Mark’s overly suspicious mind turns him into a peeping tom, invading Rex’s privacy. Mark is making a lot of assumptions on virtually no evidence, while ignoring the actual evidence given him (that is, Rex’s desire to retire early to get enough sleep for an early morning gym visit).

For example, why does Mark seem to think that Rex snuck off to do something secretive, when Rex exited in full view of the crew, while also snubbing Mark’s overtures? And what business is it of Mark’s, anyway?

Wait. How can Rex call his dog on the phone? Is there a human taking care of Buzz who can answer the phone? Or is Buzz a modern-day Lassie, capable of understanding humans and performing human actions?

What part of Rex’s exit statement (“I gotta get to bed early”) did Mark not understand? And did Mark really miss the cues about how uninterested Rex was in spending time with him right now? Yet, Mark seems impervious to the feelings of other people. He doesn’t know Rex, but still claims to know enough that Rex needs a friend.

I’m not sure why Rivera is manipulating Mark’s personality to make him seem like a clueless, arrogant oaf (so he seems to me). In a way, he is presented as an altered manifestation of Honest Ernest, right down to the know-it-all pose in panel 4. As for Diana Daggers, what the hell happened to her? She used to be a tough gal, ready to pound anybody’s head who threatened her charge. But now, every new appearance by her seems to show less and less action and more and more passivity. I think there is enough room in this strip for two strong people (on the same side, I presume). Diana and Mark had more chemistry when they were rivals. Why dilute one of the more interesting rivalries in the strip?

Ahh, I think a second week of Cherry and Doc would go over a lot better. I must be missing something here, because I just don’t get this part of Mark’s story.  What’s the point of spending more time in this scenario? Why is Jimmy Songbird singing a song “for Mark and his friends”? First, most of the people here likely have no idea who Mark is. And more importantly, Mark had absolutely nothing to do with corralling the geese! If I was the crew, I’d be pissed off.

And Mark says he hasn’t seen Rex since he left the set. How could he have seen Rex, since Rex left the set! Sheesh! Mark really needs to get his shit together and quit wasting time ogling music stars. Perhaps he should take a page from Rex’s playbook and get a good night’s sleep. I could use one.

One would think that, after getting dressed down by Diana, Mark would have at least ditched the stupid hat and neckerchief so he wouldn’t look like a dorky tourist. But why does Rivera portray Mark as a clueless goober once again? He played the clueless old dude in his Land Shrimp adventure. Clearly, Rex is not impressed with Mark, while Rivera once again indulges in one of those “cute” puns she likes to use. “Came for the brush”?

As for locking down the geese, Mark seems easily impressed.

Otherwise, we’re seeing no chemistry yet between Mark and Rex. I reckon that is going to be part of the evolving plot. At a crucial point, they will have to depend on each other, right? Alas, things should really go swell at the roadside zoo.

Well, I’ll stop doing them. I see the team got the geese contained. And Mark stayed out of it, thank goodness. But did they move the geese to another yard, first? If not, how does this help the keytarist? I presume the geese are still honking. In fact, they’re probably honking a lot more! I’m surprised Jimmy Songbird, the keytarist, isn’t taking advantage of the situation by working on a way to incorporate the goose honks into a song. I remember the old Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass song (Tijuanna Taxi) with a taxi klaxon that sounds something like a goose. 

Story-wise, I suppose Rivera has to establish Rex’s bona fides as a true video animal wrangler star. I don’t necessarily see any signs of his supposed depression, so that clearly isn’t the point here. Maybe Mark will get inspired to start his own video gig to enhance his visibility and earn some extra cash.

Well, here is a chance for Mark to gain some street cred, if he has a mind to help Rex, and assuming Rex wants the help. We can see signs of Mark’s growing impatience in the last panel, as if Mark has an “I can fix this!” pulse quivering up the back of his neck.

Diana told Mark earlier that Rex has depression issues, so I’m thinking that if Mark interferes, it will not exactly build up Rex’s self-confidence. Just bite your tongue and stay put, Mark! Well, if this fails, there is still time for the Kaytarist of Hamelin approach.

No, Jimmy Songbird is not speaking in some kind of bad dialect. The Keytar is the actual name of this instrument, which is kind of a keyboard slung around the next like a regular electronic guitar. I remember seeing Edgar Winter use this instrument in his earlier shows. Never cared for the instrument, myself, but so what? I wasn’t a professional musician.

Still, how is Rex going to confront these geese and get them moved:  Make friends with the geese and cage them? Get Jimmy to pretend to be the Pied Piper? Put up a yard sign stating, “Geese Hunting in Season!”

I reckon we’ll just have to wait and see; that is, unless Mark gets a brilliant idea and winds up creating chaos on the set.

Mark’s clumsy dialog is clearly mirrored in the equally clumsy artwork, which continues to befuddle me. How the art can go from decent to awkward so quickly is a mystery. By the way, I don’t expect that being presented as a writer for Teen Girl Sparkle will do much to enhance Mark’s reputation or standing with Rex.

