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The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This was Interview Week down at the San Antonio Hunting Lodge of Tess Tigress and her new hubby, Jess. They’re not big on last names down there, I reckon, and it was never offered. Mark started the interview off on the wrong foot by asking how the two of them got together, which redirected the interview away from discussions of the Hog Hunting Heroines (of Bexar County), the reason he flew there. Mark was later invited to view their hunting trophy room, which left him possibly revolted or merely appalled at the number of mounted heads.  Fortunately for Mark, there was no empty plaque on the wall with the label, “Mark Trail: 20__.” When Mark finally got around to asking about the hunting group (this was in Saturday’s strip, by the way), Tess simply said they were going hunting that day and hoped Mark brought along his hunting camo. Which he did. Well, before you bug out, check out today’s hot topic!

With all of the possible nature topics available at the touch of a keyboard, the best Rivera could come up with is la cucaracha? The cockroach!? I’m thinking even she was not that satisfied with the topic, based on the lackluster title panel she created. Well, we get a few less-than-well-known tidbits of intel, such as that even when squished, they can spread harm. But I don’t know why Mark talks about cockroach nests. Who sees the nests? Aren’t they usually inside the walls? If I ever saw a nest, I’d probably douse it with dish detergent, vinegar, or Elmer’s Glue. Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with those bugs since my college days.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Lost Forest Village, as the place is often referred to, cannot be very large, even with outlying homes. Yet, Peach and Olive claim that their merchandise stand at the Farmers Market sells enough to pay their rent. Housing must be cheap over there, or it’s really an “artist’s retreat” village that caters to the comfortably wealthy. This week Peach and Olive also admitted that moving out of Florida (like Jules Rivera also did) was a positive game changer. Based on what we saw on Chedderson’s golf course, they didn’t get away from the alligators.

So, this week we watched Cherry and her sisters selling their products at the farmers market. We didn’t see a lot of action at first. But the sisters were surprised when up popped a real-life fashionista who declared she wanted to buy their entire display! Her use of dated slang seemed to turn Olive off, but Peach nearly fainted with hero worship when she learned the woman is the famous online influencer, Holly Folly! This didn’t faze Cherry one bit, as she trotted out her “country gal” attitude and even imposed herself in between Holly and Peach while they chatted about working together.

By the way, Holly Folly—I’m hoping you’ll recall—was only a minor character in Mark’s mountain-top investigation of Sid Stump’s questionable STEM retreat (“Bear Necessity”). But is Holly sincere or on the con? We may have wait for that answer, as tomorrow we’ll likely go back to check on Mark for a few weeks, unless Rivera changes her publishing routine.

Is Mark giving this talk in his pajamas!? Makes sense, I reckon, given he’s talking about a nocturnal animal that does its playing while we’re sleeping.

Opossums play “dead”, and  humans play “Possum.” Got it! I almost stepped on a big fat possum lounging on my side door stoop one night when I came home. It skedaddled out of the way pretty fast, once it determined that “playing dead” didn’t work on a human who didn’t see it until too late. Still, faking dead is a cool trick, unless you are being tracked by vultures. And I don’t know why, when the immunity genes were passed out, we didn’t get our share for snake venom and rabies.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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All concerns about a woman’s point of view for this assignment appear to have been dropped (Wait: I think I might have said that last week. So, just move on). Mark dropped into San Antonio to meet Tess Tigress. But first, he decided to visit “The Robert L.B. Tobin Land Bridge,” famous for its scenic design and its wide path for humans and wildlife crossing over the highway (Monday). Or maybe it was crossing over a river (Tuesday). Or maybe it was crossing over a highway experiencing a flash flood.

Mark arrived at a large, luxurious A-frame structure on a lake—Tess’s  home—aka, the hunting lodge. After driving along an elaborate driveway, Mark parked in front and knocked on the large glass doors. A man with a pompously large handlebar mustache opened the door announcing that he was Tess’s husband, Jess. This took the wind out of Mark’s sails for a moment, because not only was he surprised Tess was married, he was concerned that Jess might not have known Tess had prior marriages. Shocking, I know. Hell, even I didn’t know that! But who are we to question Mark’s scruples or his information?

Also in Saturday’s strip, Jules Rivera offered up one of her first actual cliffhangers: Tess could not remember ever meeting Mark Trail! Mark was speechless, possibly because Rivera needed the space in the last panel for her narration box, where she prematurely spilled the beans. However, this revelation opens up several possibilities regarding Tess’s memory loss, such as whether it is real or feigned. Maybe we’ll find out, but for now, it’s time for the Sunday nature chat!

Yes, a nasty plant, indeed, along with poison oak and poison sumac. But exactly what happens, Mark? Did you forget to spell it out for the unlucky ones? Poison ivy creates a really awful skin rash that gets worse when you scratch it! It can last for weeks, but is treatable. It’s still a real, real pain. And like Mark said, burning it in your backyard along with wood and yard scraps can be traumatic to your lungs and require a trip to the ER. Wash anything that comes into contact with it. Note that this stuff can grow in yards, too.

