In case you missed this last week, you’re not too far behind. Think of it like missing a week of a soap opera. Yeah, that’s about it. So, Happy Trail and son Mark stressed and opined over the ethics of worthless NFTs, crypto-whatever, and the Douche Brothers’ upcoming Crypto Conference. What would the crowd do if and when they discover the NFTs are worthless? Would they get mad? Golly gee-whiz!
I also penned a few thoughts on the possible aesthetic aims of the strip, itself. But you’re going to have to scroll down to find it. In any event, this week of padded plotting ended with a transition to Cherry taking Daddy Doc Davis to task for stupidly misusing a pressure cooker to make chili. Fascinating. There, that’s the whole nut. While you’re chewing on it, check out today’s nature exposé.

Overall, this is a nicely-drawn and interesting Sunday strip. And we know that Rivera really likes doing the Sunday strips. So, today’s strip tells us that no matter what we do, we @#($! the planet. Or ourselves. Aside from a wide-brimmed hat, is there any kind of sunscreen that is acceptable, since so-called organics are also suspect? But Rivera wants us do to the research!? Hang on there, Jules! Isn’t that what these Sunday strips are for? Why don’t you just tell us what lotion is safe and save us (and the planet) the trouble of making a wrong choice?!  I suppose if the long-term solution is that we just wear hats and still get skin cancer, at least, the Earth will be around for the rest of the animal kingdom.

As for today’s custom title panel, it’s a nice idea, but not a winning solution. I mean, just what is that ectoplasmic title supposed to represent: A giant fart? A jellyfish cape?  Better would be a series of bubbles spelling out the title. Ah, but that would also represent CO₂, which is bad. Hey! How about spelling out the strip’s name with an arrangement of melanoma spots on Mark’s arm?

This part week saw Mark reacting negatively to preparations underway for the impending NFT/Crypto Influencer event. As a scowling Mark walked along a forest trail (a part of the forest not still on fire, that is), a hooded presence made itself known. And that turned out to be Professor Bee Sharp! Sharp went on to explain that he was not here to praise the Crypto Brothers, he was here to bury them.

Sharp’s zeal to publicly bring down the Brothers and their phony crypto scam conflicts with Mark’s need to save his father before the poop hits the new half-pipe ramp. Unfortunately, Sharp is not concerned, and Mark is left with deciding what to do: Save the potential investors and see his dad possibly implicated, or save his Dad and see other people financially bilked by the Brothers. It’s the old Wisdom of Solomon thing. Mark cannot have it both ways, and Sharp is focused on only one solution. Still, there might be a way to accomplish both of their goals. If only they can see it. Until then, let’s see this…

Beaver engineering from space, huh? That has to be a big priority, right? In truth, we are talking about waterways impacted by beavers. Not like you can see the actual beavers happily deforesting patches of woods along the river and creating their own little dam/huts.

Rivera continues her tradition of title panels customized to each Sunday’s theme, though this week’s title has my head scratching. But then again, maybe beaver tales as a design motif did not work out.

I hope Rivera can afford more time on these Sunday strips. They are good, but there seems to be an over-reliance on the same imaging and compositional techniques each week, with space for more information replaced by a standard personal comment from Mark in the last panel.

Arraigned in yellow bedtime regalia like Nero Wolfe, Rusty read his cryptid book and came across a cryptid called SurfSquatch. Formerly a surfer, the dude paddled into a wave the wrong way and come out as some kind of night-surfing wookie who met and fell in love with another such creature. But like Cinderella, she upped and disappeared, leaving him alone and horny.

Where did she go? Though surfsquatches live along the shore and eat seafood, Rusty’s Surfsquatch decided to search in the forest, whereupon he fell victim to hunger and fatigue. Being lost, he next fell into a cave, where an orchestra of crickets was hopping by. So, he ate them, as they reminded him of shrimp. “Shrimp?!” thought, Rusty, “Why, Dad calls crickets land shrimp!” With that light bulb moment, Rusty got an idea for attracting the Seaside Specter. Rusty sought out cans of cricket protein that Cricket Bro had stored in the house, to use as bait. Not yet explained is what Rusty intends to do if he meets the Seaside Specter. Oh, wait. We saw that, already:  He ran. Well, before you run off, check this out:

Hey, at least Mark is doing something with his time in Oregon, other than playing slap-hands with the Bunco Brothers. I bet Rivera had fun drawing these bugs, too.

