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The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Rivera brought us back to Lost Forest this past week to catch us up on Cherry’s mini herb basket assembly project and the travails of sisters Olive and Peach. With baskets assembled, the sisters arrived at the local farmers market ready for selling. Cherry introduced her sisters to their older BIG brother, Dirk, who seemed to be unknown to them. Cherry had invited Dirk to come sell his feral hog poetry. (I’m really hoping Dirk will recite some of it before he disappears back into the Trailverse Closet of Bit Characters.)

So how is it that Olive and Peach did not know Dirk, you ask? It was never stated, though it might have been due to a possible early departure from the homestead by Dirk. Maybe Peach and Olive were too young at the time to remember. It’s a mystery.

In any event, this family convergence was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Peach’s ex-boyfriend, Rick. Peach rejected his pleas for forgiveness and reunion, leading to Rick’s increasingly erratic behavior. Brother Dirk finally stepped in to make known his own intentions regarding Rick’s immediate future and health. That sent Rick sullenly on his way. However, Rivera let it be known that the ex-boyfriend probably isn’t heading back to Florida any time soon. And that’s where things stand in Lost Forest.

Rivera gives us another animal talk geographically linked to current stories, along with another inventive title panel. But unless you visit or live in Florida, you will likely only see iguanas in zoos and in homes as pets (a role they are not suited for). The iguana is considered a harmful invasive species in Florida. Their existence there is probably due to people abandoning them, especially when they grow up to 6 feet long! Florida is truly America’s favorite dumping ground for abandoned exotic and dangerous pets, including Burmese pythons, boa constrictors, Nile monitor lizards, African monkeys, Cuban tree frogs, peacocks, caimans, and out-of-state college students. Florida: It’s more than just orange juice and beaches!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Reader Downpuppy brought up a good point that “Bear Bandit” could be understood as shorthand for “Bear-Suited Bandit”, thus invalidating yesterday’s grammatical criticism. Well, perhaps. I also think the alliterative rhythm of the name may have had a role in its use. English is flexible.

Last week a bear-bandit attacked Rita and Skeeter when the team stopped at a gas station for snacks. The action continued this week as Mark predictably chased the attacker. Of course, another bear-bandit showed up to steal the unlocked manatee truck holding Max the manatee. Mark turned around in time to pull the second kidnapper out of the truck. Like a mother bear, I’m told.

When Rita and Skeeter conveniently showed up after Mark thwarted the attackers, the team used the manatee truck to pursue the bear-bandits instead of delivering Max! This disregard for Max’s health was further exacerbated: After the crew failed to catch the kidnappers they thought it was a good idea to stop along the way and report the incident. I’m sorry, but is there any valid reason for Jules Rivera to make Mark appear so clueless and unconcerned about Max?

Conclusion: An attempt to interfere with the transportation of Max by the Whether Men was certainly an acceptable part of the story that could provide some drama. Rivera’s contrivance of having the team stop for snacks and leaving the truck unlocked and be assaulted by inept conspiracy nuts in costume was more comical than suspenseful. Once again, Rivera ignored drama for absurdity and juvenilia.

Art Dept. This was not a week of noteworthy drawing. I won’t bore or infuriate you with details. If you have time and fortitude, scroll through the prior days.

Mark admits his own manatee adventure is just so much seaweed as he discusses more realistic effects of storms and hurricanes on manatees, to say nothing of the effort and care that are really required to care for a displaced manatee. Mark provides good discussion (and artwork) here, even as some kind of bug apparently got into his eye (last panel). But it would also be great if Mark followed his own advice more closely.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Mark is finally on the “Save Max the Manatee” job at Storm Brain, the non-profit run by Rita and Skeeter. After some desultory rehashing of conspiracy threats by “The Whether Men”, it was time to hit the road in their specialized transport truck. Was Max the Manatee already in the truck or did he have to be picked up? That was left unsaid and we never saw Max. In fact, most of the dialog was about the kidnapping threat. They finally left, only to make a surprisingly unnecessary snack stop at a gas station along the way. While there was no practical reason to stop for such a short drive, it’s the kind of staged moment we see in countless shows where the protagonists do something pointless so they can be caught off guard by the bad guys.