Art Dept. I’m sorry, but that raised finger-pointing hand in panel 4 just does not look like it is connected to Mark’s body. The hand is rotated to his right, rather than to his left, as it should be. The placement of the hand, inside the right shoulder, also looks off. It’s as if Mark is holding a hand prop on a stick. This is not a new phenomenon.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Mark’s salon of villains and troublemakers is relatively limited; less than a dozen over the past 5 years. Several have made multiple appearances:  Professor Bee Sharpe, Cricket Bro (and his brother, Jadsen), Senator Smalls, and Chet Chedderson come to mind. Now we can add Tess Tigress to that list with her second appearance.

With the power of a comic strip named after himself, Mark Trail ensured Bill Ellis would give him the assignment that Ellis originally wanted to assign to a female reporter. No complaint was provided from Bill Ellis, suggesting that Mark may have censored that part of the phone conversation. Or Ellis knew what was better for him and remained mum.

Mark began researching his subject: A trio of women on the lookout to kill wild pigs (or boars) destroying private property in Texas. When Mark discovered that the leader of the so-called Texas Hog Hunting Heroines was Tess Tigress—former owner of a fraudulent and abusive tiger petting zoo (also in Texas) and target of an earlier assignment of his—he was taken aback (as we used to say, before gobsmacked became fashionable).

At this point, the remainder of the week was spent with Mark moaning and explaining his reactions to Cherry. Now, she would have already known about Tess Tigress, because of Mark’s earlier assignment. But let’s give Jules Rivera some credit for using this week to review the background on Tess for the benefit of new readers (if any) and old people like me, with failing memories. Or you can call it story padding, as I earlier noted. This background could have been delivered in just a few days, rather than using the entire week. So, maybe it’s a little of both.

As is common for Sunday, Rivera picks a topic that is somehow related to the current storyline. In this case, the Chihuahuan Raven, which can be found in western Texas (as well as New Mexico and Mexico). Rivera provides the usual customized title panel, with the title nicely integrated into the tree. And, unfortunately, we have Rivera’s usual practice of dedicating the concluding panel to a weak joke, rather than giving more information on the raven. For example, the American Birding Association reports that misidentification is common between this bird and the common raven, even by birders. Go figure.

What else? It is found in western Kansas. The Kansas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks reports that they are sometimes killed by humans mistaking them for common crows. Another understandable mistake, I think.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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A “Woman’s Touch” was the theme of the week when Bill Ellis made his usual phone call during Mark and Cherry’s nature walk and love affirmation session. But it turned out that he wanted Cherry’s participation instead of Mark’s. This was a highly unusual idea, using Cherry as the lead in a Bill Ellis assignment. Ellis specifically wanted a female reporter to accompany a trio of female book club members in their mission to eliminate feral hogs from people’s yards.

Somehow, Cherry got the impression that she was expected to also take part in the actual hunting instead of simply reporting on the group’s activities, and Bill Ellis did nothing to dissuade her. Maybe he did infer that. I dunno. But Cherry is no hunter and even got a bit panicky at the thought of hunting feral hogs. So she turned him down. Instead, she suggested Mark would be the person to take on the job. Seeing as how Bill was interested in a woman’s point of view, I’m not sure what Cherry was thinking at that point, but Mark was on board. However, we have yet to hear what Bill Ellis has to say on this last-minute substitution.

Thus, within one week, Jules Rivera tempted us with the novelty of Cherry going on an official assignment instead of Mark, only to pull it away by having Cherry refuse the job. It could have been nice to see Cherry operate in a situation that did not include the Sunny Soleil Society. Still, as I noted, we have not heard the last from Bill Ellis, who may reshape the job to get Cherry on board. We’ll see. But until then, let’s see what aspect of Nature Mark is expounding on today:

Well, yippee yi yo ki yay! We’re back in Texas once again and once again talking about bats. You would not be chastised for thinking that Mark might even own some property out there. Or maybe a bat sanctuary.

Too bad that Rivera didn’t have to mention a particularly popular event down in Austin:
“Texas is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world, consisting of [up to] 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas.”

Apparently, these bats collectively leave the dark underside of the bridge every evening from around mid-March to early November and create a spectacular cloud of flying mammals looking for their evening meal. It’s quite the attraction, online sources say.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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The Wheel of Fate spins, and having spun, sometimes goes sideways. This past week saw our happy, giddy, love-smitten Mark & Cherry take one of their post-story nature walks (which have largely replaced the post-story flapjack dinners), where they expressed their near equal devotion to the enjoyment of nature’s bounty and to each other. And that’s fine as far as it goes.  But doing this for an entire week gets a bit much. If the strip ever gets dropped by King Features, maybe the STARS Network can buy it, make it live action, and give it a more hip, racy title: “Cherry & Mark get off on Nature.”

Just when we thought these two might melt into a blob of organically-certified orgasm, Cherry’s phone started ringing. It was Bill Ellis calling, not for Mark, but for her! Bill has an assignment that really needs “a woman’s perspective.” We’ll find out what that means when the story resumes.

