding his concern over an inopportune birth event.

Mark gets his assignment!

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We should note that this time, Bill Ellis only wants Mark to go to Florida to “cover the story”, as opposed to saving Max. Naturally, Mark ignored this nuance and immediately went into his “Save the Wildlife!” mode. This is why I think it would be a good idea if Mark’s job description changed from reporter to fixer. Mark doesn’t seem too interested in journalism, anyway.

It also seems to me that Max the Manatee will have already been saved by the park’s staff or given a burial at sea before Mark can get down there, especially with all that traffic and horrible parking.

Now, where did that weird park name come from, I wondered. I did a bit of searching and discovered the “Zoom Flume Water Park” in East Durham, NY. In addition, there is the “Universal Volcano Bay”water theme park in Orlando, Florida.

Art Dept. Rivera customized the two central panels where the lower parts take on the look of traditional thought balloons. Is Rivera trying to get artsy? Nope. I think she is just customizing the panel shapes to reflect that they represent a flashback of sorts for the story Bill Ellis is recounting. That is, an extension of the mental thought balloon that Bill Ellis displays in panel 1.

Hey, man! Don’t have a sea cow! 

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Well, okay! Mark gets another paying gig. He can pay off the plane tickets to D.C. and once again escape the confines of Lost Forest for a while, where he can rely on his usual seat-of-the-pants decision-making.  

Frankly, I don’t know why Mark keeps up the pretense of being a wildlife journalist when he is actually more of a fixer. That is, he’s a problem solver who gets dumped into a situation and told to fix it. This could be a great secondary covert role for Mark and expand the potential of the strip: Mark gets called in by the Dept of the Interior from time to time to resolve issues they cannot officially touch. Mark would not be allowed to even tell Cherry. 

Art Dept. It’s quite clear that Rivera does her best figurative work in closeups. We can quibble about the exaggerated expressions of Mark in panels 2 and 3, but ignoring the lack of shading or volume, they are well executed, especially panel 3.

Drawing a foreshortened head from below is tricky to do, especially if you want to keep the proportions intact.  On the right is a comparable drawing by James Allen from his infamous bat cave chase (April 2016).  Allen is a competent artist more in line with Dodd than Elrod. Mark’s upturned face is good, but its proportions do not track that close with the rectangular Mark Trail Head.

At the same time, Rivera’s drawing is simpler and the lines less expressive. This is most likely because Allen probably used a conventional ink pen and/or brush, whereas Rivera tends to use a graphic drawing tablet.