Home » Sunday (Page 4)

Category Archives: Sunday

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by | 2 Comments

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

Posted on by

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.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by | 3 Comments

Mark and Rusty are flying out to LA this week and then boating across to Catalina Island, possibly in Monday’s strip. Rusty—not up on his geography—thought they would be staying right in Los Angeles, so he was greatly disappointed. For some reason, Mark’s promotional chat about possibly sighting some rare species of animals on the Island did not thrill the lad. Perhaps Mark thought he was in James Allen’s Mark Trail universe, where that Rusty would be salivating at the chance to search for the elusive Catalina Shrew.

Well, that’s the story, such as it went this week. I wonder if we’ll get to spend another six days of Mark and Rusty making their way to Catalina Island. Or will Rivera follow tradition and simply time-jump Mark and Rusty right to the lion house?

As she commonly does, Rivera provides a Sunday nature chat linked to the current storyline. Rivera reports the standard public information for this unique shrew, which is not much. As the shrew exists only on Catalina Island, it doesn’t have a high public profile. How can we help save the shrew, you ask? You might be able to help by donating to the Catalina Island Conservancy (https://catalinaconservancy.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/), which is a registered non-profit charity. I don’t know how to designate a donation to any particular program, but the charity could certainly inform you.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by | 1 Comment

Rivera started another adventure in Cherry’s World this week. Apparently, Cherry’s only landscaping & gardening client worth a mention is Violet Cheshire and her Sunny Soleil Society. It sure would be interesting if she had some interactions with other clients, sort of like that old British show “Rosemary and Thyme”: two professional gardeners who get involved in solving murders while working for different well-heeled home owners.

In Cherry’s case, the mystery of the week is not a murder, but the discovery of a kitten, followed by the discovery of an entire family of kittens, all nestled in some bushes of the Sunny Soleil Society.

The catch here is that Violet wants Honest Ernest —who seems to have suffered no visible signs of punishment for his behavior in Lost Forest—to spray the property for weeds. The discovery of this large brood has taken Cherry, Violet, and Ernest aback. What to do…!?! But that’s the week, folks!

Well, kind of a mixed-message day. When Banjo Cat was footloose, the point was “outside cats kill birds.” Now, it is “putting a cat in a shelter can kill the cat.” So this T-N-R program returns the cats to the location where they were found, to continue living outdoors, continue hunting prey, and still face threats of vehicles, viruses, and other predators. But at least they are unable to keep reproducing. It’s a leveraged “let nature take its course” approach. On the other hand, it’s not likely agencies are going to find 60 million households to adopt all of those feral cats.

But hey! I noticed Mark made no room or time for a concluding joke or pun. Refreshing!

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Missed this week’s dailies? Boy, they were something! Why, there was fighting, shooting, car chases, abductions and rescues, and all manner of hair-raising cliffhangers! I mean, it was, uh, …uh, hold on. My mistake, I was reading Little Orphan Annie and got confused for a moment…Okay, I’m focused.

So what about the past week in Mark Trail? Well, not much happened, to be truthful. Rivera devoted the week to a “post-Bill Ellis phone call” conversation in which Cherry convinced Mark it was a good idea to take Rusty along with him as the “plus one” allowed by Ellis for Mark’s newest over-the-top adventure. You know the one I mean: The assignment is to find a movie director possibly hiding in a house that the director filled with lions and with actors for his current movie project. It’s a crazy enough concept that I think Rivera must have been rifling through Carl Hiaasen’s recycle bin. Say, do you think one of Mark’s stable of nitwit troublemakers will wind up involved in this story?

We’ll soon see, but don’t pass on today’s nature talk. It’s another story-locality subject.