As Mark, Skeeter, and Rita got out of the truck, a hilariously “fake bear” jumped out of the bushes (How did he know where to be?), knocking down Rita and Skeeter. Mark was not deterred, but rushed the phony bear and removed its headpiece, exposing the person inside. Unless “The Whether Men” group is actually just one lone whacko, such an obviously inept attack has to be a diversion for a secondary raid on the truck. We’ll have to wait and see where Rivera takes the story.

Art Dept. Maybe some feedback got to Rivera or she acted on her own initiative, but I noticed that Rivera has been experimenting more frequently with using tones and shading in her panels, as seen in this newspaper version of Saturday’s strip. Whether these tones are applied primarily to give more texture to the colors, they certainly provide a welcome enhancement to the usual stark newspaper versions.

And now, on to the Sunday nature exposé!

Rivera produces another interesting topic, as well as a creative title panel. I found some supporting information on this topic on the Smithsonian and National Forest Foundation’s web sites. Of course, trees do not have brains or central nervous systems, so this interaction may be a function of their DNA. However, an article in Scientific American states that all of this is still very hypothetical and relies on limited studies. In fact, competition between trees for limited forest resources seems to be more common (as with humans and animals), and the sharing of “danger or stress signals” was based on a single study in a greenhouse, not in the wild. Tolkien may still be a bit too fanciful with his Ents, but the idea of some kind of communication network among trees is slowly taking root (sorry about that!).

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Rivera spent the first three days of the week covering the phone call between Mark, Cherry, and her sisters, as Mark finally learned why Peach and Olive flew up to Lost Forest. It wasn’t until the Thursday strip that Mark met up with the people involved in transporting Max the Manatee back to the ocean.

As is usual, the two transporters (Rita and Skeeter) are not your everyday business-as-usual movers, but operate an NPO involved in teaching weather and climate science in underprivileged schools. That’s all to the good, of course. They showed Mark threatening emails from members of “The Whether Men” conspiracy group. We also now learned how Mark got involved in this project:  Rita and Skeeter specifically asked for him, not because of his reporting skills, but because he showed up in an Internet search as a Manatee Fighter. In my basic understanding of English grammar that phrase means Mark fights manatees, but in the world of Mark Trail, it apparently means somebody who fights on behalf of manatees. I would have opted for Manatee Defender, but I’m too Old School, I reckon.

In other news: I have written now and then about how certain comic strip characters (here and in other strips) wear the same clothes all the time as a form of visual identity; but some don’t: Mark and Rusty conform to this standard, whereas Cherry does not. Anyway, I was catching up on Greg Evan’s Luann and saw its own take on clothing identity. Brad DeGroot finally reveals the secret. And it’s just as I thought!

So, what do you think of the Sunday Nature Chat?

The title panel reminds me of a children’s storybook cover. That’s not a putdown.

I think Rivera presents a good topic today: she gives a nod to superstition, but ultimately anchors the topic in an informative explanation of how genetic mutation creates different versions of “white deer.”

What Mark didn’t state is that this whiteness can make deer especially vulnerable to predation, and not just from humans. Also important to keep in mind is that their whiteness is not an example of a different or an endangered species of deer.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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As the prior week focused on Mark’s departure to Florida to save Max the Manatee (as that adventure should resume tomorrow), so this past week Cherry learned about sister Peach’s weakness for men who check several of the macho boxes: big, strong, handsome, hunter, poacher, bipolar, … uh, hold up. Too many boxes. Seems boyfriend Rick illegally lured a protected deer onto private property so he could shoot it. Well, nice to know that even Peach has some standards, so she dumped the dude.

Unfortunately, Rick turned angry and violent after the rejection, threatening Peach, Olive, and other family members. So the two sisters fled the state to seek safe shelter in Lost Forest. And that’s where things stand at the moment.

Well, this is an interesting departure from the usual Sunday nature blab, and I’m happy to see that Rivera’s approach to the Christmas holiday is not some sentimental greeting card blather. Focusing on the animals of The Twelve Days of Christmas is a clever idea. Well done, Rivera! She clearly spent extra time designing and drawing today’s panels. It’s actually quite good and makes me wish all of her stuff measured up.