Actually, I’m a bit surprised that anybody who has had contact with Canada geese actually likes Canada geese. But I do like some of Rivera’s labels: “Animal Rexpertise” is clever!

Today’s strip may do very little to win over long-time Trailheads (which Rivera probably gave up on some time ago) but will probably also do as little to bring in new readers, who will think that Mark is just a real jerk. If the best Rivera can do is turn Mark into her own parody of Woody from Toy Story, then I wonder if she has seriously miscalculated.

From a story angle, Mark’s odd behavior would seem do work against giving Rex any reason for building trust, which is presumably necessary to help keep Rex out of the cult. From a selfish point of view, Mark’s appearance and action certainly shoots holes in my presumption that this would be a more serious story. On the other hand, perhaps this is a deliberate act on Mark’s part to keep suspicion off of him and make him appear impotent. Okay, I’ll reserve further judgement and see how the week pans out.

Wait, is that Caroline in the background of panel 3, before she hooked up with Honest Ernest? Well, maybe not. Anyway, seems Diana has a back-history of losing clients to cults. Perhaps she might be influencing their depression, as warmth and charm are not her strong points. But she certainly has no talent for saving them from cults! What about Mark? I don’t recall seeing that particular skill on his resume.  Still, this is the Mark Trail comic strip, so we must hope for the best.

Some readers might be hoping to see some long-awaited-for fists-o-justice action in this assignment, but having seen Mark go up against Professor Bee Sharp, I’m hoping Mark wisely brought along a holster filled with a Colt .44-40 and plenty of ammunition. It doesn’t sound like this lion zoo cult is filled with washed-up hippies.

It’s not every day we see Diana Daggers sans shades, so this assignment is clearly important to her, at least. And we now learn that Diana’s objective all along is saving Rex. Is their relationship more than professional, or has Diana gone full-tilt altruistic?

But Mark is a nature journalist, not a commando. Does Diana think Mark can expose enough of the cult’s practices to bring Rex around? You’d think Diana could do that herself. After all, why should Rex trust a stranger, especially one dressed like Sheriff Woody? The plot possibilities are piling up!

Still, Mark might want to watch his backside. Perhaps it is Diana that is part of the cult, and she has developed this negative feeling about men. Maybe Professor Bee Sharp’s betrayal put her over the edge. And now, she could be luring men into this strange cult. Tigers have to be fed, of course.

Thank goodness Rivera is adding more layers of complexity to the story, as well as avoiding the macho driver put-down I wondered about yesterday. I don’t mind being wrong. But I’m glad to see the plot take on some surprising turns, rather than sticking with the original farce of an assignment.

So, the roadside zoo assignment is a blind and Rex is the actual assignment. We’ve been getting a more nuanced view of Diana for the past few stories, beyond the cartoon tough gal image she originally portrayed back in Palm Springs. It seems somewhat incredulous that Amy and Diana just happen to be childhood friends, but still, why not? After all, how incredulous was it that Cricket Bro turned out to be Mark’s childhood nemesis, Rob Bettancourt? Okay, don’t answer that!

Mark’s other editor, Rafael, also knows Diana, which further explains her frequent appearances. Still, I hope this is all of Diana for a while. Mark needs new people to interact with. So does this strip!

So, Diana is in charge? At least we know how and why she met Mark at the airport. I’m going to take a wild guess that this is not LAX, since there are so few people in the terminal and there is no way a car could just park right outside, all by itself without getting towed.

I notice that Diana is on the passenger side of the car in panels 3 and 4, opposite Mark. Another big limb here, but I’m thinking that Rivera is setting us up for some misogynistic “I’m a guy so I’ll drive” trope humor.

It’s one of those time-wasting submissions today. For some reason, Diana Daggers seems to have become somewhat like Kelley Welly in this rebooted strip, always unexpectedly showing up to interfere in Mark’s assignments, but not getting chased off.

Rivera has introduced at least twenty new secondary characters (those with speaking roles) in the strip, but that seems hard to believe, when we keep seeing the same three or four. Isn’t Rex Scorpius enough of a character? Or is Rivera suggesting it is Mark that needs the character support here? Sure, Daggers has interesting qualities as a supporting character. But over-exposure will almost certainly dilute her edginess.

Really!? Really!? Rivera has to make Mark look and sound like a friggin’ dork tourist attending a taping of Austin City Limits. Why? Is there a purpose, other than a cheap laugh?  And once again, we see signs of haste and carelessness in the artwork, from Mark’s flattened and spindly figure in panel 2 (which exhibits all the quality of Bazooka Joe comics) to the sloppily drawn windows in panel 3. Yet, panel 1 is quite decent and a strong contrast to the other two.

I don’t think an international airport would allow trees within a quarter mile of its runways, but they do provide attractive scenery, so the artistic license is appreciated.

