There they are, once again. Cherry and Mark dissing the Midwest and doing a Hallmark-approved hug in front of their trendy “tiny log cabin house”, rather than one of those big, family-sized homes that just cry “Boomers Live Here!” Mark appears to have spared Ohio from having to deal with a wildebeest by bringing it home. Maybe it will become friends with Andy. Or gore him.

Art Dept. I’m disappointed. Owing to Rivera’s greater appreciation for wildlife, I would have expected her depiction of a ruby-throated hummingbird to be a bit more “realistic”, at least in the wings department. This should have been an obvious subject for her creativeness. Instead, the hummer looks like the kind of “frozen” image you see on wildlife paintings and hi-speed camera photos. Ho-humming bird.

Mark is being hypocritical with his criticism of movie studio ethics, given his own willingness to indulge in law breaking and fisticuffs with law enforcement (and not just in this story!). Call me old-fashioned, by I don’t see how this characteristic enhances the Mark Trail brand in any positive way.

Movie and production studios do seem intent upon using AI scans of actors for their own purposes, which has also been one of the key complaints in the current actors’ strike. I would not be surprised if some studio put out a film composed entirely of AI-generated actors, selling it to gullible viewers as a new technological breakthrough, rather than the cynical, money-grubbing scam that it would be. Actually, there is a 12-minute “movie” (more of a trial), completely fashioned with AI (though not using images of actual actors). You can view it here. Frankly, it’s rather primitive and looks like computer game imagery from years ago. But I digress.

We have to remember that this is “Mark’s World”, not the Real World. The very idea that a train spilling toxic chemicals would not have caught the attention of the EPA and other federal officials seems unlikely; just as unlikely that, somehow, somebody at the EPA caught Mark’s livestream report. And now we are to believe that there was a media blackout of the event. In the strip, there were several reporters at Mark and Happy’s fight, er, press conference. According to local news sources (in the Real World), there was no news blackout; just initial “indifference” from national news sources. Apparently, the national news services were focused more on the so-called Chinese Spy Weather Balloon.

I should have found this stuff earlier. An article (“TikTok becomes ground zero for toxic Ohio train derailment news as users push against ‘media blackout’”) by Mikael Thalen for “The Daily Dot” reported that national media gave the event short shrift, Tik Tokers were all over it, noting that locals were reporting lots of dead fish. An interesting TikTok video is linked in the story (think Mark). The TikTok user made a point of stating that officials and media sources mostly just repeated the PR line from the railroad. So, it seems clear where Rivera got at least some of her inspiration and material:  https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tiktok-east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment/

Okay, Mark’s World is a terribly weird place where cops look like park employees with guns, senators get bribed with illegally obtained exotic animals, and small-time environmental reporters get into fistfights with cops without getting arrested or sued. But what about the spill, Mark?

What new friends, Mark: The cops who pursued you? The state senator you had arrested? The wildebeest?

And is this going to be a week-long epilog? I hope that Mark updates Cherry on the payoff of his muscle car livestream exposé. Did his site jump to 1,000 followers yet? I never quite figured out how Mark’s livestream was supposed to generate increased viewership, based on his limited reputation and small online presence. I was shocked that Senator Smalls found out about it and listened. Amazing! Did Mark stick around to learn what really happened with the train explosion, rather than depend on the testimony of Rex Scorpius? Well, this was really Happy’s idea in the first place, and Mark was not on assignment. So he can get a pass. This time.

Art Dept: Can’t say that I like that background in panel 1. Rather than a typically smooth gradation from light to dark, it looks like Rivera placed strips of increasingly dark values side by side, as if this was a color theory class assignment. But check out the B&W newspaper version of panel 1:  The striping effect we see in color is less noticeable in black & white. Of course, newsprint has low resolution, which helps smooth the transition. But that is accidental, as Rivera clearly relies on color.

As both stories have concluded, we must endure the reunion of Cherry and Mark once again; it’s likely going to take up the entire week! Stand by for a bunch of “what happened to...?” updates. So exactly how did Mark get home? Did he hire an Uber? Maybe he accidentally “on purpose” left his dad back in Ohio because Happy wanted to take the train back home (assuming it was not flooded out).

Well, those squirrels sure look like giant cutouts to me. Else, why the heavy outlining? In fact, panel 1 looks more like a theater stage set. Just take a look at that mise en scène: Mark and Cherry happen to meet outside, artfully posed. The props (squirrels and green stuff) in front establish a foreground space to offset the middle “stage” space. That “cabin” has to be part of the painted background. It’s too small to be a real cabin. And that background scenery looks too scant to be real! Well, perhaps that log house is just a storage shed or maybe where Rivera stores Rusty and Doc when they’re not needed in the story.

Note: Closing out the “Something Fishy” story, which really turned out to be about other things.

(Mon) Saturday’s strip had that feeling for this adventure coming to a quick, “get out of town” ending. Mark delivers his epilogue today. Maybe Mark intuitively knew that local cops would do almost anything to gain the publicity and bragging rights of arresting a state senator. And maybe Klingons caused the train derailment. Or perhaps the story just got away from Rivera, so she brought it to a quick termination. Was this story about a fishing trip? Faulty trains? Toxic spills? Corrupt officials? Mark’s disregard for the law? Or all of the above?

Some critics have complained that Rivera is bad-mouthing Ohio. I don’t see it that way. Cherry simply wants Mark to get away from the toxic chemicals in Ohio, something she has recently had experience with, firsthand. Mark, on the other hand, mistook her comment for a slight against Ohio, itself. But he quickly corrected her. Of course, husbands and wives never misunderstand each other!

Editor’s Note:  My wife and I are going on a “short break”, as they say in England. That is, I’ll be on a brief vacation between today (Saturday) and Wednesday. Whether I will get time to post during this trip is unknown. She would prefer I leave all of my electronics at home, but I’ll see what I can sneak into my backpack. At worst, I’ll post a catchup after I get back.

Wait. Hold the phone! Stop the presses!  Just hold on there, Babba Louie! This ain’t how things are done. None of this makes sense. Anyone seeing today’s strip could assemble a list of errors, non sequiturs, and buffoonery. So I won’t bore you going through an obvious parade of absurdities.

More importantly, though, what is Rivera trying to accomplish here? Why does she lay out this series of improbable and outrageous events? Granted that many, if not most, of Rivera’s Mark Trail stories have been outrageous, goofy, or absurd. But this week’s strips take the proverbial cake.

Is this what the story was actually designed to lead us to:  The downfall of a politician who was bought by the big, bad transportation company in order to cover up major accidents that shine a light on corporate mismanagement and corruption? If so, it’s the fastest damn arrest of a state government official I’ve heard of, without the need for documented investigation, evidence, subpoenas, legal search warrants, or due process. It must be a proof of concept that Mark’s nighttime ride and livestream (echoing Paul Revere) really did make a difference.

And what’s with those red and blue geometric backgrounds in panels 3 and 4? Unreal! But that makes me still think this is some kind of nightmare dream that Mark is having on his train ride to Ohio. Else, Rivera has been getting into the mushrooms.