But speaking of lady beetles, there is an amateur South Australian band called “The LadyBeatles”, something of a local thing, with a Facebook presence and a YouTube video. They don’t seem to be interested in invading America like their male namesakes did nearly 60 years ago (ye gads!).

Hello, sports fans! Wait, if you really are a sports fan, you’re likely watching a game or a multi-hour pre-game program instead of reading this. That’s okay, I can wait a minute.

Right. So what happened this week, you ask? It was a week of basking in the sun of success for Mark, who overcame smoke, fire, and hostile readers to find and disable the power station that was sending dangerous voltage through downed power lines at the mill.  Not sure what happened to the fire, itself, though one panel suggested firefighters showed up to contain the blaze. Ultimately, an informal grievance committee of lumber mill workers complained to Mark that the Bogus Brothers were taking advantage of them by stinting on working conditions, fire procedures, and safety. They brushed off worker complaints, while even Pappy Happy could do nothing to help them. This started another fire, this time inside of Mark who grew even more concerned for his dad’s financial and legal welfare. Perhaps they would all feel better if they took a break and read today’s nature chat!

Yes, Mark. Go ahead and humiliate your son, just as you so often get humiliated these days. I notice that you did not mention your own (albeit reluctant) prior participation in a Yeti Hunt. Or was that one undertaken by your retired dad? It does get confusing.

Still, today’s Sunday strip seems like some kind of passive-aggressive putdown of Rusty’s ambition to hunt for the Seaside Spector. Why can’t poor Rusty get to enjoy his adventure without The Parents feeling the need to tell him there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny!? He’ll grow up to be cynical and anti-parent all too soon, Mark.

So, we finally had our first actual action and adventure episode in the Oregon Vacation story (Don’t blame me for that prose; it was Rivera and her alliteration a few days ago that tempted me). Sure, Rusty’s Seaside Specter hunt looked like it might have been the real deal, but we can’t deny first honors to Mark, can we? Still, I hold out hope Rusty gets his adventure.

This action-packed week saw Mark racing across the smoky, fire-infested grounds of the burning lumber mill to locate the main power supply. Mark shut down the power going to some dangerous downed electric cables that had trapped mill workers (and his dad) from escaping. With Mark surrounded by cheering employees, Cherry made a surprise appearance to hug her hero, as is expected in the Heroic Tradition.

Thus, we got a brief, but noteworthy, Mark Trail Saves the Day adventure, the kind that might have appeared in a vintage Mark Trail story. I think this is also the first solo Mark Trail adventure since Jules Rivera took over.  I’m glad to see that Rivera gave Mark that opportunity as well as a win that for once was not obscured by satire, goofiness, or chicanery. Hmm, well it was a bit goofy. Anyway, before you click off, let’s jump to today’s nature chat!

Okay, that’s about a minute.
This is one of the best arguments for vegetarianism.
Oh, bugger!
Shouldn’t Rob Bettencourt have been the one to present this topic?
Looks like Mark finally sold out to Cricket Bro, just like Dad!
It’s what’s for dinner.
I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a cricket burger today.

Crickets don’t look like hot dogs. Hot dogs look like sausage. Make cricket sausage!

I’ve been yakking a lot this week, so I’ll keep this summary brief (based on my normal standards, that is).

Mark and the two “Crypto Bros” drove to the burning lumber mill. The brothers stood around while Mark yelled a lot and finally ran down the slope to get employees out of the burning lumber mill. Mark must have figured they were too dumb to evacuate on their own. Mark discovered that Dad had beat him to the mill (just like he beat Mark to Portland!) and was up in a watch tower. Mark modified his priorities to include “saving Dad”, because Mark must save people, regardless of whether they can save themselves or even need saving. In spite of the fire, Mark climbed the tower. Meanwhile, the brothers remained up the slope. As the drama heats up, we pause for the Sunday chat.

