Okay, another happy ending. Apparently, events were taking place behind the scenes, just like in the pre-Rivera era. We need not be bothered with the details, such as what secrets did Duck Duck Goose have that caused them to sic two thugs on Mark and Diana. Maybe in another story we’ll learn more…or not. As for cleaning those ships, it’s a little late in the game for that, Pops.

Mark strikes a pose in panel 4 that looks like he’s been taking lessons from Violet Cheshire. We have to wonder why “wavy hands” Rafael is asking Mark about his future plans instead of offering him another assignment. Is this Rafael’s way of waving Mark out the door? Will Bill Ellis make another memorable appearance in Saturday’s panels? Stay tuned!

Under the spreading bees nest tree sits a lone house on the prairie. It sure doesn’t look like Mark and Cherry’s house, based on prior drawings by Rivera. However, I’ll award credit for a nice composition, even if the colors are largely and darkly monochromatic.

I notice that Rafael’s pep-talk is all about the video, not the article. Wonder why? No concerns about its facts, conclusions, or validity? Well, I reckon people just don’t read much, anymore. Just make pretty videos. Add comments.

So, Mark has got a long way to go until…what? Is there some specific readership count that constitutes success? Mark reacts like a cross between a day stock trader watching the ticker and a teenager fussing over his Instagram account. He is quickly mutating from a traditional writing-based journalist into an “Internet activist celebrity”, where fame is based on the current NAZDAQ INDEX count of anonymous online followers. Clearly, Mark is going after the youth market, just as this comic strip seems to be doing.

Okay, I have no idea what those marks are under Mark’s eyes, and no other commenters do, either. Clearly, Editor Rafael makes no bones about advocacy (or tabloid) journalism. I wonder if “Hot Catch” magazine also features risqué pictures of female fish on page 3, like the women in the English tabloid, “The Sun”.

Although I admit to being a booster for Rivera and her interpretation, overall, I am uncomfortable with how she portrays Mark now and then, such as the insecure, whiney putz in panel 3. Why would Mark need street cred when he works mostly outside of cities? I reckon it might matter if he happened to run across a resurrected version of The Monkey Wrench Gang.

So, c’mon, Rivera! Give Mark a little more self-confidence and “street smarts” (deliberate ironical remark) to go with it. As for that “It wasn’t exactly my plan to get arrested” remark in panel 1, who is he kidding, besides himself?

As Ralph the Rat Snake looks on, Rafael properly slams Mark for going outside of his journalistic mandate, if there ever was one. Mark is a modern muckraker, an investigative journalist, I suppose. He probably always has been, but the journalistic side of the old Mark Trail always took a back seat. All we saw was Mark bustin’ heads, exposing petty crooks, and talking to Bill Ellis. So kudos to Rivera for making his job a more explicit part of the stories.

Yet, one cannot claim, based on what we see and read, that Mark is any kind of objective journalist., which seems to be what Rafael expected. His original instructions to Mark failed to spell out his expectations on what to include, like getting all sides of the story.

Anyway, will we ever find out exactly what Duck Duck Goose Shipping is hiding? Had Mark and Diana taken the time to interview anybody in the company or on the ships, things might have gone differently. At least, it would have added more drama to the story.

Okay, Mark makes a video for his editor. That accounts for the repetition of info. The visualization of panel 2 as part of the video recording is well done, as is the drawing of Mark. He has a kind of young Tom Cruise look about him. But, I’ve always heard you look younger (and taller?) on TV and in the comics.

Say, did the B Team take over panel 3? I suppose Mark is supposed to look stunned at Rafael’s pun. Anyway, the execution of the panel is flat, even distorted. In fact, it reminds me of the style of a certain alternative comic artist, whose name I just cannot recall. Maybe I’m wrong, too. I’ll get back to you. Hey, I should have figured that Rafael also runs an e-magazine. In that case, Mark’s exposé could have gotten published almost immediately. After Rafael’s fact-checkers looked it over, of course.

You know how the third film in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Ring trilogy seemed to dedicate about a quarter of the running time to farewells? Or how Beethoven taunted his audience with that ending that kept going in the 5th Symphony? So, is this really the end of the adventure or are we getting set up for a surprising continuation? But it’s Saturday, so this should be the end.

