Bill Ellis assigns Mark to accompany Dr. Camel, an explorer, and his comely assistant as they search for the Yeti in Kathmandu. Mark is skeptical, but agrees. Troubles and tragedy abound.
Ah, it’s time to gather around the Ol’ Hearth at Lost Forest!
Not to mention taking credit for stock photographs you might find!!
Doesn’t Cherry have a proper seat? Why is she perched on the wooden arm rest with her arm around her dad? That’s kind of creepy… The Look on Doc’s face would suggest he is quite uncomfortable with the situation…
Thanks for the public service announcement, but oh Cherry, you have no idea what Rusty is up to on the internet… I shudder to think what is going on behind his closed bedroom door!
As Mark musters his look of “great concern,” Cherry looks on with her “uh, huh…” look…
Mark then utters the line that will become the subtitle to the story he is forming in his head… while Doc pipes up about things he might have only ready about… but then, who knows? He may have his own set of Social Media vices, the old coot!
And BOOM! Back to Lost Forest we go. Cherry is still there, apparently none worse for Mark’s absence… No attack by Dirty Dyer, the cannibal doll still safely in his box, and Mark just as clueless as ever!
Mark, it’s pretty amazing that you just up and left… I know that this assignment was a real PITA (Pain in the Ass) but it really shows your true character when you just up and leave… when a fellow human being goes missing and you couldn’t care less?
I like the idea of Dr. Camel’s Revenge… Maybe we get to see that someday!! And besides, Dirty came back from the dead, why not Harvey??
As Mark successfully navigates another would-be female suitor, he bids farewell… We’ll probably be in Lost Forest by tomorrow.
Panel three is goofy. That’s a really weird hand-shake, there, almost one that is trying to avoid cooties… and Genie appears to be breaking to 4th wall, peering into the eyes of audience/ camera, Ferris Bueller style. Mark’s smile is one that I have never seen before…
Excuse me, Mark? As “WE had hoped?” You were nothing but a buzzkill the entire trip… You love being right!!
So as Harvey Camel contributes to the unrecovered body count in the greater Nepalese range, Mark better take some selfies or something, or else he won’t have anything to use when he sets about writing his article…
…I don’t know if it’s meant to inspire intrigue or boredom…
All I know is that we are (again) dragging a storyline out waaaay tooooo long…
Oh, right, that’s what happening, Mark, he’s marooned on a snow-covered slope and all he can think about is saving face? I think Genie, for one, is anxious to get on with her life, or at least write her own tell-all book… My Life with a Kook…
Belief Systems. Faith. Knowing. Powerful things, indeed. Needing to believe, otherwise what is left? As Mark challenges the very foundation upon which Harvey Camel based his existence, in front of the layer of snow that buried him, assumed to have killed him, he feels absolutely no compunction about any of it. Never mind the fact that the snow slid over a week ago in real time, never mind that we have all been snowed over, so to speak, for months now, I think it’s time to find his crushed corpse and Sherpa his ass down the mountain…
Yes, Mark, he wanted to show the world that The Yeti was more than mere fiction. Why are you so slow sometimes? And Genie, do you always carry around a first edition of YETI by Harvey Camel, PhD?
And if this was to be his Penultimate adventure, then what was he planning as a finish?
It would seem that we all have the capacity for resentment, in the end feeling underappreciated in light of what we might do for others who then take flight. Who was once savior becomes factotum while the downtrodden forgets who he is or where he came from… Nice Selfie-Stick in the middle shot there…
Bill Ellis (Remember, the editor that works Mark like a puppet) catches wind of Ol’ Harvey and can’t help but take the bait… Now he, through Mark, has the scoop of the (I don’t know, week?) that will allow him to report on the untimely death of a Social Media “Star” and the backstory that, in this day and age, probably will only burnish his reputation among his followers- dying whilst capturing the ultimate selfie- how many influencers have given themselves up in the name of their craft to date? I bet we’d be surprised by that… Fame is fleeting, especially today. Now Mark, you’d best start taking pictures and get writing, dammit.