But this is quite the novelty. I can find no instance where Cherry has gone on any kind of assignment for Bill Ellis. Of course, there is the chance that this is just another practical joke by Jules Rivera, as we might discover that Bill called to get advice on a wedding present or help with some relationship issue. So, I’m hoping this call is legit. It will be another innovation to the Mark Trail strip, of which there have been several. For those who came in late, let’s review some:

  • Expanded frequency of stories centered on other family members. There have been stories by previous cartoonists that featured Cherry, Rusty, Doc, and even Andy. But Rivera promoted Cherry to co-star status, rather than her former “and featuring” credit.
  • Expanded or reshaped family personalities. As new blog follower Doghouse Reilly noted, Rusty is more like a real kid and less like an introverted, zombie-sock puppet pining to go fishing with Pop. In fact, this Rusty hates fishing! Rivera’s Cherry started as a feisty, elbows-up owner of her own business, with three siblings: a welcome change from the “I’m waiting for Mark” version. Doc shows up infrequently as a reactivated veterinarian and banjo player.
  • A “closed set” of opponents, rivals, and knuckleheads. Rivera has developed a rotating cast of largely incompetent troublemakers for Mark and Cherry. Like villains in the 1960s Batman, not much happens to them when they are disarmed, defeated, or arrested.
  • Parody. At first, Rivera took delight in poking fun at Mark and other traditions of the strip. It was refreshing to see Mark out of his depth or lose a fight. Rivera took the ubiquitous daily animal, and stuck it awkwardly in a corner like a statue, looking at us. However, this has all become normalized and annoying.
  • A dramatic change in the artwork. Aside from complaints about stories, this gets the most bad press. Rivera’s earliest work was edgy, like a graphic novel, with creative perspectives, layouts, and a more representational style. Even a talking snake! The art soon morphed into a more flat, sketchy, and feckless style. There are several likely reasons for the change in artwork. But now is not the time or place for that discussion.

Another contribution from Rivera is the customized title panels on Sundays. Today’s panel is a good, if expected, design. The webbing is heavy-handed and not convincing. The pun is better than average.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Miss this past week? The polluted lake story finally came to an end. Finally! Rivera even spelled it out, so clumsy doofs like me don’t miss it.

In any event, Mark and Happy worked like high school kids doing class reports the night before they were due. Happy found out that Chedderson had a granddaughter (sporting a similar hair feature) who might shame Chett into doing the right thing once she read their article in Teen Girl Sparkle. That’s a lot of assumptions for somebody he doesn’t even know. But wouldn’t you know it, she does read the magazine and did, in fact, called Gramps to complain. And just like that, Chett Chedderson went on the air and reported that his company would clean the Lost Forest waters. 

I’m not especially satisfied with the perfunctory way the story moved to its conclusion, since it relied on the off chance a young girl would act as Happy predicted. But as we have seen, time and time again, Rivera is not interested in serious storytelling as far as actual drama and sophisticated plots are concerned. Instead, it is all about simple storylines, bad jokes, and weird characters. Not that those are bad techniques that should be excluded, or that the story ideas are bad. It’s fine to include these features, but they shouldn’t be the extent of the plotting. Instead, they all get blended into some kind of story smoothie that lacks seriousness, real drama, or depth.

Looks like the prediction of groundhog/gophers/prairie dogs being the Sunday topic didn’t pan out. But bears, again!? There are thousands of animal species, along with countless natural sights and features, so I don’t know why Rivera keeps returning to bears, both on Sundays and in regular stories. Well, at least it gives Rivera more opportunities to improve her bear drawing, which appears to be working! I’ll also add that today’s strip shows a greater attention to detail and layouts than we’ve seen lately (excluding Mark’s ubiquitous presence).

Still, I’m all in for more diversity/variety in the Sunday topics.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This was “investigation week” in Lost Forest! That’s one week. The story began in late June. Omitting a few weeks for Cherry’s peacock adventure, the rest of the time was devoted to a backyard party at Ranger Shaw’s house, followed by the “vacation” at Chedderland. That would be around 8 weeks, though I didn’t do an exact count. The point is, little time was spent on anything approaching an investigation. To be fair, it’s not as if the pre-Rivera “Mark Trail” was an orthodox nature reporter, either. We rarely saw him taking photos on assignment, much less writing his stories and articles. 

So this week showed summary views (I presume) of taking water samples, conducting interviews, and working and writing on the laptop. At least, this investigating sequence presents a part of the Tradition we rarely see, even if it was severely truncated. But is it actually the end of the story? I don’t know. Happy Trail did proclaim they were finished. 

Cherry was impressed by Mark and Happy’s energy and father-son bonding. Rusty, acting his age, thought they were nuts for working during a vacation.

I will revise my grade to a “C” on the basis of this last week. I have already commented on what I think was a bad choice in the order of events, as well as over-emphasizing the entire Chedderland experience, which Rivera used to sandwich in a week of Cherry’s peacock story. But the story lacked any real sense of drama, suspense, or seriousness.

Leaving out the obvious and repetitious puns, this is an informative snapshot on a bit of otter anatomy. The link of otters and water pollution certainly ties into Mark’s current adventure, though they have no presence in Mark’s story, as far as we’ve seen.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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The polluted lake story ended yesterday, or so it seems. Of course, we could have another week for the epilog, a standard feature of Rivera’s stories. As for the week, itself, as Cherry’s peacock story appears to have ended, Chet and Brett Chedderson (patiently waiting on the sidelines all week so Mark could help trap the wandering peacock) returned on stage to renew their verbal assaults.