Mark presses another case for recognition of the effects of “climate change.” I’m not getting into the philosophic/political side of that, because I have a brain. And this is a comic strip blog.

Certainly, Mark’s little testimonial is not going to sway a denier or skeptic. Not sure it’s meant to, anyway. Mark’s bland “Let’s hold hands and not breath” comment might incentivize younger people to get involved, but that’s about it. Perhaps Mark should start getting more emotionally charged on Sundays, as he does in his daily strips.

Compared to prior weeks, this week was rather conventional, if unexciting. That will be taken as an insult by many (or most) readers, who keep hoping for more adventure. As a point of comparison, you might agree that the reprinted pet monkey story in the Mark Trail Vintage section on Comics Kingdom is little more than a maudlin collection of sappy clichés wrapped around improbable, if predictable, events. Hardly a ripping yarn from Dodd. Rivera likes to create her own clichés within storylines that favor outrageous characters, sometimes silly plots (like the current story), and satire that doesn’t always hit the mark. Some readers have contributed additional descriptions, such as lame, pointless, and infantile.

For the strips this week, we have Cherry taking Rusty on a day trip into downtown Portland for something fun to do. They did things Cherry thought were interesting, but Rusty was having none of it. In desperation, Cherry dragged Rusty into a comic store, though Rusty fretted over being made fun of for his weak super-hero knowledge. Wah! Wah! Anyway, two things occurred after they entered the store:  one predictable and one not so predictable. You decide which is which!

One:  Professor Bee Sharp suddenly popped into view from another room in the store, having overheard Rusty’s interest in the Seaside Specter. Not realizing who Cherry and Rusty are, Sharp offered Rusty some advice on trapping the Seaside Specter, then left.

Two:  Mark called Cherry to inform her of the fire emergency at the lumber mill. For some reason, Cherry believes they must return immediately. Why? While you ponder the possible reasons, direct your attention to today’s nature discussion.

Reader Charlie Oliver, who has reported on Pokémon references in Mark Trail might appreciate the pseudo-Pokémon reference in today’s otherwise straight-forward presentation on the porcupine. Instead of flooding our senses with lots of disparate porcupine data, Mark focuses only on the quills and their function. At first, I thought this was being lazy, but I get it:  Mark wants to inform pet owners of the potential danger and how to avoid a trip to the vet. Point made.

Once again, a week filled with suspense, drama, and action!

Wait, sorry. I was thinking of the Vintage Phantom comic strip posted on ComicsKingdom, not the current Mark Trail adventure. I’m certainly not thinking of that stupid pet monkey adventure in the Vintage Mark Trail reprints. either.

While “the little woman and the brat” were left behind, The Four and a Half Men (Isn’t Mark more than just one man?) drove out to a bird/animal rescue center to which the Bird-Brain Brothers provide minor financial support. Presumably this support is to put a smiley face on their NFT business. They also hope the trip will distract Mark into thinking they’re good guys at heart and not trying to fleece Happy Trail or screw over his business.

But is Mark getting himself involved in something that is not really his business? And isn’t he supposed to be on a family vacation? No wonder he left Cherry behind!

Anyway, the only other notable event of the week is that the secret lumber mill Jadsen owns appears to be on fire and he doesn’t know how to respond to it. So, he turned to Mark for advice. I think Rivera has the right slant on NFT crackpots.

Enjoy today’s Sunday nature talk and have a nice Easter, however you observe it.

Dang! I think a beaver must have eaten my Easter basket, because I can’t find it anywhere!

For those who missed this exciting week, allow me to summarize it for you as succinctly as possible: Nothing happened.
Well, in terms of action or story development, nothing happened. Instead, the week was spent with Pappy Happy and the Bunco Brothers trying to convince a skeptical, if confused, Mark about the validity and viability of their need to work with NFTs and their originators in order to attract NFT Influencers and gain their support to sell Cricket Powder. Got it? Sounds like a crock? Of course it does!