As for the big surprise, there was nothing in the assignment that mentioned Diana Daggers showing up (again).  So, where is this Rex Scorpius dude? Or is Daggers now working for him? I know I have argued many times about the validity of satire in this strip, but I admit that it would be nice, once in a while, to have a serious episode, just to break things up a bit. This is not one of those times.

Story-wise, I don’t get it. So Cherry has the hots for Rex Scorpius. Why should Cherry want Mark to take the assignment in order to work with this dude? It’s not as if she is going along or that Rex is going to make a house call. Mark should have talked with Ralph the rat snake first.

As for the art, I also don’t get it. In early June, as the rash story was starting up, Cherry was depicted as quite the comely gal, as she is normally shown. But today, she looks like a member of the SNL Widette family. Is this deliberate (as in making a statement)? The result of rushed work? Somebody else helping out? Frankly, even her head looks odd (panels 1 and 4).

I am also embarrassed that Mark had to be shown looking like some whipped, whiny pansy (panel 4). I think we all get Rivera’s anti-macho position, and I’m okay with that.  She’s been doing this since she started. Rivera already established that this Mark is no longer the 1950’s stoic, highly moral, invincible man of action (as Allen was also starting to explore).

But I don’t think she needs to swing that cultural pendulum so far to the other side. Rivera has been showing Mark sometimes indecisive, out of his depth, lost, and even knocked down. That’s fine.  Yet, to literally show Mark limp-wristed and hang-dogged is over the line. Add to that, having Cherry react like a bimbo-brained, swooning girl and this all seems reminiscent of stereotyped roles in family TV sitcoms (e.g. Married with Children, I Love Lucy. Go ahead and fill in your own examples).

“You have to be careful writing this article, Mark.” to which Mark should respond, “Okay, what is the objective of the article? Why do I have to have an assistant? I used to work alone, you know.” But what’s with this cult business, Mark? Quite a leap of logic when all Amy Lee has told you is that the staff live on-site.

I reckon that it is not common for staff to live where they work, unless it is a summer camp or a secret laboratory devoted to creating super-soldiers for a rogue element of the military. Still, the Touch Center might be somewhere in western Texas that makes commuting very difficult. The Center might even have rooms for their patients. Doesn’t make it a cult, Mark, so don’t look like you just got wind of Cherry passing gas!

And we still haven’t heard from Ralph the rat snake, one of the few voices of sanity and sagacity.

Hey, Jules: Let’s dump the panel-one recap of the prior day. Your readers are not that slow. Moving on, this dialog sounds like something you’d hear on any number of forgettable “reality” shows”, though I’d hate to know which one. It seems (more an extrapolation on my part) that Mark is supposed to be doing this project (as implied in panel 2) as an undercover operative. Just how that would happen while “famous” Rex Scorpius tags along is something I’m anxious to see.

Perhaps Rex is eye candy to distract Tess Tigress long enough for Mark to do whatever it is he is supposed to do. So why is Tess wearing a tacky crown with horns that look like crescent moons? Gosh, it would be nice if Amy Lee actually laid out the purpose and goals of this assignment, don’t you think?

But why is Mark acting so worried in panel 4? He’s supposed to be a nature/animal journalist, correct? He’s been around the animal block a time or two. Is Rivera once again dumping on Mark’s traditional masculine persona? If so, she already made that train leave the station about two years ago. Time for you to move on as well, Jules!

Is Mark trying to not slobber in panel 1? Anyway, this will teach me to not overlook the source of any comment! Rex Scorpius looks like another arrogant so-and-so, another Professor Bee Sharp. I hope they aren’t cousins!  And he is an animal wrangler, says Amy. It seems they are the people involved in training and handling animals of all kinds used in films, commercials, videos, etc.  

If this guy is the real deal, it could mean that Mark’s job might be limited to just reporting on what Rex does to resolve the roadside zoo problem. That should improve Mark’s self-respect. If this was a drop-dead serious dramatic strip, we might expect Scorpius to provide training and support to the roadside zoo staff in order to improve the lives of the animals. But we already know that this is not the old Mark Trail. Craziness awaits. But craziness with a serious message.

Yes, this must be how real journalism works these days . . . if you think of real journalism as a Reality TV show. And that’s probably not too far off the mark, the way “news” is often presented. I mean, nothing says real journalism like having a third-rate Hollywood wannabe tag along (with her videographer) to record all of the staged dramatic moments and personal tensions that she will broadcast online or on TV. Clearly, panel 4 shows that Mark has only the highest levels of journalistic standards on his mind.

Anyway, Mark will probably need some really heavy-duty eye candy along to give this train wreck of an assignment some needed visibility and integrity . . . oh, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting. I meant needed visibility and phony sincerity. Somehow, I’m sure Mark is going to start out getting disappointed right from the get-go. This is already shaping up to be a whale of a story!