BTW, how did Cliff’s arms shrink in panel 1?  

To call Mark “strange”, as Rivera notes in panel 4, is a stretch. Diana Daggers is strange. Cherry’s hillbilly brother is pretty strange. Professor B Sharp and Cricket Bro are definitely strange. They all make Mark look plain. And Mark is somewhat vain, impulsive, emotional, sometimes uncertain, and a bit sociopathic. A flawed dude, that is. Frankly, I’m quite fine with that. It makes him interesting, but not very strange (well, there is the snake!). Certainly, Mark is a more interesting character than the prior versions of Mark Trail, who all had the personality of a smug postage stamp.

What do you think:  Should this story continue? If so, in what direction? Or are you just happy to see it come to this slap-dash conclusion, so we can move on?

This dialog is giving me flashbacks to the ending of that splendid 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”. Still, is this really the end of the Zebra Mussels adventure? It seems rather arbitrary to me, with a ton of loose threads just dangling in my eyes, leaving me unable to get a clear picture.

Those who complain (okay, I also do, at times!) about Rivera’s work, should find warm solace in that she can also apparently terminate stories, all of a sudden, just like Allen and his predecessors did, and also with little regard for unfinished business.

I suppose they are standing in front of the county lockup. Mark and Cherry share their “moral of the story” as everybody waves “air hugs” and shuffles off to their destinations. But wait…Cliff and his stick-figure friends are waving to Mark (or is it us?) in panel 2, whereas he rejoins the happy couple in panel 4. I guess Cliff got a taste of fame and isn’t really ready to walk away. Anyway, you, dear reader, may comment on panel 3 or anything else you fancy.

Still, I hope I’m wrong and that today’s strip is just the calm before another storm. Let the story rage on!

Can you really bail somebody out online these days? An online money transfer, I presume. But, seriously, folks, I’m trying to remain serious here. At least Bee Sharp is not bad-mouthing Mark this time. But really, he is in California and she is in . . . Lost Forest, wherever that really is. I’m guessing we are still going on the standard assumption it is somewhere in Georgia. Did Ben expect Diana to travel with a sewing machine, or is he going to wait for her to return to her place in California?

But after all that time, why didn’t he just take his lab coat to a tailor or seamstress? Or is this just a transparent excuse to get Diana to return? She doesn’t seem bothered by that. In fact, this is the best she’s looked in some time. Still, Rivera takes pains to use the words “pal” and “friend”, implying their relationship is platonic. Could be, of course.

“Tell my story”? Huh!? Does Diana think she’s Joan of Arc? Sylvia Plath? I’ll wait for the movie, thanks. Diana plays up the martyr-in-the-making act, until she mysteriously gets bailed out. Suddenly she gets a call from her former squeeze, Professor Bee Sharp, whom she refers to by his first and last name. It must have been one really intense, intimate relationship. As I recall, Diana was pretty upset with Bee Sharp for scamming her salary and investing it in NFTs without her knowledge.

So the gang gets bailed out. What next? Regroup and try another approach, or call it a day and move on to the next for-hire assignment? But there are threads still hanging. Diana is already a recurring guest star, so her story arc will continue off and on. Not sure about Cliff’s future, as he seems to have been a convenient plot device for the current water-based story.  Nevertheless, this story ain’t over, folks. We have to see what the next move is from Duck Duck Goose and what reactions Mark’s and Diana’s story cause when it gets published. Unless that fishing magazine is a weekly, it could mean a 4-6 month delay!

Well, this is an interesting set of panels today. Aside from the rather outlandish nature of the “jail cell” (which suggests there is not a lot of serious crime in Lost Forest), there are the once-again disappearing prison bars in panel three (previously brought to our attention this past Saturday by reader Obtuse Angle). Okay, it’s a curious visual convention for a purpose I do not quite understand. Was there a reason why the bar in front of Diana’s face, Saturday, was cut away, as there seemed to be no problem showing Mark and Cliff. And today, the only link is Cherry’s remark about Mark being cute enough. But the schematic style of his face in panel 3 hardly supports the need for this barless convention.