Nothing says “Feisty Defense Lawyer” like a dude in a cheap suit sporting a five o’clock shadow. After reading up on this interesting issue, there certainly do seem to be various factions involved in this Catalina Island predicament. Still, I wonder why Mark is smiling (panel 6) while discussing another kick-the-can-down-the-road answer from the local government. “Kill our deer!? No way!” exclaim local citizens. It’s no surprise that cute Bambi-faced invasive deer attract more sympathy than actual (but less cute) native animals and flora that are being imperiled by these deer. Cute=Protect. I don’t see anybody protesting the eradication of zebra mussels or spotted lantern flies. Sure, “Stop the slaughter!”, residents chant. Okay, they can watch Bambi stand-ins die by the hundreds from starvation and disease once they have all but exterminated local resources. Hey, at least it’s natural.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Former Daily Trail blogger and founder, Dennis Williams, sent me a link to an Australian artist (Adam Murphy) who creates mashups of different comics characters and styles, such as Charlie Brown and Calvin & Hobbes; The Phantom and Indiana Jones; and Tin Tin and Indiana Jones. Check out his impressive work on Instagram: @adammurphyart. Mark Trail does not seem to have been one of the inspirations.

The Tin Tin reference is especially significant, as the original Belgium strip proves that adventure comics with good suspense, drama, and even humor do not have to be depicted in what many consider a proper “realistic” style (e.g. Judge Parker, The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and vintage Mark Trail). Having noted this, I do not propose that Rivera’s current interpretation reaches the level of Tin Tin in either style or plotting. Well, I think it did in the beginning (as I have said before); and it could, again, if she wanted.

As for this past week, we have endured days of Bill Ellis on the phone with Mark, convincing him to take on an assignment to help locate a film director who disappeared inside a house, where the house apparently is locked down and filled with lions and actors involved in the director’s current film. Does this sound absurd? Of course it does, in pretty much every which way you can imagine! If you want more details, you’ll have to scan the previous posts; I won’t repeat them here. What I will say is that, unless this house is on scale with the Biltmore mansion in North Carolina, I don’t see how this works. But, we can meditate for now on today’s topic.

Once again, Rivera chooses a topic geographically related to Mark’s current story: California.  And once again, Rivera ends the discussion with a non sequitur (“social climber”).

Art Dept. In the “penultimate” panel (that might sound snooty, but I like the word), Mark is posed in front of an orange oval. This juxtaposition has been a compositional device in Rivera’s work for over a year. In most cases, it works (see panel 1 in Saturday’s strip), because the oval carries across the entire panel, creating a proportionally divided background using a slowly curving line.

But today, we see an oval isolated within a larger panel, unable to reach its sides. Rather than dividing the background, today’s example serves to frame Mark’s figure, like the concentric circles in the opening credits of Warner Brothers cartoons; just not as developed. Was Rivera going after the same aesthetic concept or adapting the device to a different idea? Okay, only art/art history geeks would care one way or another, I suppose. At least I’m not using footnotes.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Well, this week saw the culmination of both Cherry’s and Mark’s (or Rusty’s) adventures, merged into a week-long epilog. For Cherry, she and Violet were able to launch their “Movies in the Park” night at the same time as Mark met up with Honest Ernest and his “brothers”, who also decided to attend. They immediately formed ranks and started the usual ritualistic chest thumping and evil-eye throwing, until Violet, in an unusual intervention, stopped the impending fight by coming up with a plan to hold a public electronics demolition event on her parking lot, what she referred to as a “Rage Lot” event. Mark seemed puzzled by the reference, but the fight was avoided. The movie played. Later that night on the way home, Bill Ellis called Mark about a crisis:  A movie director has gone missing, and he happens to be the director of the movie the citizens of Lost Forest just watched! Coincidence? And why should Mark be called about a “missing person”? We’ll have to await further events.

Interesting topic. Now the size of prehistoric lions (or any animals) cannot be established by cave wall paintings, which were not drawn “to scale” (panel 4). Perhaps Rivera only refers to the color of the prehistoric lion’s coat. Those cave paintings/drawings that Mark mentions exist only in Europe (not in North America), mostly in Spain and Southern France. The most famous “lion cave” is the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, discovered in 1994.