And Mark almost came to blows with Cricket Bro over a lame joke/insult. That part sounds rather topical, doesn’t it? Except that these strips are submitted many weeks in advance, so it is just an interesting happenstance. Cherry’s just-in-time arrival on the scene Saturday silenced the nattering nabobs, freezing them in place while demonstrating once again that…uh, that is to say, men don’t like to be caught out by women acting in ways they likely think women act. Of course, squabbling and name-calling are signs of weakness!  But once again, Mark is out of his depth and unable to respond properly or take charge of the situation. Best he makes a tactical retreat and reconsiders his options. One of those options has to be the Sunday nature lesson:

Aside from Mark’s silly closing question (and by the way, beavers don’t need chainsaws. They do just fine), logging is certainly a contentious problem in Oregon, where it has been the state’s leading money-maker and export. The official Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) states that “cars and trucks are the number one source of air pollution in Oregon.” But are they biased?

Other sources support Rivera’s position (feel free to repeat my Google searching). No doubt, it depends upon how you slice and present the data. And the difference seems to be minor. No matter what, logging is still a significant factor. But it also has a significant impact on local and state economies. The politics of the industry are equally complex and protected. While new trees are planted to replace old ones, they may not have the durability or capability to absorb/synthesize carbon dioxide the way old growth trees do. Still, the more trees that can be planted, the better. Not just for their visual appeal, but because they contribute to scrubbing CO₂ out of the environment.

It’s a sunny, but windy Saturday (as I write this recap). I should be working on my Italian or even taking a walk. Instead, I’m writing this and studying Italian. Probably not a good idea for either. But here we go…

Here began what I hoped would be (and still hope will be) the highlight of this current storyline:  Rusty’s hunt for the Seaside Specter. This week we saw Rusty take off in the woods at night, on his own, only to be corralled by a pursuing Cherry. She insisted he bring along a walkie-talkie while she “hung around” the woods, looking for edible mushrooms. Rusty continued on his path, hardly going very far when he saw something down the path that he immediately thought might be the specter. He fumbled with his pack to don the mask his Aunt Olive lent him (to protect his eyes). After putting it on, he started complaining about his eyes(!) and then everything went bad. He hollered for Mommy, who immediately showed up and suggested they return to the house to eat mushrooms and have a rethink. What a disappointment.

Is this the end of Rusty’s adventure? I hope not, because the other so-called storyline with Mark, Dad, and the Goofball Bros is less an adventure and more of a business meeting (YAWN!).  And heaven forbid if one of those Bozo Bros volunteers to accompany Rusty on another attempted hunt. Yet, I suppose it could add some madcap action to a story that still has not gotten off the ground. Something needs to happen, and soon. But we won’t know anything until at least Monday. For now, time to relish the Sunday nature chat. (BTW, I did go biking this morning, so there!)

I don’t suppose Rivera is going to win over viewers sliding in some social gender typing, and I’m not sure it scientifically applies here. However, I don’t think Rivera cares. The term “crab” is not really fluid, just too often used. I’ll stand corrected on that, if necessary.

Mark’s discussion of crab evolution is interesting and something new to me. I also found it interesting (with some futhter reading) that young crabs go through lots of molting stages on the way to adulthood. The process takes a long time and is neither simple nor free from danger. In fact, while attempting to escape from its old shell, a molting crab can be caught betwixt the shell and the deep blue sea and die! Crabs also have a complex and populous taxonomy, with some 7000 species, if I’m reading the data correctly.

Cherry, Mark, and an unseen Rusty spend the week flying cross country to Portland, OR. Along the way, Mark is fixated on the mysterious stepbrother of Cricket Bro, who goes by the gold-plated twit’s name of Jadsen Sterling; so much so, that he leaves a slice of pie Cherry brought along unfinished, as he searches the Internet for information on Sterling’s business interests.
After the Trails enter the terminal, a person who looks like a younger brother of Svengooli appears, identifies himself as Jadsen, and says he is their ride. What ever happened to the actual vacation, itself, seems to have been put aside. Rusty, who had been invisible for the flight, made a brief appearance (I think) in a long shot of the Trails’ arrival in the terminal. That’s pretty much the activity for the week. I won’t rehash the details of my diatribe on the art, though I probably should have just posted them all here, instead. You can scroll down to read the prior posts, if you like. Even though I do have concerns, I still support the strip’s general direction. I still believe that many of the changes Rivera has brought into the strip are a positive contribution (including the imagery), but they are endangered by the appearance of artistic inconsistency, sometimes weak plotting, and an over-indulgence in self-parody. We’ll have to see how Rivera—now in her second year—manages to overcome them. That’s assuming she also believes there are issues to resolve. Otherwise, on to the Sunday strip, which seems to enjoy more consistent output:

Okay, if Mark is only talking about the Western Gray Squirrel, I’ll buy the “forest” argument, because just every other kind of squirrel can be found just about everywhere, including cities, suburbs, and my wife’s bird feeders. The art in the Sunday panels tends to have a more consistent quality than the dailies. A practical reason for this is the size of the Sunday panels, both in the original format and published format, is larger than the dailies. But that’s not the whole story.  Part of the difference is that Sunday panels are not linked to the dailies, so story continuity is not an issue. Also, I’m not going too far out on a limb here to think that Rivera might simply enjoy drawing Sunday more than the dailies. 

The family melodrama continues, as Cherry abandons Mark so he can have a hear-to-heart with Happy about NFTs. Turns out Happy Trail got himself into an NFT business arrangement with the stepbrother of Rob Bettancourt (aka Cricket Bro). Mark is going through his “disaster déjà vu” meltdown again. How is it that the Trails keep getting involved with these weirdos in California (and now, Oregon)? It’s not like they’re just down the road. I like the concept of overlapping storylines; it has a better ring of authenticity than the usual linear approach with the clean breaks. I think the only people who have not resurfaced are the members of the Herp Hacienda Gang (Reptilionnaire, excepting).

Unless you have a squad of writers and artists who do the actual daily work that bears your signature (and I think we can all name a few of those strips), then you have your work cut out for you. I know Rivera is capable of creative, quality work, as we can see in her earlier panels. And even now, I think that still comes through, as these two panels from Tuesday show. What I like here are: 1) the “lookback” view as we see Cherry exit towards us and looking back at Mark; and the 2) alternate “lookback view”, as we now view Cherry more or less from Mark’s point of view. There is a nice balance between people and space. Rivera keeps implied motion moving in the first panel by arranging the figures so that Cherry is exiting off to the right, as Westerners implicitly follow. This is continued in panel 2. It might not seem like a big deal, but all of these bits contribute to the overall composition and flow. That kind of planning and drawing takes time and effort to put together. I don’t know what KFS pays Rivera, but they should pay her enough to hire an assistant. Then maybe Rivera can spend more time on the drawing.

And now for something relatively different… an animal not seen before or part of the story. Interesting that the moth has such a long transformative period, yet such a short time to make its moth-mark in the world. And who would have figured scales on a moth? But that large 3-5” wingspan is quite something. I have to admit that after reading these Sunday panels, I almost always feel inspired to find out more information.

Did you miss the dailies this past week? Well, we can’t all be lucky. This was our second week at the Happy and Jolly cookout in which a series of disconnected vignettes continued to appear:

• We saw Rusty talk cryptid tactics with Aunt Olive.
• There was just one mention of the Portland vacation.
• We witnessed Mark reduced to self-inflicted agonies when he discovered that his hated boyhood job of shilling for his dad in TV commercials taken over by a monkey dressed as “Markey”.
• Happy and Jolly are now also on the NFT bandwagon.
• Reptilionnaire, having appeared once the week before, has utterly vanished.

Other than my posting a few queries about Rivera’s evolving aesthetics, I think that about summarizes the past week. Let’s hope for a brighter future while we explore the Sunday nature chat:

It’s always about you, isn’t it Mark? I’m surprised that the owls in the title panel weren’t saying “WHOO?” But you have to take front-and-center, even in the Sunday nature panels.