Insults flew from both sides as Happy Trail finally sided with Mark. The result was that the entire Trail family was thrown off the resort, permanently. No doubt, Happy Trail paid a fair amount of money for his charter membership fees, but tried to save face with the “I’ll see my own self out” trope dripping from his lips as they left. Maybe not quite that dramatic! Happy apologized to Mark for not sticking up for him earlier on (i.e. when Mark flew off the handle, accusing the Cheddersons of environmental sabotage, without having done any actual investigation). Then Cherry and Rusty conveniently disappeared from the strip for the last three days as Rivera focused on their father-and-son Hallmark greeting card moment.

And that leaves us with this: What was the point of this story? Was the premise of mysterious lake pollution and a new golf course just an excuse to bring in Happy Trail? The first half of the story, focusing on discovering the source of the lake pollution was just fine, as is. Happy’s appearance could have provided Mark with a colleague to help with an investigation.

But Mark’s plans (and the story) were sidelined and ultimately undermined when Happy Trail revealed the real reason he showed up was to invite them to the new golf club and water park that he just joined (even though he lives in Florida). And that’s when the story began to go sideways. If I was a writing teacher (thank goodness for students I am not!), I’d give the story a D. The focus on water pollution got twisted into a morality play about parenting. The pollution angle became secondary or forgotten. However, this is an adventure strip about nature and human interactions with the environment. It is unique in that regard. If we want to read strips that focused on human relationships, there are plenty of those already available. But there is only one Mark Trail strip. Why waste it on mere humans?

Rivera’s underwater drawings are often better executed and more evocative than what shows up above the water. Take the image of Mark raising his forefinger in panel 4 … Please! Did that come from a “Draw Mark Trail” contest submission!?

Seriously, does Mark/Rivera expect everyday people to run chemical tests on tap water?  Well, it might be a good idea, but Mark should have included some information on where test kits can be obtained. I’m surprised Mark and Cherry don’t have their own side business: Mark Trail’s Tap Water Test Kits.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Rivera side-slipped us back into Cherry’s Runaway Peacock story, while still on the golf course. As you may recall, she popped up the Saturday before, in the middle of the Trail-Chedderson Slapfest, along with the errant peacock. The fight immediately stopped and the peacock disappeared. Mark volunteered to help Cherry chase it down, the pollution fight, seemingly forgotten.

Then we cut to a scene of Honest Ernest with a butterfly net trying to catch the peacock and failing. Comparisons to “Coyote and Roadrunner” were obvious. At least Rivera showed good taste in what she borrowed from.

When Ernest complained about Mark and Cherry trying to hog credit for catching the bird, they assured him they didn’t care. It didn’t take Mark long to come up with a way to trap the peafowl using sticks, Happy’s golf club, and a granola bar that Cherry happened to have. Exactly how the trap worked is not really explained, but the bird was considerate enough to wander into it. Honest Ernest grabbed the trapped bird and ran off to impress Violet with his capture. Exciting stuff.

The only thing I’ll add is that Rivera may be throwing us a curveball.  The peacock shown and trapped this week did not exhibit the long tail that the (male) peacock originally displayed. Either Rivera forgot that “subtle” distinction when she drew the bird or she is playing off the fact that there are “feral” peacocks loose in this country. So it is possible that they trapped the wrong bird (a female in this case) which will backfire when Honest Ernest returns it and claims credit. This could be the best ending yet for one of Cherry’s stories.

For sure, I thought that Rivera would create her custom title panel using mouse droppings to spell out the title. Seemed obvious to me! Well, I read up on hantavirus and, frankly, I’m pretty bothered, especially as there is no specific treatment (cure) or vaccine against it; and fatality rates go as high as 50%! Uffa! Sure, it may be rare and mostly in western states, but that’s not the same as “non-existent.” We get an occasional mouse, especially in the Winter. I’m doubling the mouse traps this year. Maybe get a cat or two.

I see it now: Mighty Mouse was really a foreign agent, sent here to spread hantavirus under the ruse of “coming to save the day.”

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This was the week that wasn’t. Was it? It was make or break week for the polluted lake story. Mark and Happy continued with the golfing expedition, along with Chet Chedderson and his son, Brett. Rather than continue with his ruse of just being a guest of his dad so he could covertly investigate the resort, Mark jumped right up to accuse them of deliberate environmental damage, bringing about a heated exchange. This resulted in a fit of desultory face-punching between Bret and Mark, until Cherry suddenly popped onto the scene, more or less accompanied by that errant peacock nobody seems to be able to corral. It wasn’t clear if the peafowl showed up on its own by happenstance, though why a peacock would even want to invade a crowd of humans is unclear. There must be a reason for all this tomfoolery. But it sure looks as if this storyline has crashed and is in serious threat of burning. Why so?

It’s too early for this story to arrive at a conclusion. Plot-wise, it is still in the midway point; or at least, should be. At this point, Mark should be investigating the resort grounds more thoroughly, possibly even at night, as he did with Diana Daggers while investigating a secret data center site in Utah.

Instead, Mark couldn’t keep his mouth shut (as his dad recommended) and let the cat out of the story bag too early before gathering actual evidence. Did Mark find evidence for the assumed runoff? Did he compare onsite fertilizers with the sample that Ranger Shaw had taken from the lake? Did he interview the groundskeeper? No. No. And NO! It would have been simple enough to dramatize all of this over another week or two, building to a dramatic climax.