I was puzzled by the image of the zebra in panel 5, where Mark discusses the extinction of the “American” lion. It turns out that many fossils of prehistoric horses have been found in Idaho, and are commonly known as the Hagerman Horse, or the American Zebra. (FYI: I’m simply summarizing equus information from several scientific/nature websites.) This animal is known as Equus simplicidens, in the taxonomic genus Equus, which is the ancestor of modern horses, donkeys, and zebras.  Several sources claim it is more closely related to modern zebras, though there is no evidence of what their coats looked like. That is, there is no evidence for stripes. In any event, academic/scientific study and debate continues.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by | 1 Comment

What exciting events occurred in Mark Trail’s world this past week? Let me look . . .uh, not much. The real action was the week before, when Cherry and Violet faced down a hungry bear rummaging through the new compost bins.

Rivera devoted this past week to closing out the e-waste story with Ranger Shaw and Mark cleaning up the debris in Lost Forest. In reality, the time was largely devoted to Ranger Shaw confessing to his own e-waste offense at this same illegal dump site! The ranger also complained he did not have the manpower to deal with the Grungey Boys, even though he knew of their actions for several weeks. Never mind that he had no problems calling in the local sheriff to haul them away only after Mark had corralled them. Finally, in Saturday’s strip Rusty came home with his A-grade paper on e-waste. Mark got assurances from Rusty that he hadn’t embarrassed Robbie in school. Rivera closed out this story with a pithy moral: “E-waste is not a game.” Get it? “Game”, as in Robbie’s buried game controllers. Yep, those controllers were the story hook that led us to think this adventure was going to be about Rusty and his Revenge Paper. But all that was buried by yet another Mark Trail Storyline Takeover. I wonder what would happen if he crossed strips and took over the current storyline in Mary Worth or Rex Morgan, MD?

This is, from what I can tell, a good summary of the Eastern Kingbird and its behavior. The orange (sometimes red) patch is normally hidden, only being exposed when it is in attack mode or when mating. But who knew Mark was a Shakespeare aficionado? Well, to keep the paraphrase closer to the original, perhaps Mark could have said “Uneven lies the head that wears an orange crown.”

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat 

Posted on by

This past week started out with the possibility that Cherry and Violet would have a “head-to-head” over Violet’s need to find fault with Cherry’s work at the end of a long work day. Mundane, perhaps, but the possibility of some rethinking of Cherry’s position or employment could have been the focus this week.  

Instead, the compost project resurfaced through the plot device of Violet discovering a bear rummaging through the new compost bins that Cherry just installed. Seems they were not very secure and Violet had secretly dumped her lunchtime chicken bones in the compost. The bear being a bear, it sniffed out the bones and commenced its nighttime snacking.  

While the two gals were standing mere feet away watching the bear, Cherry came up with a from-out-of-nowhere solution of grabbing an airhorn from out of her truck (part of her emergency supplies, she claimed). The sound drove the bear off. Cherry resolved to get better locks for the bins and the two gals resolved that bears were easier to deal with then men. I’m not sure that joke was funny when it used to be told the other way around. 

The lack of any real drama or danger in the storyline was a big disappointment. It is not unique, as Rivera seems to treat every situation as if she is writing for Public Television kid shows. This situation was underscored by some really inconsistent drawing. It was almost a perfect storm of indifference or ineptitude. There is more to this than a mere difference in artistic expression. 

As is common, Jules Rivera links the Sunday nature strip to the current story. But since this topic turned out to be the main draw this week, there is little new. Nevertheless, Rivera did cover some additional bear-discouragement techniques, providing a few more helpful tips.  

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Mark confronted the three so-called “Grungey Boys” (a name never explained) who had dropped off a stolen fax machine in Lost Forest in order to smash it, as they had done to the other electronics. They claimed to be working off steam about work, but Mark was more concerned that they never cleaned up the debris, which was hurting the forest.

Rusty and Andy had actually gotten there earlier, but were spotted by these three stooges.  As they were harassing Rusty, Mark made his surprise entrance in true revenge mode.

Connor (the one who looks like Larry the Stooge) snuck up behind Mark (somehow) and locked Mark’s arms to disable him. Connor’s technique proved faulty and Mark had little problem escaping. The scuffle was brief, as Ranger Shaw and a colleague drove up at that moment to detain the three “Boys” and hand them over to law enforcement. So, another dangerous forest gang has been taken off the trail.