And I do like the “country squire” attire Mark sports. I can actually imagine spinning off a 17th century Lord Mark Trail adventure strip. We’d see Lord Mark rising from his snobbish upper class ways to become focused on learning about and protecting animals and their habitats during the early days of the Royal Society, while also interacting with scientists, nobles, and lawbreakers of the day.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Call this the Week that Weaved, if you wish. As Cherry dropped Mark off at the local airport to fly down to Florida and protect Max the Manatee from danger, the Fickle Fates of Airline Scheduling conspired to have Cherry’s two sisters, Olive and Peach, fly into the airport at the same time. Well, truth be told, Cherry knew they were coming, so she likely scheduled Mark’s plane to take off around the same time to save herself another trip.

And lucky Cherry, not only did airport police not chase her away from the curb while waiting on the sisters (as noticed by commenter Be Ware of Eve Hill), but she learned that the visit is really to get Peach out of Florida and away from her violent ex-boyfriend. His identity is a mystery at this point, but we do know that he is heinous, which is pretty far down the scale of personality attributes. Speaking of mysteries, will we continue with Cherry’s story on Monday or pivot to Mark and Max the Manatee?

While you’re flipping that coin, I hope you’ll stick around long enough for the Nature Monologue.

Growing herbs (outside or inside) is certainly a useful sideline and doesn’t take much work. We grow several herbs, which is to say, my wife does. I have a brown thumb, because anything I try to grow turns to … well, my wife is the gardener and she keeps me away from it.

One thing I tire of is TV commercials with the always smiling faces of the actors, even people in those dreadful, omnipresent drug commercials. Cherry and Mark’s frozen smiles in today’s nature chat just trigger a reaction that makes me want to immediately turn the page (or scroll away).

Today’s strip is like watching an Infomercial. I keep waiting for Mark and Cherry to tell me how little they want to charge me for their customized mail-order herb baskets that I can grow in the comfort of my own home: “Just three payments of $14.99 (plus shipping) and they will arrive within seven business days! Order now and they’ll throw in the Grow Light! Don’t wait! Call 555-1212. That’s 555-1212. Call today at 555-1212. Why are you still watching? Call now!! Did you get the number? It’s 555-1212.“

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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As Cherry and Mark celebrated the completion of the catio, resolving the issue of where to keep the cache of found kittens (and possibly their mother, though I’m not certain), Mark received his usual just-in-time phone call from Bill Ellis. Interesting how that always seems to happen. Have we ever seen an instance of Mark getting a call from Bill while he was in the middle of a project or adventure?

Bill engages Mark to head to crazy-land (Florida) to assist/report/confound the transportation of Max the Manatee back to the ocean from his landing in a resort pool as the result of recent storms and/or floods.

The problem:  It seems there are some militant anti-climate activists that have been making threats to the company moving Max, because meteorology is evil. What that has to do with Max the Manatee is a mystery. But Mark is gung-ho to go and help save Max! Not that we know exactly what Mark is supposed to do or why, but if this sounds whacko, remember two things: The action takes place in Florida and this is just another Mark Trail story.

A nicely-composed title panel leads us into this brief presentation, including some sound advice for presumptuous tourists and distracted drivers. You likely won’t run into a moose unless you live in or visit the upper United States, Canada, or northern Europe. As bad as it is to collide with a moose on the road, colliding with something as small as a deer on the road can also be dangerous to drivers and bikers. I always get a bit nervous and cautious driving through forested areas, especially in the Fall during mating season. When driving in northern Minnesota, the only way I want to see a moose on the road is in my rearview mirror!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat 

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In true Mark Trail fashion, the School Trip story (“Rusty Goes to Washington”) ended with a sudden jump back to Lost Forest as Cherry enlisted Mark in her crusade to build a “catio”, or cat shelter. Rusty conveniently faded from the story during the drive back. Meanwhile the pathetic image of a humbled Honest Ernest came into view when Cherry and Mark pulled into the back of the Sunny Soleil Society HQ. Ernest was found crouching beside a wreck of a structure.  