Ok, which is it, Mark?  “Super typhoon” or “Super Cyclone” (panel 4)? It’s all Potatoes and Potahtoes. Typhoons (Pacific Northwest), cyclones (South Pacific and Indian oceans), and hurricanes (mid-Atlantic and Eastern/Central Pacific oceans) are geographic synonyms. The term “cyclone” was coined in the 19th century by an English sea captain studying tropical storms in India. The term “typhoon” has a confusing origin, with the Chinese using a similar word for such storms as far back as 1124 CE, though “typhon” was used in France at least as early as 1504. And “hurricane” was derived from a Spanish term, which was taken from the name of a Caribbean god of evil, which evolved from the ancient Mayan god of winds and storms (“Hurricán”). Etymology is very cool.

Figured out the flags, didn’t you?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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We first met Chet Chedderson as an unscrupulous shipping magnate in the Zeeba Mussels story ( 8/12/21-2/4/22), as he tried to prevent Mark from investigating and reporting on the occurrence of invasive zebra mussels arriving in American waters on the hulls of his tankers. Chedderson even went as far as hiring thugs to beat up Mark. Mark doesn’t seem to hold much of a grudge. So Chet became this strip’s symbol of corporate greed and environmental indifference. After a brief, unmemorable cameo in another adventure, he is here again, taking on the role of a rich dude building a golf resort without regard for the local environment. His son is merely a projection of his father. But this is all quite in keeping with traditional Mark Trail bad guys, insofar as their personalities are superficial and stereotypical. Golfing aside, it’s the kind of story that might have come from Allen, Elrod, or even Dodd.

A common complaint about Rivera’s stories is their weak plotting and absurdities. That can hardly be denied when seen in toto. I mean, lions in a house (e.g. snakes on a plane)!? It might be less so, here. For the most part, the story has followed a logical and coherent path: Mark discovers pollution from an unknown source in a favorite lake; a follow-up interview with the local forestry ranger proves uninformative; Mark learns about a new golf course and begins to think of runoff pollution; he “coincidentally” gets invited to spend time at the golf course; and discovers that Chet Chedderson is the developer. Of course, there are silly bits meant to keep the flow going and expand the storyline, such as the resort’s water park that Rusty explores, and Happy Trail being the person who invited Mark (and family) to the golf resort because he just happens to be a member of the new club. Overall, it’s a better than average storyline for Markey. But will it hold up?

We spent this week watching Mark and Happy deal with an alligator crossing the fairway while Chet and Brett whined and complained. Mark berated them about interfering with local nature habitats by building the golf course too close to the gator’s home. Then Mark helped the reptile get to its watery destination. This gator scenario will surely further convince Mark of the Cheddersons’ complicity in the lake pollution and embolden him to take more dramatic action. Or so I hope.

Alligators. Hardly a surprising subject, but as often as Rivera can, she relates the current subject to the current story or story location. The alligator literature says that gators do not normally attack humans unless provoked or reacting from a defensive posture. I’d still keep my distance. They are quite different from crocodiles, which will actively attack humans without provocation, often killing and consuming them. The Nile Crocodile (even feared in ancient Egypt) and the Freshwater Crocodile (S.E. Asia and Australia) have the highest annual body counts (in the hundreds). I never much thought about crocodiles when I was a young lad visiting Egypt and happily relaxed in low-hulled boat ferries crossing the Nile. But now? They scare the bejeebers out of me just thinking about them. You can look up “Crocodile Attack” in Wikipedia for more unsavory details.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This is the week that was…wet. As in water parks. As in what looks like a second week with Cherry. On its own, it’s a bit unusual. But this week is not on her dime, is it? Or maybe it is. I mean, this is supposedly the story of Mark’s informal investigation of water pollution in a local swimming lake. Yet, we have had two weeks of Cherry and Rusty at the water park! (Oh, the trivia I get into. Do I even have a life?)

I think what we have is Jules Rivera “shaking up” her usual time allotments (2+ wks for Mark versus 1 wk for Cherry). So this week was really Cherry’s story slip-sliding into Mark’s. For those who came in late: The prize peacock belonging to Violet Cheshire’s mother (never “mom”!) escaped from the Sunny Soleil Society, leading to Cherry and Honest Ernest having to find it in time for a big-deal summer party. While Rusty was looking for more water slides, Honest Ernest phoned Cherry for help. Cherry had the day off, but since she’s been something of a nonentity the past several weeks, she relented and agreed to help Ernest, especially as she and Rusty spotted the peacock running around the resort.

Ernest arrived at the park. As the two conversed, the peacock suddenly ambushed Ernest by jumping on his head. Ernest was so upset that the peacock was able to escape once again. Meanwhile, Rusty had returned, shivering from the cold water of his latest slide. For reasons unknown to me, Cherry was getting very flustered and phoned Mark to make sure he was okay. I reckon all of the stress—from Rusty going on dodgy slides to getting herself talked into helping Ernest on her day off—was taking its toll. So she clearly needed a steady head and support.

Yet, talking to Mark, Cherry expressed the hope that her day was going better than Marks, thus contradicting the very reason she called (as far as I could tell)! In an attempt to downplay his own developing situation, Mark casually mentioned an alligator on the course interrupting play.

