Mark and Happy continue to sit side-by-side at some kind of big table, as if they are at a conference. But is this inside or somewhere outside of the house? It’s a strange look. Clearly, the F&W officer is being snarky. Some behind-the-drawing board interrogation has been going on and we’re getting only the summation.  Is Mark is too poor to rent an SUV? How could he afford cross-country airline tickets?

Story-wise, the Saturday strip ends in some kind of corny Hallmark Moment, recalling traditional Mark Trail post-adventure reunions. In other words, where is the edginess that the Reboot is supposed to deliver? Is Rivera bowing to traditional expectations or is she mocking them?

Anyway, this kind of special moment normally takes place after a story ends and Mark comes home for a few days. This may not be the conclusion of the adventure, as there are loose ends to resolve. But Rivera likes to weave multiple story threads, so this could be just the end of the Cricket Bro-NFT story arc. We still have the final resolution of The Seaside Specter to process; the Happy Trail-Crypto Bro business relationship to dissolve; and discover whether the Trail family will stick around for an actual vacation.

Is Happy Trail trying to push his cricket bars on the fish and wildlife officer? That’s a rather shabby, but bald, action that could go sideways, or could be laughed at. I reckon this whole thing has worked out like most of Mark’s vacations: anything but.

One other observation: Both on Tuesday and today, we have seen the F&W officer framed in a white outline. Clearly, this is to help ensure we see the background action in each panel as a visualization of the officer’s testimony. It’s a good technique.

As is common in Mark Trail stories, a lot of details fall by the wayside, especially at or near the end of an adventure, and it appears that Rivera has kept up this dubious tradition of her predecessors. And there are several problems today. How is it that the game warden knows to refer to the brothers as the “Crypto Brothers”? Why does Happy Trail think Mark is also a good friend of the Crypto Brothers? How is it that Happy Trail does not understand why they would cut out without letting him know? And did the Crypto Brothers perform with Kiss?

I wonder whether Mark or Cherry ever got the business relationship between Happy Trail and those two grifters severed. Seems they were too busy doing other things, as far as I have seen.  It would have been simpler and more effective to have hired a lawyer to take care of things; but then, there would hardly be this story to tell. The story is not yet over, but it does present an interesting situation where Mark is not always successful. In fact, Mark attempted to sabotage the only real effort (by somebody else) to put a stop to the Crypto Brothers’ scheme.  Can Mark overcome these issues and finish up in the black?

More mattress-stuffing, as even Happy Trail acts stupefied to hear the news. And why is Mark excited, having written and talked about beavers as firefighters in the past? It’s too bad that only the two Trails are here, leaving the warden to have to repeat this information to everybody else. No, wait. Mark will want that pleasure, I think. So, where is everybody else?

Maybe the Bunco Brothers are down by the river snapping photos of beavers for a new series of NFTs.

I realize I am on vacation, but did I miss a day? Are they talking about the recent fire or the lumber mill fire? We’ve already been over why this had to be a new fire and not a continuation of the lumber mill fire. So why is Mark all up in arms, literally, about his father? He didn’t seem too concerned about his father during the event fire! And why does Dad need help talking to a game officer? Is he now senile?

After watching the 60 minutes episode last night on petty bureaucratic problems with deploying the Chinook helicopter as a fight fighting tool in California, maybe that state should just let a lot more goats and beavers loose in its forests, like they do up in Oregon! And the US Forestry Service can replace its pointless bear icon with Smokey the Beaver, an animal that has an actual positive role in firefighting.

We finish out the week with The Seaside Specter once again mysteriously disappearing, as Rusty is located and rescued by Mom and Dad. Ho-hum. No concerns about Happy Trail’s safety, it seems. I’m truly glad that, surrounded by a raging forest fire burning everything around then and sending people running in all directions, the Trail Family can find the time to stand around for group hugs. Maybe Happy shows up to get them outta there.

Rivera informs us that Professor Bee Sharp’s warning about the Scam Brothers went unnoticed, as they somehow still raked in the cash with their Monkey NFT Event.  Good does not always triumph.

So, we’re at a junction in the storyline. Do we continue with the fire story arc?  Do we follow Mark Trail Tradition and jump ahead to the next day? Or go with the venerable “we temporarily interrupt this story to set up the next adventure” direction? I reckon we’ll find out Monday!

This may sound self-serving and phony, but I actually did consider mentioning the Seaside Specter yesterday as a possible candidate to rescue Rusty, but more as a throwaway joke than a serious prediction. I went with Kelly, instead. But who is playing the Seaside Specter? I’m thinking it’s The Professor. My luck, it will be Happy Trail.