Is this the end of the story, as I wondered yesterday? It seems to be, but it leaves Rusty’s part of it entirely unfulfilled. So, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. If you have the time, check out my Thursday blog wherein I make several suggestions on how Rivera might turn this strip around and give it more respect. I should know, of course, because I post a blog!

A 2016 article at science.org backs up much of this, but points out that stink bugs and earwigs are attracted to yellow lights. “Warm” LEDs may be a better, overall choice.

My friend Lynne Guini, owner of “Lynne’s Light Farm Factory”, told me “Yellow light? Hey, who knows!?! They’re bugs, ya know? Why not just buy one of every kinda bulb and post them around your patio or your deck. Some might work, some might not. Who knows!? At least, you’ll have one heck of a back yard light show! And I can give you a great deal on lights bulbs. Just give me a call. Let me light up your day. Or night!” Lynne can’t resist the urge to make a deal in any situation, at any time of day or night.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

I had a clever metaphor to use in today’s review, but I seem to have misplaced it. If you find it, please let me know.

After being discovered by Honest Ernest at the site of the broken office equipment in Lost Forest, Rusty and Andy had to confront a trio of angry workers holding bats and a sledge hammer. He was rightfully scared. As the trio confessed, they were destroying office equipment in order to work off their anger over their bosses. But they didn’t want anybody to know who they were.

Honest Ernest, Connor (the camper), and an unnamed dude gave Rusty the willies. There was a lot of repetitious dialog throughout the week, as if each day was recreating the previous day’s scene. Honest Ernest ultimately threatened Rusty and his family if he snitched on them. But in true “action movie” fashion, Mark made a timely surprise appearance.

Seems Mark heard Ernest’s threat and countered with his own. Maybe he was channeling Rambo at this point. Lacking only Rambo’s twin machine guns, all Mark could hold against these guys was his “two fists o’ justice.” I commented yesterday about Rivera’s continued use of this phrase, more as parody than anything else. Anyway, can’t wait for Monday? Well, relax today with Sunday!

It is truly amazing how many people foolishly approach wild animals such as moose, bears, and bison for the sake of a photograph or just to pet them. Apparently, the Yellowstone herd are the only bison tracing a pure, direct ancestry back to their prehistoric ancestors. Oh, Rivera accidentally wrote “late 1900s” for the time of their near extinction. It was the late 1800s.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Having arrived home from school, Rusty found a note from Dad telling him to get the kitchen swept before Cherry gets home. Naturally, Rusty thought he had enough time to go off with Andy and dig up some of Robbie’s broken controllers.  Wait! Didn’t Rusty already dig up the controllers? Pappa Mark said he did, at least to Ranger Shaw. 

Rusty’s adventures—such as they are—seem to transmogrify (to borrow a term from Calvin and Hobbes) into something else; often, something Mark is more concerned about. In this case, it is the discovery of broken electronics dumped on the ground in Lost Forest. And they are now complicating Rusty’s activity.

As Rusty and Andy arrived at the site, Rusty discovered three adults already there, unloading more electronics to smash. They are Honest Ernest, Connor the accident-prone camper, and The Gomer in the Yellow Hat, otherwise collectively known as “The Grungy Boys”, aka “Honest Ernest and the Grungy Boys.”  You’d think they would at least have matching caps.

In spite of his efforts, Rusty and Andy were detected by Honest Ernest, putting Rusty in a tight spot. And that’s where we end this past week’s cliffhanger.  But do hang around for the Sunday nature chat.

Wow, do we need yet another discussion of composting? Didn’t Cherry already lecture Violet and us about it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in favor of composting. Cherry and Mark might want to have a chat with commenter Downpuppy about protecting compost bins from animal attacks.

By the way, Mark (panel 4), personal composting still creates greenhouse gases, just not in the same quantity (and perhaps the same diversity). And food waste that goes into landfills most likely does not exclude meats (panel 4), after it is collected. I don’t know if Rivera got confused between composting and landfilling.  

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat 

Posted on by | 2 Comments

The focus of Mark Trail has traditionally been an environmentally based adventure strip, with adventure as the main draw. That has been one of the main complaints against Rivera’s stories for Mark. Are we to use the same measure for Cherry’s stories? 