Such is the summary for the week. At least there was some action!

Andy finally made an appearance, if only for a brief cameo. I reckon that the cane toad is yet another case study of good intentions gone awry. Their eggs are laid in long jellied strips, housing up to 25,000 eggs. But only about 0.5% reach adulthood. I read the cane frog’s article in Wikipedia (the source of information for all of us half-baked experts!). The science backs up Mark’s warning about what happens to dogs that lick or bite cane toads. It’s yet another reason to avoid moving to Florida.

But it isn’t just animals that can get poisoned. Some humans have died, apparently thinking they were consuming a normal toad! <Bleh!> Best read the article for the other interesting tidbits. Well, go on…hop to it!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Rivera shifted the story’s focus this week from the golf course to the water park. As Mark and Happy walked off with the Cheddersons for a round of golf, Cherry and Rusty went to the water park where Rusty tried out the “stingray spinner” water slide (what we used to call a snake slide in my youth). Turns out the pool (or pond) contained actual stingrays put there (according to the staff) to make the experience more exciting. But for whom? The concept of using actual stingrays in a pool designed for family entertainment sounds just a tad reckless, wouldn’t you say? Earlier this week, some readers discussed a now-defunct amusement park in New Jersey that bragged about its dangerous rides. So, reckless? Sure. More importantly, does it make any sense to include this “stingray” diversion in the story, or was it just thrown in to be weird? Or is it meant to reveal something of the character of Chet Chedderson?

Cherry yanked Rusty out of the water and berated one of the teenaged pool staff, to little avail. But right then, Cherry got a phone call from Honest Ernest whining about her not helping find the lost peacock. Cherry reminded Ernest that she had the day off, so it was now his job.

Rivera is not one to waste an opportunity for a traditional “but just then…!” opportunity, so as she ended the call, the missing peacock suddenly appeared near the pool. Will Cherry call Ernest back and tell him to come get it, or will she and Rusty go chasing after the peafowl all over the resort? Well, gang, maybe we’ll have some real suspense, at last!  

And you thought getting stung by jelly fish was bad (Well, I sure do)! Looks like reader comments on stingrays discussed on Friday were not enough to replace the Sunday topic, so Rivera still had her say. But today’s topic is not really so much about the rays as the consequences of human interaction with them. And it looks to be no fun at all. I read that sometimes the blade of a stinger gets embedded in a person unlucky enough to get stabbed, requiring surgery to remove it. Ugh! Maybe wading in the surf with sandals is a better option.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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On the links or in the rough? It’s difficult to tell. Jules Rivera’s notion of a golf course looks more like a DIY obstacle course with flags. After Happy Trail’s surprise invitation to spend time at the new golf resort, the Trails (minus Doc Davis) decided to stand outside the building for the entire week, chatting. Rusty was interested in the water park, yet spent all of his time just filling in the background. As did Cherry, who was apparently placed for eye candy appeal for Trailheads who are otherwise tearing out the rest of their hair over this story.

While Mark (who wore his backpack all week) and Happy (who did not) bantered about Mark’s journalistic interest in the resort, up popped Brett Chedderson, son of the resort owner, Chet Chedderson. Then Chet, himself, suddenly appeared. You remember good ol’ Chet, the shipping magnate with the zebra mussels infestation? This impromptu meetup sparked a short-lived conversation when Mark tried to question Chet about the lake pollution; but he was cut off by Cherry and Happy, for reasons unknown. Were they bothered by golfing rules of decorum? Did they fear for their lives? Were they afraid to see Mark get involved in another fight and land in jail?

As we finally arrived at Saturday’s strip, Rusty and Cherry were still hanging around. Chet invited Mark and Happy to a foursome of golf. In spite of his earlier lack of family support, Mark was even more determined to investigate! Cherry better start go-go dancing to keep the readership returning!

First of all, I don’t golf. I don’t even watch it. While all that Rivera/Mark says is true, it isn’t the full story, as I’ve been learning. In city/suburb settings, golf courses can provide some useful greenspace, given that parks can, as well. Golf courses are becoming more concerned about their environmental impact and are working to mitigate their negative impact. Results will vary. Some of the techniques I read discuss: better water handling through precision irrigation techniques and water recycling. Some golf courses use partially-treated effluent (treated wastewater), where the thick turf grass helps trap smaller waste particles allowing cleaner water to soak back the ground water. They are also investing in drought-resistent grasses (though Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah should probably cut back on courses!); some are using more native grasses where applicable (obviously for borders and roughs). Some are creating protected wildlife corridors along course boundaries. Some are looking for less harmful chemicals or replacements. Some are investing in renewable energy. Of course, not all courses are making all of these changes, and there are probably many holdouts. But it does appear to be a growing awareness, due in part to the cost savings over traditional course maintenance practices. Once again, money talks. But it’s better than no talking.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Sometimes an investigation comes about obliquely. Such is the case of the contaminated swimming hole. This is like a Classic Mark Trail story. After getting shut out of a swimming afternoon, the Trails retired to Ranger Shaw’s backyard for an impromptu party. Some friendly questioning of Ranger Shaw failed to produce anything useful regarding the source of the lake’s contamination. This inspired Mark to take control of the situation and investigate on his own. Good thing, too, else we’d still be reading about Cherry and Violet looking for her mom’s runaway peacock!

