Who would have thought Caroline would give a tinker’s cuss about pets? Still, a new friend is worth losing a client, right? Frankly, with all of Cherry’s interference in the past, it’s darned surprising she is still a contractor for the Sunny Soleil Society.

Honest Ernest must have a hell of a customer base, from the quantity of lawn chemicals in his van. The lawns around Lost Forest might constitute one of the largest collections of hazardous waste sites in the country.

So, is there any more to this particular adventure, other than expected blowback from Violet and Ernie? Well, it is interesting to note, other than what I’ve previously written, that a dog is featured in both Cherry’s story and Mark’s. But in Mark’s adventure, dogs are really props to motivate a relationship. Here, the dogs are the direct object of the story, so to speak.

At least I’m glad to see Rivera once again drawing scenery, rather than just putting talking heads against a flat, undefined backdrop.

It’s too easy to poke fun at this illogical stream of thought here; though I’m fairly certain that Rivera enjoys making Caroline a hypocrite. I think that Rivera means to provide some contextual drama to surround the basic plot of the story. In other words, it is not just a simple adventure. In the midst of a search to track down a dangerous chemical before it can affect additional animals (or humans), mundane events of life still occur and affect (positively or negatively) the mission.

It’s like police shows on TV and movies. In the early days of TV, cop shows were just cops solving crime. Nowadays, every cop or detective has a roomful of personal baggage and conflicts that have to be managed in between investigating crimes and cuffing the criminals. The old Mark Trail was just a guy solving problems and coming home to a superficial environment for a day before going out on a new quest. So, the new Mark Trail is a messier world with interruptions and detours.

Both Mark and Cherry get dragged into affairs not of their making or concern. At least, Cherry seems more reluctant to interfere, even if she gets the third degree which causes her to blurt out a confession. But it isn’t clear why Caroline would think Cherry had inside information about Ernest’s buying habits or his delivery choices. I mean, where is she during the day, anyway? Does she just luxuriate at the SSS HQ?

The drawing today—for the most part—is really pretty good; especially panels 3 and 4. Cherry’s pose and foreshortened arm in panel 3 is just great. And the differences in the pose and attitude of Caroline in panels 1 and 4 are so self-explanatory that they almost need no dialog to work.

But Rivera sometimes get carried away with textboxes; the one in panel 4 is unnecessary and crowds the scene. I suppose you can make a case about panel 1, which seems to have been inserted so Rivera could indulge in some arbitrary alliteration.

By the way, Joseph Nebus has a new “catching up” column on Mark Trail: https://nebushumor.wordpress.com/2022/11/17/whats-going-on-in-mark-trail-whats-with-comics-kingdoms-ads-august-november-2022/

Aside from disclaiming any romantic entanglement with Honest Ernest, Cherry is not exactly holding back on her feelings about the creator of Lawn Liberator. She’s laying it on pretty thick. Cherry discovers that it was not Violet slandering her, but the result of a stupid gaff by Ernest. If you are going to have an affair, storing receipts at home is about as witless as charging gifts on your credit card instead of paying cash.

So, what’s Cherry’s best move here? Tell Caroline to ask Ernest and see how “honest” he really is! Keep your guilty conscious to yourself. It’s not your affair, so to speak.

Blame the victim, once again: “My husband is a predator, so I blame you for catching his eye!” But Cherry’s ideal image of Mark—the hunky, self-assured, man-about-forest—seems to conflict with what we’ve been witnessing down in Texas. And I reckon there’s a point to be made there.

We’ve seen Mark continue to get involved in Rex’s personal affairs (at the instigation of Diana Daggers, we know), with predictably bad results. As for Cherry, she unintentionally got exposed to the private relationship of Violet and Ernest. But she can’t escape the consequences of that event, even though she has remained quiet.

Why Caroline calls her husband “Honest Ernest” is beyond me, but she somehow got the wrong idea about Ernie’s affair. How did she learn about it in the first place? I’m thinking that Violet Cheshire is behind this campaign of deception.

How long will it take for the truth to come out, and will it matter?  If it actually turns that Violet misinformed Caroline, Cherry may soon be looking for a new long-term client, if such can be found in the neighborhood of Lost Forest.

Ah, another moral dilemma. And as with Mark, it appears that love is involved. Of course, this affair is none of Cherry’s business, but as I’ve pointed out before, she does not need to publicize it; but she should be able to capitalize on it, in the obvious way I also mentioned. I’d like to think that Ernest and Violet will be grateful enough to agree to the deal. But I still think Cherry needs to find new clients, at least for a few new stories!

Again, the art is looking spotty. Is Rivera behind in her deadlines again? I’m guessing so, since her work is usually more accomplished than this (well, it is!). Yet there are periods when it really looks sketchy and subpar.