And speaking of faces, note Mark’s face in panel two, which is part of a visual flashback to his Florida adventure where he stole his father’s boat and played havoc in the marina. The significant point here is the style and detail of Mark’s head. It points back to the earlier months of Rivera’s work, when she was using a more naturalistic style, on top of the fact that she was also using more creative compositions and layouts, similar to what you could see in graphic novels. From my point of view, it is unfortunate that a lot of those features have been cut back or discarded. I’m guessing the pressure of keeping on top of her submission schedule has a lot to do with it.

Clearly the freighter must have stopped in time.  Stop me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t Mark and Company have notified State and/or Federal authorities to handle this problem, now that it has been identified and documented?  Or maybe they could have phoned the Duck Duck Goose Shipping Company first?

And I may wind up eating my words. I’ve been pushing a theory of deliberate over-the-top storylines and characters; but while I don’t think I’m wrong, I don’t see the point here. Today’s strip reminds me of the kind of stuff you’d see on an episode of Seinfeld.  But why does Rivera have Mark and Company act like a bunch of naïve street protesters? There has to be some kind of plot twist coming up that makes sense of this nonsense.

Finally, what happened to the rest of the De-Bait Team? Did they escape back to the fishing lodge to look for bail money under the sofa cushions?  Maybe they should just let Cliff, Mark, and Diana stay in jail, like the characters in the last episode of Seinfeld.

You just have to love those little puffs of steam coming out of Chedderson’s ears, like in the old animated cartoons, the ones that were actually fun to watch and not educational. On the other hand, those steam puffs form a clever visual pun of Miss Stockton’s hair in panel 3. Right?

So, okay. Rivera confuses boats and ships, as others have noted. Bad on her! But I’d bet most people do.  Easy to criticize, but maybe it never occurred to her that there was a difference to worry about?

I suppose we could fault Chedderson for not knowing about the famous nature photographer/ journalist, Mark Trail; but I doubt he is much of an outdoors person.  Somehow, Kelly Welly has wormed her way into Mark’s river dance and is now piggybacking her own profile. Will Kelly take on a more active role in this story? We haven’t seen her since Mark’s first story under Rivera’s pen.

Anyway, I wonder if we have time-shifted a bit, as Chedderson reads a social media announcement that “Mark Trail is on a boat” (not a ship, mind you). “Instant news” is an Internet meme, but we don’t yet see the outcome. Reckon that’s for Saturday.

Jules Rivera’s approach bothers many followers, used to the strait-laced, straight-up approach favored by the previous Mark Trail artists. It’s understandable. Many of us grew up reading this strip and got used to its folksy manner, mundane art, stilted dialog, and corny plots.

In this instance, readers have criticized both the absurdness of a big ship in a local waterway as well as its improbability of being stopped by fishing boats. I agree! But let’s face it:  Rivera has been criticized for just about everything! Yet, as I’ve indicated here before, I think Rivera uses goofy plots, oddball characters, and satire in her stories on purpose, as literary authors sometimes do (I go back to Carl Hiassen, but there are many more).  Why? Well, humor and satire are long-established formats for delivering serious messages, as I think most of you know.

Rivera is no Jonathan Swift and this is no Gulliver’s Travels; but Rivera also works in a more restrictive format. I’m sure she believes her approach can make it easier for people to learn a bit more about nature and the environment while having a laugh or drawing a big sigh. So today, Rivera begins to answer her critics, showing that she is in on the gag, since she set it up!

“Our finest veterans”? Does that mean they know how to get the heck out of the way, since cargo ships can’t stop on a dime? I’m not sure the approaching ship has any intention of dropping anchor, unless it is on Mark’s boat.

(Artist note: That’s a nice idyllic drawing in panel 1: People enjoying a nice boating day. Too bad, this ain’t no Sunday cruise.)

Does the Duck Duck Goose Shipping firm have a monopoly on this waterway and whatever harbor is up-river? There seem to be no ships from other companies, as far as we’ve seen. Maybe Mr. Chedderson, the apparent boss of the company we originally saw last October, will happen to be on that approaching vessel! That would be a signal this story is at its climax.