Certainly, Cherry’s stories have leaned towards the lighter side. That would be a fair balance to what should be more hard-hitting, dramatic stories from Mark.  

In any event, this past week Cherry showed up at Violet’s with her collected food scraps to start a composting site for the Sunny Soleil Society, as Violet was literally gobbling down a bucket of chicken. Cherry tried to get Violet to remember her pledge to send Cherry to Compost Camp. After a few days of rambling, Violet agreed to fund Cherry’s trip. If Violet was hoping this would stop Cherry’s continuous lecturing, she was wrong. 

Who knew!?! I always thought worms were just normal ground-dwelling creatures found just about everywhere. Good information to know. And I do like the earthworm title panel, though it’s a bit hard to read. 

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Excitement in Lost Forest continued this past week as Mark and Ranger Shaw surveyed the abandoned e-waste in a clearing of Lost Forest. You could hear the teeth gnashing. Mark was in his element, taking charge of a case of illegal dumping in Lost Forest, even though legal authority likely rested with the all-too-compliant ranger.

Jules Rivera filled in a few plot holes for us as Mark revealed that Rusty had, indeed, been digging! Apparently, this spade work must have happened “after hours”, when cartoonist Rivera had quit work for the day to visit the beach and didn’t get around to drawing Rusty’s digging until later in the week.

Talking to Ranger Shaw, Mark relayed that Rusty claimed Robbie (who is the ranger’s son!) had buried his broken game controllers in the area. After enjoying the burn on Ranger Shaw’s face, Mark admitted that Rusty had also been involved. Just two dads, commiserating over their juvenile delinquent kids.

But Mark must have sniffed something wrong, as he began to interrogate Ranger Shaw on whether he had seen anybody in the area. Rivera made a point of showing Ranger Shaw looking guilty as he forced out an odd denial. Yet, nothing was made of it. The week ended as the two walked into the debris area to look for clues. No doubt, at least one piece of abandoned equipment will have a label that reads “If lost or illegally dumped in a forest, call 999-555-1234. Ask for Elmo.”

Let’s see … last Sunday Mark got in his talk on e-waste, stealing Rusty’s thunder. This week, it’s beavers.

Rivera devoted a Sunday to the beaver’s rodent cousin, the muskrat back in December 2022, where Mark compared the two animals and tried to make the case that they are both “engineers”, but in different ways. But she also did a Sunday on beavers back in May 2022, which has a little bit of overlap with this one. Some of you might recall that beavers became an involuntary aid to Mark in the “Oregon Trails” story at the time.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

This was mostly a week of exclamations, excuses, and e-waste. We returned to Rusty’s e-waste revenge adventure where he led Mark to the not-so-secret location in Lost Forest where he and Robbie buried the broken controllers. That Rusty, himself, was also a participant in burying the game controllers that he wanted to use as a way of getting back at Robbie was certainly a surprise!  The irony escaped Mark and Rusty, but not this Trailblazer.

Upon arriving at the location, Rusty and Mark discovered the area was full of discarded monitors, controllers, chairs, and other knickknacks that Jules Rivera casually pasted on top of the grass. I reckon this secret location became well known to people who like to dump electronics in the woods. That’s really not so unusual:  As a kid, I came across stoves, refrigerators, and mattresses dumped in the woods where I lived.

Although many references were made to things “buried,” everything was lying on the surface and no digging seems to have taken place. Maybe Rusty and Mark were too distracted by the debris. A pissed-off Mark figured it was time to have a talk with Robbie’s father. In another surprise (Gosh, two surprises in one week is a record!), Robbie’s dad turns out to be Ranger Shaw, one of the three hapless participants in Mark’s fishing survival camp episode. Small world, huh?

Art Dept. Nobody commented on the giant spider in Wednesday’s strip. I thought one of you might notice its unrealistic size. Well, considering the tree its web is attached to, it sure looked big to me! Also, Rivera drew a chipmunk on Saturday that didn’t look like a statue or cardboard cutout. Well done, in fact. Will we say the same thing for today’s nature talk?