Okay, boys and girls, any guesses on the Sunday topic?

Honestly, I try to approach this strip with an open mind and some optimistic support along the way. But sometimes something like today’s strip comes along and leaves me dumbfounded. Not only is the art subpar today, but the plot development (I know that’s a stretch) reminds me of a bad movie parody or maybe just a parody of itself.

I had originally planned to discuss Violet’s possessiveness over the fruit basket gift, in spite of her row with Cherry. That all got left back at the station with today’s strip. Well, if Caroline has not yet left Ernest, I have a feeling that her departure will occur pretty soon. Who knows, maybe she’ll be the next person to show up at Violet’s house. Probably not a big loss, as her character has been superficial and unimportant, unlike Honest Ernest.

At the very least, Jules Rivera shows no fear in adding twists (or insanity) to an otherwise linear storyline. And Cherry must feel like a batter in the big leagues, getting thrown one curve ball after another.

I reckon the chipmunk is saying “Hey! How about me!?” In any event, seems like this volatile tête-à-tête has accidentally caused Violet to reveal her heretofore private relationship, after all. For a business owner who depends on good customer service and references, Cherry does seem to go out of her way to offend them. Then again, we have not really seen more than two or three customers over the past two years, with most of her business hired out to the Violet Cheshire’s Sunny Soleil Society. Clearly, they have a strange relationship.

Perhaps with Violet’s non-confession confession of her affair, Cherry will pull herself together long enough to use it as a lever against Violet. Wait, we went over this yesterday.  There are three more days to go to hash this out, so it will be interesting to see if something gets done. After that, it’s back to Mark’s story. And after Cherry’s story gets resolved, let’s hope she breaks free of Violet and her Society and finds some new customers and opponents. Why not cook up another story with the Black Rose Garden Club? I think there is enough personality there for at least another adventure or two.

Peace offering!? More like a diversion, I think, so that Cherry can verbally sucker-punch Violet Cheshire when she’s not looking. Violet may be thinking of a different kind of relationship with Ernest, but Cherry is laser-focused on condemnation and retribution. Had she just listened to Violet more closely, Cherry might have figured out how to blackmail Violet by threatening to divulge whatever information Violet fears would become public. That would have solved Cherry’s problem of how to rid Lost Forest of Honest Ernest’s noxious lawn care supplement. Blackmail would call into question Cherry’s own values, but as we have seen in the past, Mark and Cherry don’t mind crossing lines when they think it is for the common good.

For all that, Cherry doesn’t seem at all concerned about wildlife and their vulnerability to the poisonous lawn spray. I think Mark would be very disappointed at this selfish oversight; that is, if he wasn’t somewhere in Texas, having conniptions about Rex, Tess, and a panicky pachyderm.

Cherry’s adventures are—by design—shorter and simpler than Mark’s, since the strip is called Mark Trail and not Cherry Trail (or is it Cherry Davis?). Doesn’t mean they have no substance to them, but a fair bit of detail and storyline has to be abbreviated or merely hinted at, as we are seeing here. Still, I think it is worth giving credit to Jules Rivera for the innovation of maintaining two parallel, but different, storylines. I cannot recall any other strips trying to do this, at least this clearly.

As for today, it seems that Cherry’s subterfuge has just been kicked by Violet. It’s interesting that Cherry referred to the backyard as a garden. It certainly looks like a field of grass to me. On the other hand, people overseas usually refer to their back yards as gardens, even if they do not have a traditional flower or vegetable garden. One Italian word for backyard is il giardino.

As this is an adventure comic strip, the focus must be on action, so we have apparently been relieved of watching Doc Davis conduct additional tests and validations, and we can just move on to the conclusion: Sassy got her rash in this specific yard. I wonder if that is the case for all of the other pets in the area who got a rash. Did they all hang out at Violet’s poi pond?

And in spite of their history, Cherry actually thinks that Violet will overlook her sneaky fact-finding methodology and accept her conclusion? And is Cherry really certain? Panel 2 suggests otherwise. Okay, let’s see how this turns out.

Once again, Cherry is put into a moral quandary:  Ethics v. Income. If she comes down too hard on Violet, her apparent sole source of income could dry up. But she has stood up to Violet in the past, confessing to her own actions against Violet and the Sunny Soleil Society. Still, Cherry still has no actual proof. So, caution is the watchword for now.

I bet Cherry didn’t get any grass clippings, either. That might require another midnight raid by the Black Rose Garden Club.

On the other hand, Cherry can avoid the moral quandary, or at least put it on hold, by simply reporting her finding to Doc, who can properly administer the necessary balm to the pets, then carefully school the owners into being more careful where their pets play. Then anonymously report Honest Ernest to the EPA!