The larger concern here is that Rusty’s Adventure has dribbled out here and there. You see it and you’re not sure if Rusty is just filling in a few panels for Mark, or if Rivera is turning from Mark to give Rusty his due.  Allen certainly gave Rusty co-star billing in the Mexican Smuggling Caper a few years ago. I think this iteration of Rusty might be a tad younger than his predecessor, which might explain the difference. On the other hand, Rivera has plausibly linked Rusty’s cryptid hobby into the Oregon Vacation story.

You sharp-eyed readers surely noticed that Rivera spelled “Crash” with a “C” today, not a “K”, which supports my flimsy hypothesis that her exploding EUV is probably a German car. Not that it really matters, but how else to explain “Krash” and “Krack” (for the EUV’s windshield)?

Moving on, forest fires are known to sometimes move very fast, so I reckon we can’t dismiss the speed with which this event site is now aflame.  I’d criticize Rusty’s choice of a safe place (the wooden halfpipe), but he is just a kid. And just maybe that sheet of wood prematurely falling on Rusty really is heavier than it looks. Just another example of the slipshod work that the Crypto Brothers demand.

But we ask, who will come to his rescue? Mark already performed one fire-based rescue. What about the three girls? It’s doubtful; they were older and probably had the good sense to run in the opposite direction of the fire.  I think it comes down to Pappy Happy. He’s the only one not accounted for, unless we discover that Kelly Welly is also working this gig.

This might look like we are seeing things wrap up, but I doubt it. Now, why would Rusty be in danger, unless he is in danger of losing his innocence? And about time, too!   Aside from the approaching forest fire, there are several other issues that require Mark’s attention. Oh, you can list them as well as I can, so I won’t bother. Besides, I’m on vacation, so I can be a little lazy now and then.

But at the top of my Resolution List is that all of these West Coast Crazies disappear from the strip for at least a year to make room for new faces and new personalities. I think Rivera has gotten enough satire and wackiness out of these people as she can for the near future.

Dang! Even Professor Bee Sharp can’t help pontificating in a crisis. He’s out-Trailing Mark!  And an interesting choice, isn’t it, to have The Professor be the one to extricate Cricket Bro, rather than Mark. This is one of Rivera’s positive mods to the strip, where Mark is not always the singular heroic figure, doing all of the rescuing and hero-type actions on his own. However, Rivera might have done a bit more research on what front-end crashes look like.

Is this the same fire that started at the lumber mill?! If so, shouldn’t they have seen it over the past several days? The May 9 strip showed what appeared to be firemen working on the fire, so we are given to believe that fire was extinguished. Would Mark and family be so cavalier as to leisurely hang around if it was still a threat?

Speaking of cavalier, the people in panel 1 are certainly dedicated or completely jaded if they can still just stand around after Cricket Bro just raced across the lawn to try and run over two people. Even a fiery crash apparently did nothing to excite them enough to go over and take a look.

Employing one of Rivera’s standard compositions in panel 2, Trail and Sharp look upon the crashed car, but not out of veneration. Instead, it portends a bad omen that Cricket Bro is locked in an electric car. This must mean getting him out is going to be problematic. Problems on top of problems. Not a good day for anybody, except maybe Professor Sharp. Hmm….

The crowd of hopeful investors stands in front of the “setting sun” band shell as they watch the more interesting action going on in the foreground. It’s one thing to be involved in various scams; but another to actually move on to attempted murder. Or so it seems.  This must be a German EUV because it crashed with a K instead of a C.

This dramatic overreaction almost certainly will lead to an equally animated reaction on the part of the crowd, but not before Trail (and maybe Sharp) rescues Cricket Bro, as needs must. All in all, this is not your father’s (or your own former) Mark Trail, with its simpler, black & white (predominantly white) opponents. This is more like global realpolitik, where your former enemy becomes an ally, or vice-versa.

So, what will the situation be when they pull Cricket Bro out of the wreck? Do Mark and Sharp decide to save him from an angry crowd?

Rights make strange bedfellows. Sharp and Trail were dangerous rivals early on, and still have a strong distrust for each other. They both want to stop the cricket brothers, but from different motives and with different means. So, Mark finds himself trying to stop Sharp from exposing the two brothers out of concern for his dad’s safety. And here he is, trying to save Sharp from getting run over by Cricket Bro. If the Brothers had any doubts about Mark, they have been resolved.

For some reason, Trail and Sharp decided to exit the DJ platform, rather than stand their ground. And that must be why Cricket Bro chose to pursue the two in his car, his so-called Cricketmobile. It is completely colored from roof to hubcap in a single color, as if it was the Batmobile. Mark’s response lends support to the allusion. Based on the way Rivera normally writes sound effects, I would not be surprised to see “Accelerate!”, rather than the traditional “Vroom!”

I’ll save my horrendous day of getting on and off planes all day for another time. But there is a specific national airline this person is not going to use in the future.