Humbled by his own incompetence, Honest Ernest at least had enough integrity to admit he was in over his head and needed help. Here is where Rivera lost focus and tried to expand this minor situation into a larger one by claiming the Lost Forest community came together to help build this simple structure. Unfortunately, Rivera’s drawings suggested the only people present was the usual cast. This is the same kind of exaggerated, specious claim Rivera made earlier about the community coming together to brainstorm ideas on how to protect the kittens. 

Mark, Cherry, and Ernest completed the cat shelter, even though it looked more like a tool shed than a “catio.” But with that we seem to have come to the end of this adventure (“Kittens and Kablooey”). So, let’s move on to the Sunday nature monolog. 

Okay. A pleasing Sunday feature that fits into our approaching Winter environment. Another nicely designed title panel, as well. Do some penguins make bad dads? 

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat 

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A phone call between Cherry and Rusty served as the transition back to Lost Forest where we found Cherry in a brainstorming session at Squirrelly Sally’s bakery shop, along with Doc Davis, Violet, and Sally, with her omnipresent squirrels. For a community-centered approach to solving the homeless kittens problem, there weren’t many locals.  

The group only just started when the bakery door slammed open to reveal Honest Ernest, who stammered to Violet that he would be happy to “rescue her, er, rescue the kittens” and build a cat shelter. Cherry’s own reaction was curt and tinged with cynicism. Hardly a surprise, there. Meanwhile, Doc Davis gave Ernest a welcome pat on the back and encouragement for his volunteering.  

Frankly, even if Ernest builds the kitten coop, they have to be fed and care for. We’ll have to wait to find out the details. But there’s no waiting for the Sunday Nature Chat! 

As usual, Rivera provides an interestingly customized title panel. Today’s info may or may not be new to you, but credit Rivera for focusing on just one feature; or maybe two. I did some more reading:  The “blueness” comes from scattered light due to the internal structure of the feathers. This feature was first analyzed by Robert Hooke in 1665 and later explained by Isaac Newton. Crushing a feather destroys that structure and the blue disappears, leaving behind the natural pigment. That will be a fun experiment to try (with the feather off of the bird, of course).  But I do wish Rivera would reduce Mark’s appearances to just the first and last panels. Then there would be more room for the subject matter.  

 

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Mark, Rusty, and his classmates, led by presumed teacher Miss Mavis, are touring Washington, D.C. to soak up some history and politics. What happened this past week?

They happened upon a press conference outside the Capitol, led by none other than Ohio State Senator Smalls, now running for Congress. Smalls made several statements on hot-button issues that Mark hotly disagreed with. As Mark did with the senator last year, he openly challenged Small’s statements. Surprisingly, Smalls did not appear to recognize Mark, though I don’t see how you could forget the person who exposed your illegalities and got your butt arrested. And Senator Smalls was even more worried when Mark began exposing that corruption to the attending journalists.

Here is where things ran differently from the Ohio press conference. Instead of getting into a physical altercation with security, Mark played nice and voluntarily left the scene when directed. The security staff also expelled Miss Mavis and the students. It was an overreach, but nobody challenged it.

Mark didn’t even threaten to use his Two Fists O’ Justice! Why this apparent change? Had Jules Rivera been criticized for violence in this strip? There is actually very little of it. Could this decision been based on Mark not wanting anything to happen to the students? Well, they still got chased away.

Anyway, I believe Miss Mavis possibly missed a teaching opportunity when she proclaimed to her retreating students “There goes my politics lesson,” because I think this incident was a good lesson:  A citizen had his say and then the authorities stomped on it. Fortunately, Mark was well enough to make this Sunday nature discussion.

We have another well-conceived title panel, at least as far as the logo is concerned. The horseshoe crab is common up and down the Atlantic Coast and even the Gulf of Mexico. Growing up, I used to see their carapaces on the beaches in Virginia quite a lot. Yes, they can be found along the Potomac River.

The horseshoe crabs are especially abundant on Delaware Bay during Spring mating season, when they appear in the thousands to nest. Apparently, commercial fishing use them as bait, depleting their stock. Their value in medical research lies in an element of their blood called amebocytes, a type of coagulant. After they are bled, they are released to their natural habitat. Unfortunately, the loss of blood makes them more vulnerable and can lead to premature death. There are efforts to find viable substitutes.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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You saw them brave wild lions, survive dangerous sea currents, and ignore plot holes in their hunt for a missing movie director (“Lions and Crickets and Caves, oh my!”). Now see them come together again, as they take on the complex and sometimes-brutal forces of Washington, D.C.!