Okay, we have a summary report of another owl. Of course, having gotten interested, I did a small bit of “research” (i.e. Wikipedia) and discovered that when the barred owl is not chasing out the spotted owl, they sometimes cohabit and create a hybrid type called a “sparred owl.”

Hmm, looks like Rivera covered the barred owl back in February 2021 and the burrowing owl in May 2021. Clearly, Rivera has a fixation on these nocturnal birds. Perhaps, dare I say it, Rivera is a night owl?

For those readers who missed the daily episodes, our story continues to focus on the travails of young Rusty Trail, stoically enduring a family cookout while his musical hero, Reptilionnaire, performs down the road. We daily readers shared his anguish, suffering through family reunion moments and the usual banal dialog one hears at family get-togethers. But the week ended up with Rusty (and his parents) very much surprised when Reptilionnaire showed up with his pet ‘gator and musical assistant. Good thing Rusty was not holding any of Happy’s potato salad, as his jumping would surely have sent it flying in all directions.

Meanwhile, Happy Trail has clearly tried to make amends for his prior bad decisions and crappy attitude and is once again friends with Jolly Roger. And it turns out that Happy arranged for Reptilionnaire to drop by. So this could be a good place to end Rusty’s mini-adventure, but I believe there will be more. But not, I hope, a week of Reptilionnaire ingratiating himself into the Trail family.

Don’t forget this story is supposed to be about a vacation in Portland, Oregon and Rusty’s chance to search for The Seaside Specter. Recall that under Allen’s authorship, Rusty got involved in a smuggling adventure in Mexico with potentially disastrous consequences. While I appreciate very much that Rivera makes Rusty a more believable adolescent, let’s get him into some drama and action. Being a kid didn’t stop Little Orphan Annie from tangling with all manner of dangers. Mark Trail is supposed to be an adventure strip, not a clone of For Better or Worse.

Before we see how the week unfolds, take a sip of coffee and peruse the Sunday nature chat.

Gee, so vultures circle around carrion, huh? Does that explain today’s title panel? Okay, there’s more to make fun of, but I’ll leave it to others. If vultures don’t circle around dying animals, why do they bother circling at all? Didn’t get that answer. Interestingly, in most Sunday strips the animals take center stage, but today, Mark seems to get the main face time, with vultures playing backup. I’d rather see more vulture close-ups, Mark.

Here are a few other interesting points I discovered: 1) Because of the strong acids in vulture stomachs, they are immune to lethal diseases such as anthrax and botulism, a great reason for humans to let vultures do their job. 2) The sense of smell in Turkey vultures is more important than their sight in detecting carrion and determining its food-worthiness, even up to a mile in the air! Now that is nothing to sniff at! Play, you Goth Kids!

At last, the sleepover is done with! The family—senza Doc and Andy—have packed up the station wagon and are now on their way…to where? Originally, they were going to Portland, Oregon (with visions of seaside specters dancing in Rusty’s head). But they have to get Mark’s dad first, the “reformed” Happy Trail. However, this detour to pick up Grampy Happy (as Rusty calls him) got more complicated.

It belatedly turned out that Mark’s comrade in crime, Reptilionnaire (who is also Rusty’s favorite reptile rapper), is performing nearby on the same day as the Big Family Cookout Grampy is throwing. Oh no! The Family Trail has yet to resolve this conflict, which has Rusty throwing a hissy fit. What to do? Unless they are all set to fly into Portland from Ft. Lauderdale, this two-week vacation may well get spent in Florida. Anyway, while Mark and the family try to not run over alligators along the highway, we’ll turn our attention to today’s nature chat, recorded before the vacation:

This is, indeed, a good project, and Wallis Annenberg is right to be proud of this project, which apparently won’t be completed until late 2023. And it received significant private donations. I’ve read that plans are to allow people to cross, as well. Sounds like a bad idea to me. I’m not sure how that is supposed to work in terms of not scaring off wildlife or endangering the public.

Anyway, Rivera once again integrates the main subject of the day (the planned crossing) into the title panel, showing her inventiveness. And it’s a bold thing to do, as some newspaper editors remove title panels to make more space for more comics.