Anyway, I hope Mark brought Cherry’s shovel along. He can scrape zebra mussels off the cargo ship’s hull as it plows through Cliff’s fishing boat.

Looks like Mark decided to go with the second option I listed:  a human blockade across the river. Hmm… does Cliff mean veteran boat captains or boat captains who were military vets? I’m pretty sure they are not necessarily the same.  And Mark seems confused between land masses and bodies of water (panel 4).

Don’t get me wrong here, but isn’t Mark exceeding his mandate? He was tasked merely with establishing the source of the zebra mussel infestation. But as usual, Mark goes in head first to right another wrong of human interaction with nature. Not that this is a bad thing:  It would be splendid if more of us took a more active role, for example. So, I’m thinking that Mark has already submitted his report to the magazine and now feels free to stage this protest on his own, without implicating the magazine if things go wrong. Just a theory, of course!

One more thing: A big difference from the old incarnation of M.T. is that now, Mark happily works with other people, rather than pretending he can do it all on his own. That’s a good thing, but too bad he did not try to work with Duck Duck Goose Shipping to solve the problem in the first place.

While Mark meekly whines about his popularity, Diana made one of those drama-based confessions of regret; and Mark quickly stepped on it with a guileless and fabricated statement about himself. Of course, Mark did not come to the fishing lodge to bring people together; he came to escape getting his butt kicked by thugs from the Duck Duck Goose shipping company, theoretically involved with zebra mussel smuggling in Lost Forest waters.

So what’s the plan, Mark? Are you going to raid the next cargo ship you find? Form a human chain across the river to block more cargo ships? Or maybe open up a series of hull-scraping stations to clean mussels off of incoming water craft?

And did Mark actually transmit their report to the magazine so it can be published sometime in the next four to six months? Or is he waiting to see how things pan out? Well, I’m also intrigued how this story will pan out. It certainly looks like we’re headed towards the end. And I wonder if the two thugs went back to their boss and reported they have nothing to worry about, as Mark and Diana are only looking at mussels on the outside of the ships.

Okay, so Rivera reveals this is going nowhere and spares us poor readers any more of this silly sidebar. I hope. However, I don’t think either Mark or we are going to get off so easily. Based on past experience, Cricket Bro might cook up some revenge.

[CAUTION: THEORIZING AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]

On a different topic, I wonder why Rivera gave up her original style for Mark Trail, as seen in her early strips, such as this one from October 2020:

Rivera is often criticized for her art, as it either does not conform to the traditional Mark Trail style, or just “looks bad.” But her style is clearly a choice, not a limitation. As you may be able to see, the overall look of the October strip is certainly more fluid, refined, even more naturalistic. The coloring is less saturated (again, not discernable in b&w strips). The overall look has a lighter touch, with a definite feel for volume.

So, why the style shift? It might have been a matter of time and effort. The October panels would have to have taken much longer to produce than today’s. Or it could be that this earlier style didn’t lend itself to the kinds of stories and personalities Rivera decided to continue with. But Rivera continues to use interesting and unusual compositions (October panel 2) not normally seen in Mark Trail strips of yore, though not in today’s panels.

Perhaps Cricket Bro is such a narcissistic bully that he has never admitted to himself that Mark helped defeat him. Perhaps he thinks Mark is naive enough to be fooled into this scam, whereby he gets his revenge.

And Mark feels the need to respond to any idea with a prepared lecture. All he had to do was point Cricket Bro to some the earlier strips that already went over this stuff!

Are you wondering what the point is here?

Are you wondering where this is leading?

Are you wondering who will hang up first?

Are you even wondering what’s going on back at Duck Duck Goose shipping? Well, Rivera is weaving a tapestry of story threads, so we’ll have to see how it all comes together.

I have to admit that I like the effect of Rob leaning over the jagged line representing the telephone connection between him and Mark. Not a new invention, but it is effective. I also like the fact that there is enough text in the strip to make you slow down to read it, rather than doing the typical quick scan of many strips.

Less effective is this load of BS that Cricket Bro is handing to Mark. I suppose Rob must be a sociopath, which might explain his behavior and actions. At least Mark seems resistant to this big deal. But again, why is he even listening? Because he has to in order to build up the premise for further action down the road, I think.