Mark and Rusty are off on another father-and-son adventure: a school field trip to Washington, D.C. While touring, Rusty’s class happened upon a politician giving a stump speech to run for a senate seat in Congress. Mark recognized the speaker as State Senator Sam Smalls, the corrupt Ohio politician in bed with the railroad responsible for a dangerous chemical spill and explosion.

I noted this week that Rivera injected some actual current political content (about NOAA) into Small’s speech. While hearing Smalls talk, Mark became apoplectic at the same time that Rusty became entranced. A parent or teacher (it’s unclear to me) tried to shush Mark, but he was having none of it. Mark began to interrupt Small’s speech and openly challenge him. Readers may recognize the similarity to Mark’s interaction with Senator Smalls at a press conference following the exploding Ohio train crash (2023). That interaction led to violence and a police chase.

Will this aggressive interaction bring about a meaningful debate or just lead to another communications breakdown, followed by a police pursuit and/or arrest?

It’s true that some politicians (including the fictional Senator Smalls) and special interest groups want to split up/cancel NOAA, for political purposes. The Project 2025 report is one such entity.

However, not all Republicans agree. A House bill introduced by a Republican in 2023 (H.R.3980 of the 118th Congress, ‘‘National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Act of 2023’’) aims to split NOAA from its dependent position under the Department of Commerce into its own, independent federal agency. The justification is to remove non-scientific oversight by Commerce and give NOAA its own statutory authority as a federal agency. This sounds commendable.

But it is very different from other, largely-Republican politicians and resources, including Project 2025, which calls for privatizing and splitting up NOAA, while removing its climate change research mandate. I noticed that H.R. 3980 actually supports NOAA’s climate research authority. That might explain why the bill is languishing and may never make it out of committee under the current House makeup. There is more to this than I can get into.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Maybe Jules Rivera thinks the soporific dialog and near total lack of movement this past week offer her readers a break from the hard-hitting action of Mark’s latest adventure. Or maybe not. Maybe Rivera is just carrying on her tradition of emphasizing the domestic side of the Trail family, something prior Trail cartoonists usually rushed over. Some of Mark’s newer adventures have been outgrowths of hanging out with Rusty and Cherry. I think that is fine. Mark gets seen as a (somewhat over-the-top) family man, not just an Adventure Hero coming home long enough to wave to Rusty and give Cherry a test drive before heading out to his next assignment.

“But wait!” you say, “those are some of the classic Mark Trail tropes we love to make fun of!” Of course, but Rivera produces her own memes and tropes that we can pillory.

Rivera’s lighter approach to the family-based scenarios (including Cherry’s) should find in Mark’s official assignments a balance that emphasizes more mature plots, action, and danger. Unfortunately, those traits have gone wanting for the most part. For example, we’ve seen Mark in car chases, but they usually look more like The Dukes of Hazzard than Mission Impossible or The Transporter. So c’mon, Rivera! Mark can handle the extra weight. If you can’t spend extra time on the art, spend extra time on the stories.

Back to the review: This past week was mostly about Cherry feeling guilty for not having time to take Rusty on a school trip to Washington, D.C. and having to once again depend on Mark. I think we can understand that concern! At the same time, did we really need to see so much of Cherry’s self-recrimination?  Rivera couldn’t find a better way to pad out the week? Anyway, we ended with Mark and Rusty flying off to our nation’s capital. What could go wrong?

Yikes! More information on how gosh-darned weird and dangerous the world is to all living things.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Was this a week or what?! Let’s recap: Following Wingit’s rescue the prior week, this past week gave us the story’s epilog, as Mark delivered it on the phone to Bill Ellis. Ellis called Mark a hero. Debatable. Mark said that Wesley Wingit survived several days in the cave on crickets. Unconfirmed. We also discovered that Wesley had actually broken his hip. Not mentioned earlier! And we also learned that Sammy Spotter got a large enough bonus from the movie studio to quit the business and become an international bird watcher. Then Cherry called and interrupted Mark’s debrief to ask him to take Rusty to Washington DC for a school trip. That’s a bit strange, since school trips are usually conducted by the school.