Cherry, you are starting to sound as didactic and heavy-handed as Mark. All you needed to say was “Don’t cross the fence, Rusty!” By the time you got to the main point, he was already over and gone. Still, I suppose it was necessary to further the story.

I wonder if Rivera is deliberately spoofing one of the old-time foibles of this strip in panel 3, where Rusty’s thought balloon is “ambiguously” pointing either to him or the chipmunk. So, what is Rusty thinking of: “Spotted the sign by that Ernest guy!” I’m not sure what sign Ernest was “by”, but Rusty is onto something, all right. That diamond shape on the lawn signs appears on the bottles of Honest Ernest’s lawn treatment. Clearly, this property belongs to Ernest and must double as his testing lab.

Maybe that’s also why the chipmunk is stuck on that tree stump. It’s too afraid to cut across the lawn.

Okay, I can see a dog interested in fish. Let’s hope that Cherry brought along a baggie to collect a few clippings so Doc can analyze them for traces of Ernest’s weed killer.

“I think, therefore it’s true” seems to be Cherry’s mantra. Unlike humans, animals normally shy away from that which hurts or attacks them. But not Sassy, who seems to have a fascination for self-destruction—like humans who smoke, eat too many processed foods, or watch Reality TV shows. Isn’t it amazing that Cherry did not already know about this property, apparently situated a short distance away in Lost Forest?! 

Cherry said that this is a perfect lawn. Hmmm, I wonder if this will turn out to be a hitherto unrevealed Lost Forest Golf Course run by yet another obnoxious organization or person? Well, there are some decorative trees lining the background and there is a landscaped lake (hazard). Perhaps tomorrow we’ll hear a shout of “FORE!” and observe a golf ball slicing across the fence, narrowly missing our protagonists.

[edited for clarity] Either Cherry’s own storyline is now moving along concurrently with Mark’s (as in, things are happening that we did not observe), or Cherry is just making a rash assumption before the results are in. When we left off, Doc Davis had only proved that Honest Ernest’s lawn treatment chemical cleans dirty coins faster than a carbonated drink could. That doesn’t exactly prove it is the source of the pet rash.

Still, if Cherry wants to find the possibly offending lawn, it seems to me it would be more productive to walk through neighborhoods with lawns.

We may as well assume that the two pennies were equally dirty in the same way. Perhaps the pennies came from Doc’s cache of penny jars hidden in a closet. In any event, I reckon it is pointless to get picky. I’m no scientist.  Sure, it is proper to determine the potency of the lawn chemical, but if you don’t have a proper lab (what vet would?), then this basic “Mr. Wizard” experiment will have to do for a start.

The real point is that the story is moving along with Doc and Cherry performing an analysis to discover if the lawn chemical might be the cause of the rash. Cleaning a penny quickly is not exactly proof of causation, but it’s a start. A gold star to Cherry for making the initial connection.

I wonder if Rivera is going to give Cherry a second week or jump us back to the more problematic Texas Tiger Zoo and Spa adventure with Mark “Call me Slim” Trail, Rex Scorpius, and Diana Daggers.

We finally move on to serious analysis. Hoo-boy! But first, it’s hard to get past that oddly designed first panel with the angled desktop, with Doc’s somewhat flattened figure. Drawing an axonometric view can be difficult, as we see. Unfortunately, Doc’s pose and angle does not follow the same angle as the desk, making it all look really awkward.

Okay, moving on to the analysis. I’m certainly no scientist, but one test bed is called the control, but Doc/Rivera calls the other test bed an experiment. Aren’t both test beds part of the experiment? Well, at least Doc appears to follow standard testing procedures.

Second, is the speed of cleaning a penny a determinant of anything? I presume Doc means a quicker clean may be a dirtier cleaner (i.e., worse for animals?). But is the reaction of a metal coin a valid predictor for the reaction of skin and fur? I reckon I should have paid more attention in biology class!

This is what passes for scientific research, huh? “If it smells bad for humans, how can animals stand it?” Well, cat food smells bad to humans. How can cats like that stuff?

Testing? Testing is good. Doc says that the first test is for corrosion. Hmmm, Cherry, how is a penny like the skin or fur of an animal? Don’t know? Well, I mean…! Wait, neither do I.

Oh, I get it:  If it corrodes a penny (certainly, tougher than an animal’s skin), then it could certainly be capable of harming a pet’s skin. So, you could say it is possible, but that doesn’t prove the lawn care product is directly responsible. Or could you?

Maybe Doc could try reading the label on the bottle to see if the ingredients are listed, though I doubt Honest Ernest took the trouble to go through the EPA first. In any event, I’m interested to see the results.