Now, did Mark hop on the case immediately? He might have, but Happy Trail just happened to call and tell him about a new golf course opening up near Lost Forest. Mark immediately saw a connection to the lake contamination. Quick thinking like this saves a lot of unnecessary time spent researching and  scouting the area for possible causes. Since complexity and story depth are not a hallmark of most comic strips, including Mark Trail, we can count on the golf resort being the guilty party.

Anyway, before Mark could do anything on his own, Happy came up from Florida and showed up at the cabin! He invited (most of) the family to a weekend at the new golf resort, which he had just joined and booked rooms for everybody. Golfers can be a bit crazy, I reckon.

But it’s all very convenient for Mark, who now has a legitimate reason for showing up at the golf resort! And Rusty was thrilled to see Happy and get a chance to play in the resort’s water park. That should set him up really swell with his friends.

There may be a strategic reason to put the Peacock discussion here, in the middle of Mark’s two-week storyline rather than during Cherry’s week. But I don’t know what it is. Maybe just a scheduling issue at the comic syndicate. In any event, the composition and execution of the title panel today is well-conceived. The curious focus on reflection is explained in the strip. It’s an effective top-down view that includes different shading techniques that are rare in Rivera’s work.

I was not aware there were feral peacocks in the US, apparently due to careless pet owners and people of questionable character who deliberately release them into the environment. These feral peafowl seem to predominate in Florida (home to all manner of released exotic animals), Texas, and southern California. So if you live in the Midwest or Eastern Seaboard, you are probably not going to see any peacocks, except in a zoo.

And I’ll give Rivera credit today for not even trying to draw a peacock in full plumage. There are some paintings and drawings that pull it off, but in a comic strip’s limited format, it would be most difficult to try.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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It’s hard to be tough on Cherry and her stories. I believe they are deliberately designed to be minimally consequential, such as human interest stories you might find in any B or C section of your local newspaper or any episode from an unlamented sitcom rerun on ME TV.

At first, this seems ironic, given Jules Rivera’s personal belief in strong, independent women. Why isn’t Cherry out there, rooting out real substantive problems and spending less time holding Violet Cheshire’s hand all the time, or foiling Honest Ernest’s incompetence? One possibility could be that Rivera thought it might be a bridge too far to turn Cherry from the homebound “waiting for Mark to return” wife and mother into a mirror image of her husband, Mark.

So Rivera took a middle course, giving Cherry something to do outside of the home, but with manageable hours, less risk, and time to be a mom. At least, there is still an element of nature or wildlife involved in her stories.

Cherry’s current adventure began—where else?—at the Sunny Soleil Society, helping Violet get ready for a Summer Banquet, possibly that same evening. The time was never specifically mentioned, but the storyline suggests it.

Violet was overwrought with planning for the banquet, since her Mother (who actually runs the Society) has high expectations and demands. Since this drama is unfolding the day of the event, Violet’s mother may have a point. Violet is not a young gal by any means, but still has no idea where to find a beauty salon for herself. Cherry brought in her sister, make-up nerd Peach Pitt, to give her the works. Violet remained dubious. Meanwhile, Cherry learned she was expected to build a special cage for the prized peacock (peafowl) belonging to Violet’s mother. But when Cherry went outside to see the bird, the travel cage that Honest Ernest brought over was empty, and the peacock was gone. So was Honest Ernest. We’ll have to wait three weeks to see what happens next.

Yeah, I know. It would have made sense for Rivera to do a peacock topic for the Sunday page. Maybe she is saving it up for another Sunday. Anyway, for you Mark Trail History aficionados, Mark discussed gila monsters at least twice in the past: Once on February 2, 1969 (Tom Hill) and then again on September 2, 2018 (James Allen). A few points from the older Sundays: Gilas are very sluggish and can go for months without capturing and eating prey, because it stores its food as fat in its stubby tail. Its bite and venom are considered to be extremely painful, though not usually fatal to humans.

You can find Allen’s Sunday page on this site by its date. Hill’s Sunday watercolor is harder to track down. I found it in a Google search using the criterion “Mark Trail comic gila monster”, then clicking on the Images category and scanning the results.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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The ol’ swimming hole is contaminated with wastewater, much to the Trails’ consternation. What to do? The ongoing story this past week saw the Trails move from the closed lake to an impromptu backyard slip n’ slide party and barbeque at the home of Ranger Shaw, the father of Rusty’s sometimes-friend, Robbie. In the backyard sipping iced tea and eating hotdogs, Mark tried to get information from Ranger Shaw about the contamination, only to find out that he claimed to know nothing about its source. This made Mark suspicious, given the weeks he and his colleagues have had to investigate. Mark is right to be suspicious, with Range Shaw’s questionable actions in the past and his seeming inability or unwillingness to help out (e.g. the Grungey Boys’ so-called lawnmower races in Lost Forest).

And wouldn’t you know it, just at this point in time, Mark gets a call from his dad, Happy Trail. Always nice to hear from family, right? Well, there was no discussion of weather, no “How’s Rusty?”, or “When are you all coming down to visit?” Nope, Happy Trail jumped right to the point: “There’s a golf course opening just north of you!” Since Mark has no history of playing golf, we have to wonder why Happy Trail even knew about it or bothered to tell Mark. My guess is that Happy is financially involved in the course and it will wind up being another scam.