So, this is all Sharp has? Mere accusations? I assumed he was going to follow up with actual evidence. Sounds familiar. Mark’s position here is ambiguous, as if he is fine letting the dupes get duped, just as long as Daddy is okay. That’s responsibility with a capital, er, lowercase “r”.

As anybody who has ever gone to a hall featuring electronic dance music or been passed by a car with seriously large speakers and high wattage can attest, the sound is really, really loud. And the bass track is almost always oppressively punishing. How is it, then, that Trail and Sharp can hear what Cricket Bro is saying? As in virtually all fiction and tell-alls, the story sometimes takes precedence over reality.

A bit of a recap today from last week, because we all know people have short attention spans. Actually, this is nothing new in comics. They’ve been doing recaps for a hundred years. For continuity strips, Sunday strips were themselves sometimes recaps of the previous week’s dailies for families who only subscribed to Sunday delivery. Anyway, if you missed my post yesterday, consider yourself caught up.

Announcement: Starting tomorrow, I will be on vacation for four weeks. Chances are I will have to post Tuesday with Wednesday. No big deal. This doubling or even tripling up may be more frequent, owing to my circumstances. Comics Kingdom’s latest marketing ploy makes this more difficult for me, but I’ll do my best to not miss any days.

Action builds as Trail decides his unconfirmed fears are more important than exposing the Crypto Bros.  Rivera continues to indulge in Batman TV Sound Effects (Grip! Snatch!). Everybody in the strip seems fixated on full names. What a day. Hey, watch out for that wolf spider (I think)!

Now, why would The Professor expose himself to Trail (as he did yesterday), if he didn’t want to be interrupted? I suppose predetermination wins out once again. And we have another cliffhanger that will only unfold next week. This reminds me of the Rocky & Bullwinkle episodes that always ended with cliff-hanging reminders:

“Tune in again next time for ‘Play NiFTy for me’ or ‘Say it Loud! It’s fake and I’m proud!’”

Cue the theme.

What’s with this habit of Mark Trail always using Sharp’s full name? Can’t Mark Trail just call him “Professor Sharp” or even “Sharp”? Does Jules Rivera think we would forget a character that makes an appearance in the strip at least once every two or three months? It’s not as it is what’s-her-face, that uh, reporter, you know, who is Mark Trail’s rival or something, right? How many times has she been in this strip since Jules Rivera took over? Yes, who could forget . . . her?

Anyway, pretty nice panel 4. Very manga-ish.

So, another dramatic moment arrives. Which way will it go? I hardly think Sharp is going to suddenly agree with Mark and just do a fade. So, he’ll attempt (at least) to expose the Bunco Brothers. Will Mark intervene or be smart and rush his family to safety? Will we see Sharp storm the stage in this Saturday’s strip to call a stop and announce he has a revelation?

He shoots, he scores! These gals look a few years older than Rusty, so it’s major cool for Rusty that they would even talk to him. That blonde girl’s face and mannerism reminds me of another, somewhat older, woman that appeared this strip. You might have figured that out, as well.

Anyway, aren’t we all glad that Rusty learned an important lesson about relationships and self-worth today? I hope it pays off for him in the very near future. Maybe the girls will stick around to help Rusty hunt the Specter. The sooner the better! I’m starting to worry that Mary Worth might show up, thinking this is a soap opera, not an adventure strip.

Are we going to have another week of mattress stuffing? I think that will be my new go-to word for padding a story. This stuff doesn’t move the story along. However, I give it a pass, because it focuses on Rusty and it shows that, not only is he not too young to notice girls after all, but he found enough grit to approach them.

The big question many boys and men face is “Why the hell am I afraid of approaching a member of the opposite sex?” Sure as hell I am not the guru holding that wisdom. Still, big points for Rusty’s new-found courage in the face of disaster. Next time, Rusty, talk about what the girls like to do!

On second thought, perhaps this is not mattress stuffing, after all. It is a focus on Rusty’s life, which is kind of a secondary storyline in this adventure, right? So, yeah. We’d all like to see this story (whatever the actual point here is) move along to a hoped-for successful and even action-packed conclusion. At the same time, we have to allow for some “real life” to play out a bit, here and there. Flesh on the bones, and all that.

Wow, at first, I thought “Cathy” the comic strip character, was making a cameo appearance as a skateboarder in panel 4. Having a guest cartoon character would be a first for Mark Trail, though it is often done in other strips.  And say, do you see how the stage decoration behind Happy Trail in panel 1 kind of makes him look like a turkey? I wonder if Rivera is making some kind of subliminal statement here.

I reckon that Worrywart Mark has to stick around for the surprising revelations from Professor Bee Sharp that will predictably set off the fireworks. Then Mark can go into his Hero Act again to save the family from the soon-to-be-rioters. But let’s face it: Happy Trail has lost his antennae for detecting danger.