Now, what did we not learn from Mark’s after-action report?
1. How did the Studio know Wingit disappeared if nobody went in the mansion earlier?
2. Why were the lions so pacified?
3. Where did the actors go who were also supposed to be inside the mansion with the lions?
4. How did Wingit get trapped in the cave in the first place?
5. How did he break his hip?
6. How did they get Wingit out of the cave with his broken hip?
7. What happened to the envelope that was lying on the ground beside Wingit in the cave?
While you view today’s nature topic, feel free to think up some answers and post them in a comment.

Okay, drawing webs is not one of Rivera’s strengths. She could have easily “woven” the strip’s name in the actual webbing in panel 1, if she had taken the time. I think the Joro-spider looks like a bee with eight legs and no wings. If you are interested, look up the Japanese legend of Jorogumo, the shape-shifting, fire-breathing female spider.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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It seems we reached the end of another unfulfilling story. We had a few weeks of strips showing Mark prowling through a mansion filled with indolent, senile lions in search of clues, followed by Mark and Sammy Spotter prowling around a nearby stream to locate a cave where they believed director what’s-his-full-name might be trapped. But first they retrieved Rusty, to give him something to do and brag about back home.

This past week we saw our Gang of Three paddling kayaks into the cave, where they survived a freak wave designed to create some faux drama. At this point, Rusty finally earned his stripes. In this remarkably well-lit cave, Rusty spotted an opening in a cave wall. Using his vaunted tree-climbing expertise, Rusty looked over the cave wall and spotted a man lying in the next chamber. Lo and behold, it was missing movie director, what’s-his-full-name! Somehow, they got him out of the cave and onto dry land where an EMT squad appeared and prepared him for the hospital. Exactly how he was trapped or whether he had any kind of physical injury was never mentioned. Finally, a real mystery!

Mark told director what’s-his-full-name that he was not the only one getting rescued today. Mark condemned his harmful lion exploitation, so he was taking control of the animals. Mark will turn them over to animal rescue services, much to the consternation of director what’s-his-full-name. Still, I’m sad to discover that Sammy Spotter was not a criminal mastermind after all.

Looking ahead, I reckon 24 hours must be up by now, so we’ll soon find out what Cherry and Violet have done with the kittens before Mother Cheshire returns! Until then, lean back and enjoy some nature.

Mark invokes his inner “Batman” in this Rivera Revisit of bats. It seems Jules just can’t get enough of them. Was today’s strip inspired by Mark’s recent Catalina Island foray into a cave, or a homage to his earlier cave adventure under the pen of James Allen? Hard to say, but there’s a whole lot of other animals, plant life, and environmental issues out there to cover. There shouldn’t be any need to recycle Sunday topics at this point, given Rivera’s short turn at bat (did you catch my Rivera-inspired pun?).

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Two hands clapping to commenter Daniel for his clever geographic pun in Saturday’s comments. Moving on to this story’s progress: Mark revealed to Sammy Spotter that he found a camera and a production script in the mansion, both of which might hold clues to Wesley’s whereabouts. Mark said nothing about the lions to Sammy, which is surprising, given their physical and geographical status.

Sammy’s review of camera photos led them to a nearby cave on a nearby waterway, suggesting Wingit might be inside. This hypothesis was reinforced by notes in the production schedule. Whether Sammy should have had his own copy of the production schedule was never brought up. In any event, they discussed the situation while at the cave’s entrance, whereupon Mark found some keys he believed were for the mansion. This was more confirmation for their cave hypothesis. And then crazy set in.

Mark realized it was time to pick up Rusty from his surfing lesson! That’s strange, as earlier in the story, Mark was content to let Rusty stay on his own at the hotel. But he didn’t mind letting Wesley sit/float/sink in his cave while he retrieved Rusty. Sammy thought this was odd. So do I.