Finally, there was some noteworthy art: A nicely drawn foreshortened view of Rusty sliding on Robbie’s slip n’ slide toward the reader; and a less-than-complimentary image of Cherry, seen from the back, in profile (shudder!).

Today’s Title Panel is a clever, well-drawn take on the stereotypical vacation post card. And I’m glad to see fewer images of Mark filling the Sunday strip. Celebrate biodiversity, okay. Fine! But the execution of today’s “biodiversity” doesn’t live up to the definition. In fact, two of the animals here each take up two panels! What about flora? Sea life? And keep in mind that the main purpose of the Mark Trail Sunday strip is already meant to show and educate us on the diversity of wildlife and nature! Call me cynical, but today’s strip smells like deadline pressure.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Action? Drama? Suspense? Got me. As usual, we haven’t seen any. It’s been a quiet week in Lost Forest (to riff on Garrison Keillor): Mark is home, the hot water is running, and everybody wants to go swimming at the lake. The only problem is that it’s fenced off because of water contamination.

Bad luck for the swimmers, but better luck for Mark (and maybe we readers), because it looks like another home-grown (i.e. non-paying) investigation is in order, as Mark returns to his roots to deal with a local environmental problem. The question, though, is Why?

Why, indeed? The fact that there is a fence and a sign means the authorities know about. What’s Mark going to do? He’s a reporter, not a bacteriologist. In the real world, he’d make a couple of phone calls, write up his findings, and that would be that. Perhaps if there was an actual newspaper in the area, Mark would publish there. But this is Mark’s World. Clearly, there will be something nefarious afoot.

No awards (again) from the Norman Rockwell School of Illustration this week. And we must bide our time until Monday, with today’s nature lesson. Get your notebooks out!

The following Sunday falls on July 6th, so Rivera got her “July 4th”strip out today. We have a fairly orderly, if sometimes corny, set of panels. The customized title panel reminds me of one of those late-night infomercials where you can buy the “Collector’s Edition American Bald Eagle” statue for only two easy payments of $39.99, plus s/h.

The eagle drawings are, indeed, well done. As I’ve mentioned several times before, Rivera uses stock images, such as this photo. Close comparison shows that she free-handed much of it, rather than just performing simple copy-and-pastes. Speaking of using visual rfeferences, when John James Audobon made his detailed bird drawings, he had to shoot the birds in order to have the time and opportunity to pose and draw them. This was a common practice back then.

(click photo to see enlarged image)

The main complaint I have—and one that you’ve seen me make before—is Rivera’s insistence on sticking Mark in as many Sunday panels as possible and over-indulging in poor jokes and puns. Not sure why she thinks this is good, nor who she is aiming this at. It surely isn’t younger people. Maybe it’s directed at the kind of people who buy American Bald Eagle statues for two easy payments.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Okay, this is another week in review for the slackers, or for people who just forget things too quickly.

Mark learned a valuable lesson this week in journalism: Don’t tell your boss what you are going to do before you do it. While waiting for his plane ride home, Mark presented his idea for an A-I Event Exposé to his boss, Bill Ellis, on the phone. Ellis, taking on the role of a corporate PR suit, nearly dropped a load when he heard Mark’s idea, which included being specific about the persons involved. “NO NAMES! DON’T PRINT ANY NAMES!” Ellis squealed as he worried over lawsuits, which Ellis believes is the second most favorite habit of Silicon Valley moguls. Not only did Ellis nix publishing Mark’s article and robbing him of a paycheck, he told Mark to put it on his own blog, but still keep the names out of it. It looked like Mark happily accepted the rebuke and the need to self-censor, almost bragging about it!

For shame, Mark! This is not the fiery, cross-the-line, rabble-rousing, rock ‘em-sock ‘em nature journalist that we thought we knew. Conspiracy Alert: Who is this obvious fraud? Was the real Mark Trail replaced by some kind of A-I programmed robot? Perhaps we’ll all find out tomorrow after Mark has had his first night back at home with Cherry. Until then, let’s read his Sunday nature chat:

Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail Sunday strip always features a customized title panel. Most of the time, the depiction of the strip’s title is cleverly fashioned through some thematic tie-in. But it’s not always possible. I think this is one of those days, where the title is just a rough, water-based solution.

Anyway, today is at least an informative Sunday strip bringing out some facts on a subject many of us probably don’t think or know about. And that’s the point, right? However, I still dislike two things that are not unique to today’s strip: First, the inclusion of Mark’s image throughout the panels. This was not always the case on the Sunday strips in the pre-Rivera past. I don’t know why Rivera feels the need to panel-bomb Mark’s face so often. Second, Rivera has a habit of ending Sunday strips with a lame joke or cute reference. I’d rather see the final panel devote more information to the current topic.

For example: The barking tree frogs often group in temporary “choral groups” of up to 20-25 in the water to enhance their ability to attract females to mate with. However, the competition to thrive takes a toll on the males, who have to take breaks away from the group after becoming too weak. This gives them time to restore their strength and return. That’s probably necessary because they will mate with multiple females, whereas the females only mate once a season. But an equally interesting question is “How do biologists figure all of this out!?“