What a coincidence! Rusty tells Mark about his e-waste project for the school science fair, and all of a sudden, Mark has his own show-and-tell about e-waste. I like today’s title panel, though I’d have wanted to see the “Mark Trail” logo appear like actual text on circuit boards. Perhaps, Rivera thought it would be too small? Well, everybody knows the name of this strip, right?

I’m puzzled why Rivera cites statistics from 2019. Perhaps she could have compared that number to a more recent statistic: The UN reported some 68 million tons of global e-waste for 2022, alone. Another issue is that electronic waste contains billions of dollars’ worth of rare earth resources, such as gold, silver, copper, and iron. Yet our country has no national standards, policies, or programs for safe reclamation and disposal. Seems that “recycle” and “reclaim” never made it into the manufacturers’ thinking.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Cherry is really into composting, which should not be a surprise, given that her primary avocation (other than raising a revenge-driven adolescent) is gardening and landscaping. This week she showed up at Planet Pancake to beg food scraps from proprietor Jeanette. This included a mini-lecture to Jeanette on composting. Jeanette managed to make it through the talk without falling over, unconscious.

Cherry then admitted that her real purpose was to satisfy a requirement from Violet Cheshire and the Sunny Soleil Society. That was to gather a quota of organic matter for composting in order to obtain their financial backing for Cherry to attend a composting convention (say, can you dig it?!?). But then Cherry spilled the beans to Jeanette that the Society was also getting a tax break for the support, which she was not supposed to reveal to anybody.

Frankly, I don’t know what the big deal is; tax breaks are as common as tax cheats. Nevertheless, Cherry did break the trust, which is certainly going to come back and cause trouble. What a family the Trails are:  Mark will break the law when he thinks it helpful; Rusty wants to take revenge against a classmate for duping him; and Cherry can’t keep a trust.

An interesting, if slightly oversold topic on spider ballooning. What Mark talks about (flying on electro-magnetic currents in the air) is still a hypothesis in the scientific community, but it has been demonstrated in the lab. It’s still being tested and evaluated. The reasons for why certain species of spiders (mostly, but not exclusively, young) wind up ballooning are varied.

Survival is one big reason, for sure. It’s important to realize that spiders have virtually no control over where or how far they will go. Most flights do not seem to be very long. Interestingly, back on October 31, 1832, Charles Darwin spotted and captured spiders that had ballooned onto the HMS Beagle some 60 miles from shore. He called them Aeronaut spiders.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

Mark returned home from his triumphant destruction of Tad Crass’s AI data center (and presumably the adjacent office building), while the wild horses issue trotted down the road. With visions of showing off assignment photos to the family that night, his reverie was interrupted when Rusty arrived home from school, fuming like an old animated cartoon tugboat.

Rusty tried to get his Dad involved in his e-waste science project to help take revenge against Robbie for  hoodwinking him out of his original topic. Mark agreed to help, but gave Rusty the mixed message that revenge is not a proper path to follow, though throwing “two fists o’ justice” is just fine. Make of that what you will; it might help explain why kids sometimes don’t understand their parents. I’m not sure I understand the difference, either. But I’m also a blockheaded dad.

One final observation: Mark’s face goes through a series of various images and/or shapes during the week, all of which are otherwise flat with no attempt at modeling volume or shadow. Here are some examples.

Compare them with the images of Mark, below, where his image is generally more developed and modeled, using color for volume and highlights in skin and hair. I’ve got no explanation.

In public school I didn’t pay much attention in biology, except for what I needed to pass the class. That’s nothing to brag about. We certainly didn’t get into anything nearly as detailed as this. It was more like hearing about Mendel’s peas, breeding fruit flies, and dissecting frogs. That was decades ago. Possibly taught by one of Mendel’s ancestors (continued below if there is any intervening ad).

I don’t think much was said about evolution except in the most general sense. So this was an interesting topic for me. Most of the records I researched naturally employ contemporary scientific terminology that makes me wish I had taken more biology classes in college. Anyway, they state that, based on fossils, the miacid was superficially similar to modern martens and civets. End.