The other amazing point here is Mark’s changing wardrobe! Contrary to the usual shirt he wears, day in and day out, while we still see a red first-layer, there is now some variety in the outer layer. And where there’s variety, there’s hope. One hope is that Rivera will completely break the long-standing comic strip convention for leading characters to always wear the same clothes. It’s not as if we won’t be able to recognize them. Heck, if Rivera can create unique title panels for each Sunday, it shouldn’t be too difficult for her to change Mark’s shirt color or even the pattern once in a while.

As this nail-biting adventure ends (okay, I heard some people were biting the heads off nails after reading Mark’s latest adventure), Mark and Diana’s zebra mussel video went viral. Rafael chided Mark for his arrest, then praised it as a plus for both the video and Mark’s popularity (Ed. note:  Wonder if it will help when his case comes to trial). Mark indicated that he is taking his family—and his Dad—to Oregon for a two week vacation.

The zebra mussel adventure had its share of kooky characters, some deserving more attention. Perhaps they will appear in later stories. The issue of zebra mussels is real and worth a story, although the tale Rivera spun was quirky, if incomplete. I think more detail and depth would have been worth a longer story time. Of course, if this was a pre-Rivera Mark Trial story, Mark would be chasing down some loutish fishermen happily moving their boats between lakes, while ignoring zebra mussel procedures. There would also be a pretty sister who helps Mark bring these boobs to justice and falls in love with him, only to be spurned like all other women, as Mark returns to his devoted, but boring, Cherry.

Rivera apparently was riffing on the fact that it actually was cargo ships passing through the Great Lakes that initially imported the zebra mussels. Relocating these ship(s) to Lost Forest seems pretty crazy, at first. Rivera could have sent Mark up to Lake Erie, but then Rivera would not have been able to weave Mark’s and Cherry’s separate storylines together as she likes to do. So, some historical sleight-of-hand took place. It’s nothing that other writers have not done.
Still, there are many imponderables! While you ponder them, check out today’s nature strip:

I grew up on the East Coast and went to the beach many times. We’d always find horseshoe crabs on the beach, many of them expired for one reason or another. Didn’t realize they are only found along the Atlantic coast of North America! But three other species can be found in the waters of S.E. Asia. How interesting that they are not found in most other locations! Although I have not seen this event, horseshoe crabs congregate by the many thousands along the Maryland and Delaware beaches in May and June during full moons and high tides for mating season.

You can skip this recap if you have been following the daily posts. Assuming you have not, pray continue reading.

The week before, we saw Mark, Diana, and Cliff arrested (off-camera, so to speak) for their nautical civil disobedience (something not in their job descriptions). This past week, there was hard time in the local lockup. That is, it was hard time for readers, with three days of inconsequential dialog as the jailbirds waited on their bail. They finished the week with two days of fond good-byes between the gang, having bonded over their protest and temporary incarceration. Even Diana finally heard from her estranged friend, Bee (“Ben”) Sharp, who remotely posted her bail. She was so misty-eyed she actually removed her shades in full frontal facial nudity. It all looked like a long-winded wrap-up for an adventure that seems anything but wrapped up. It is like the sudden endings we’ve seen in Mark Trail adventures before Rivera came along. I was (and still am) hoping for more:  such as an ending that cleans up after itself. But while we’re waiting for Rivera to get her broom and dustpan, let’s check out the Sunday nature strip.

Displaying another interesting nature-based title panel, today’s strip tells us about as much about the kestrel as you’ll find in casual online searches. So Rivera saved us the trouble. In short, it still faithfully upholds the required “Cliff Notes” summary that the Sunday format imposes. However, there are a few more things I picked up from the online Peregrine Fund page:
1. Kestrels can see UV light, which helps them better track prey.
2. Kestrels may be “everywhere” as Mark states, but their populations are declining and experts are not sure why.

Instead of the usual corny dialog in the last panel (that’s a nice drawing of the kestrel there), Rivera could have used it to comment on one or both of those items. So, I saved Rivera the trouble!