This brings up an important point: Is Mark taking this assignment seriously or maybe just doesn’t know how to set priorities? The situation sounds ludicrous:  Mark investigates a house filled with lions while his son takes a surfing lesson near (I presume) their hotel. In the middle of his assignment, Mark has to leave to get Rusty (But what if the lions ate him!?) and then bring him back to the site of the mansion. Now all three of them are going to explore an unknown water-filled cave to look for Wesley Wingit. What could possibly go wrong with that!?

Today’s nature supplement is straightforward and interesting. The normally customized title panel has a sleek look to it. Heck, Mark even forewent the usual lame-o bad pun ending for an acceptably groaning dad joke. Still, it’s an improvement.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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At least last [!], we have a story with some plausible drama and surprise. And it happens to be one of Cherry’s stories! Rivera could and should do the same for Mark, and do it often.

This week Cherry and Violet met up at the Sunny Soleil Society to confab about the kittens, with Violet exhibiting an allergy to cat fur. Doc Davis then popped in (as they do in family sitcoms) to lend support and pledge birth control services when it is the right time to do so.

Suddenly, an imperious woman also popped into the room with a take-no-prisoners attitude and demanded that Violet and Cherry remove the kittens forthwith. It seems that she owns the Sunny Soleil Society. In Saturday’s strip, Rivera landed a second hit by revealing she is Violet’s mother! Finally, mom gave Violet 24 hours to remove the kittens, or else!

As far as I can recall, there have been a few prior moments of drama in Cherry’s stories:  When she first tangled with Violet regarding the survival of her plantings, and when Violet threatened to terminate a hive of bees stuck to a commemorative statue in the Society’s garden. Yet, these few examples seem to beat Mark’s score.

That’s about it for the week. You’ll have to scroll through the dailies to pick up on my usual critiques of the art and story elements. Otherwise, we should be returning to Mark’s story on Monday. Until then, enjoy today’s Sunday nature outing.

Most people get nervous around any snakes, even harmless green snakes in their back yard. It’s a fear bred into us over the millennia. I’ve known people who moved out of a state because of snake sightings in their yard. But pit vipers (rattlesnakes, water moccasins, cottonmouths) are not to be trifled with.

The information today is good, if obvious. But sometimes, we need to be reminded of the obvious! Maybe focus more on the topic (safety around rattle snakes), itself, and skip the gratuitous “why they are important” stuff. For example, what should you wear when walking in areas where rattlesnakes proliferate? Or how about a tip on what not to do if bitten. Rivera can devote another Sunday sheet on the positive benefits of snakes.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Leaving editorializing aside, here is what happened the past week in the Trailverse. You’ll have to read my daily posts to see the editorializing parts.

Jules Rivera reprised the scene of Mark Trail entering the “lion mansion” filled with docile lions (mostly female). He saw lions open a chest freezer and eat meat stored in it. In another room he spotted papers on a desk that he discovered was a production schedule. While holding the schedule, some kind of wind blew the paper out of his hands, out of a nearby window that was open, and down into the backyard where it landed at the feet of a recumbent lion. When Mark went outside to get the schedule, it was under the lion’s feet. Mark was able to retrieve the schedule without trouble. Holding both the paper and a video camera he had earlier found, Mark walked around to the front of the house to inform Sammy Spotter about his discoveries.

Interestingly, today we have a Sunday topic that is not related to either the current story or to the locale of the current story. It happens. This bird is widespread across most of North and all of South America, but its year-round status in limited to parts of the United States and all of South America. They don’t seem to be big fans of Canada. Go figure. The turkey vulture apparently has no syrinx (bird vocal chords), but it may hiss, grunt, or cluck. The bird is also a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Hey! How did I get so smart? The way many of us do, I suspect: Google!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Mark, Rusty, and Sammy Spotter arrived by ferry on Santa Catalina Island, whereupon they wasted a bit of time debating Rusty’s place in the greater scheme. He wound up at the hotel, in any event. Mark and Sammy arrived at the “Lion Mansion” with little or no gear, save a flashlight that Mark carried inside. Pointedly, Spotter remained outside.

Mark walked into the living room, only to find a pride of lions just lounging around. Neither Mark nor the lions made any overt moves against each other, as if the they couldn’t care less. Mark found a video camera on the floor and surmised that it might be an important clue regarding movie director Wingit’s whereabouts. Once again, I’ll point out that at no point has anybody asked about the whereabouts or health of the actors that Wingit coerced to stay in the mansion. But we do have some drama building!