You know, it’s sad when a person is enabled to the point that his delusions are able to fund boondoggles and put lives in danger, or even bring about death… Or I guess it’s in support of the old adage, “if you are going to lie, lie big!”
But doesn’t Juvenile Diabetes turn into Adult Diabetes? It’s not like a person “grows out of it” like a proclivity towards croup… no matter. I predict that their blue suits have an auto-inflate feature that by now has formed a bubble around Harvey. We just need to dig him out…
Strip one, panel three… what… is Mark climbing out of the cellar? The proportions are all wrong…
Strip two, panel 2… Genie’s face has morphed again, this time into a mask of horror. She looks like she’s aged 20 years… panel 3, Big-eyes Mark is back.
Strip three, panel one… enter the Sherpa. Panel 3 giant Crocodile tears…
As Mark seeks to comfort Genie, he offers up an improbable outcome… Unless the “other side” refers to the “go toward the light” kind. Maybe that’s where Harvey is now, romping with Yeti and Bat-Boy and Chupacabra and all manner of fantastical beasts…
Seriously. Anything to get us out of this goofy story. Harvey Camel meets with an ignominious end, claims unproven, but at least dies in the name of the cause, not slipping, hitting his head on the bathtub and drowning…
But we can’t be far from the tents either, right? It’s not like avalanches are selective, not like they have eyes… Maybe everyone gets buried alive!
Could we be reaching a plot climax? As Genie shines the lantern on Harvey, we get a special glimpse into his madness… and what appears to be a PVC superstructure holding up the wall tent!
And so with the faith of a child knowing that Santa Claus will come down the chimney and bring toys, Harvey Camel, PhD pads off in the freshly fallen snow…
Is this the last of him? Does he have is camera/phone? What Hell it must be to spend a lifetime trying to vindicate oneself in the face of ridicule, doubt and scorn. At least Capt. Ahab had multiple witnesses and proof of the great white whale… No one doubted that his obsession existed, and had only his compulsion to contend with…
As the team climbs higher, their packs get smaller…
… and Mark continues to hammer on his point… that he is pretty sure that Camel is full of shite…
…and boy if there was ever a weary look, Genie is sporting it now…
… but once again, let’s take stock… there have always been 4 tents (the bulk and configuration of which is still utterly laughable; they are no doubt still sleeping on cots…) but now we realize that Genie and Dr. Camel are probably sharing and the Sherpa(s) each get there own? The Tent says, “I can’t believe it, Genie” which has to be (?) Dr. Camel, right? And Apparently a snow leopard has been dogging (catting) their steps?
OK, this Structure continues to expand… From the outside it doesn’t appear that it would have rooms with doors…
Poor Mark, he just can’t keep up, can he?? Thanks for the classic “What Th’…?” It’s been a while! That really takes me back. Especially the way that Mark vocalizes his thoughts!
Mark and Genie continue to dive into Dr. Camel’s traumatic memories of the Yeti attack that cost him his leg… One does have to wonder how the young Doctor-to-be didn’t bleed out given that he was days away from any kind of medical assistance…
…and again with all the faces and expressions… Genie is transforming into a regular vixen while Mark is fading away as the conversation (totally within ear-shot of Camel) ensues…
Still, the favoring of blue in the color scheme- even the highlights of Mark and Genie’s hair- matching perfectly with their all purpose outfits… doubling a pajamas? And where are the Sherpa? Outside sleeping under the sky?
Well, well… look who’s getting all Philosophical… Occam’s Razor? (also Ockham’s razor or Ocham’s razor: Latin: novacula Occami; or law of parsimony: Latin: lex parsimoniae) is the problem-solving principle that states that “Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.”) The idea is attributed to English Franciscan friar William of Ockham, a scholastic philosopher and theologian who used a preference for simplicity to defend the idea of divine miracles. Wikipedia In Mark’s version, “Favor simple theories, not using more assumptions than one needs to prove a point…” But there is a counter to this contained here, and how this kind of thinking has gotten in the way of scientific enquiry…
The Daily Trail 