Mark’s “big plan” to stall or stop Duck Duck Goose Shipping from helping zebra mussels invade Lost Forest waters turned out to be all wet. Assisted by an ad-hoc group of fair-weather boaters, Mark and his helpers (Diana, Cliff, and “the de-bait team”) tried to blockade the waterway with their fishing boats. They created enough of an interruption for DDG to have police arrest them. Mark’s behavior during the protest was, well, ineffective. So, we ask: “What was the point?”

Moving on to Sunday’s strip, catch your breath with a quiet, conventional subject: Antler Showdowns!

A straight-forward, if average, Sunday “cliff-notes” chat about white-tailed deer. Classic Mark Trail Sunday stuff. However, I think Jules overlooked the apparent “fact” that, after jumping 30 feet, that white tail deer apparently trebled in size! Talk about a defensive move…!

But I think Rivera should dispense with the “two fists o’ justice” references, since Mark doesn’t seem to employ them anymore. That tussle with the two Duck Duck Goose goons wasn’t much of a performance. And it’s likely new viewers will have no idea what Mark means, anyway. So, Jules, either kill the catchphrase or get Mark to live up to his rep!

This past low action-filled week focused on the consequences of Cherry discovering a marimo ball (or maybe two) in a “decorative aquarium”, newly-purchased by Violet Cheshire. Faced with the prospect of revealing to Violet the potential dangers involved (and explaining why zebra mussels are dangerous) with the possible chance Cherry might upset Violet and lose her job, Cherry first consulted with Mark over the phone. In contrast to Mark’s rather excited expressions, he offered sober, calming advice that the situation was no big deal until Violet wanted to get rid of the marimo ball(s). He provided detailed instructions on safe disposal. Reading the room correctly, Cherry simply told Violet that her business would professionally clean the aquarium for free when it came time. This is fine for the short-term, but Cherry did Violet no favors by not educating her. And therein lies the rub, because Violet is not one for taking advice from a hired hand. As Mark apparently found time to talk with Cherry, he appears to have also found time to write about bobcats, as we see below:

A subject having nothing to do with either story line is getting to be an unusual occurrence in the Sunday strips. And I almost missed the “Mark Trail” logo in the title panel, it was so well constructed. One of Rivera’s better designs. I also liked Rivera’s use of “night cam” panels, both for their design contrast and for their visual reinforcement of information about the bobcat’s hunting time.  These two panels in grays show that Rivera could apply a similar look to her dailies, though she clearly prefers to depend on color. However, since newspapers print the dailies in b/w, going with the grays could add more aesthetic options for Mark Trail and give it a depth and solidity it does not normally show in newspapers.

If you missed the strips this past week because you were too busy trying to solve the Asimov Quiz in the newspaper, consider your time well spent. Perhaps. We are undecided whether this was a silly side-trip, a repeated bit of satire, or a hint of further problems down the road. In any event, this past week portrayed a telephone conversation in which Cricket Bro, while on some kind of “dawn surf patrol”, woke Mark up (at some ambiguous part of the morning) to motivate him into joining up to promote and sell NFTs. Mark went into auto-lecture mode explaining his climate change reasons for refusing to buy into the scam, which, unsurprisingly, went over Cricket Bro’s head. CB finally hung up. Now, wasn’t that something? Okay, then here is a follow-up: Sunday’s nature chat.

And not a moment too soon! For those who might have come to this story a bit late, Rivera expands on her original Sunday zebra mussels chat from August 8, where they were described as hidden travelers on imported “marimo” balls, a popular fish tank accessory that apparently get periodically dumped into toilets and flushed into rivers, enabling their spread. A fair point, by the way. Rivera expanded on this topic over time to highlight the main distribution method of zebra mussels: ships. As others have pointed out, these invasive mollusks also existed in the ballast that ocean-going ships pumped into the Great Lakes (for some reason, Rivera fails to mention ballast in her discussions). And it is also true that private boat owners are also partly responsible for helping to spread zebra mussels by not cleaning their boats between trips. However, since the current story focuses on zebra mussels, why devote another Sunday strip to this topic? I mean, Mark’s point about personal responsibility could easily be worked into the daily strips. I’m guessing this Sunday panel was done several months ago and only now published.