Art Dept. The artwork this week avoided any overt extremism, so that was good. I noticed that Friday’s strip in particular was a bit odd, with heavily-outlined figures in panel 1. This heavy outlining was not continued into panels 2 and 3. Why not? The other notable curiosity was the drawing of the lions, clearly in a different style than the rest of the artwork. The most obvious answer is that they are based on reference art/photography that has been retrofitted into the strip. As I mentioned earlier, cartoonists use reference art and images when it is helpful. And that is not controversial. James Allen, for example, made use of it, especially with cars and planes. But the best standard is blending the reference images to match the rest of the artwork. Saturday’s strip is a clear example of this disparity.

I’m not sure what Cherry is holding in panel 5, but I think it’s now legal in most states. Okay, I couldn’t resist the bad joke. Gah! This strip is rubbing off on me.

Anyway, today’s topic offers good enough advice. It’s a tough call. We found an abandoned kitten in a state park and adopted it. She lived with us for 20 years. With just one kitten, it was fairly easy. Can’t say what we would have done then with an entire litter. I think the expense of spaying & neutering would cause most of us to think twice. Sometimes I wish there were no pets.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Cherry called in her dad, Doc Davis the Lost Forest Veterinarian, to consult on dealing with her box o’ kittens found in the bushes of the Sunny Soleil Society. Doc warned against pet shelters, having too few funds or adoptees available. He suggested getting someone to foster the kittens until they get old enough to offer up for adoption. Just who would adopt any of them is another thing. About that time, Violet Cheshire showed up and started gushing over the cute kittens, until she developed a sudden allergic reaction. It should be noted that she did not sneeze around Banjo Cat. So, is that an inconsistency in the story?

Not necessarily, but we’ll have to wait to see if Rivera picks up on this point. Not all cats produce enough allergens to affect people and not all cats affect people the same way. That’s just to say “it depends on the cat (or kitten).” And that’s a common problem with most allergies. I know that, as I went through 20 years suffering indoor/outdoor allergies, including getting weekly shots and inhalants. Not a lot of fun. But most of them disappeared about as suddenly as they came on. We’ll likely be waiting a few weeks before we learn more about Violet’s reaction, as we should now get two weeks of Mark’s current assignment. But first …

Rivera continues to force puns on us, shooting twice for a basket. On the plus side, this another topic germane to Mark’s current assignment on Catalina Island. On the negative side, the artwork looks pretty spartan. Even the title panel is hardly more than an idea.

You know, if Rivera did not put Mark in virtually every panel (and there’s really no need for that), there would be much more room for the subject(s) to shine!

I’ll let you grammarians have fun with the actual text; I don’t wish to hog all of the fun!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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So after landing at LAX, Mark and Rusty met up with Sammy Spotter, the animal wrangler. They spent a lot of time in the airport hashing over the reason why actors and a director are trapped inside a house filled with lions. Apparently, Director Wesley Wingit deliberately makes movie flops so that his studio can write them off as tax losses to save money. Kind of similar to the Mel Brooks movie, The Producers. I don’t imply Rivera took the idea from Brooks; butthatit probably really happens.

In any event, Spotter is given to hysterics (okay, similar to accountant Leo Bloom in the movie), while Rusty cons him into taking an out-of-the-way detour to the so-called meme houses in Santa Monica for a look-see before continuing on to the lion house on Catalina Island.

While I’m on the subject of their ad-hoc visit, it suddenly came to me yesterday afternoon that the reason Mark and Rusty stupidly stared and yakked at us in panel 3 of Saturday’s strip may be because Rusty was taking a selfie video he wanted to post. You can just see his raised right arm. So I think we should interpret that panel either as if we were Rusty’s smart phone, or more properly, if we were viewing Rusty’s video already posted online. If that is correct, Rivera’s panel makes more sense and is a clever (though not original) design. Okay, admit it: You already figured that out!

The Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California (of which Santa Catalina Island is one) hosts six varied subspecies of island fox. They live nowhere else in the world. But once again, Mark finishes up the Sunday chat with another pun.