Mark butters up Ranger Shaw for the Big Question.

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Mark employs his professional journalist interrogation, er, interview tactics on Ranger Shaw:  First, disarm the subject with flattery and politeness; discuss mundane events to build rapport; then finally, slam the subject with hard-hitting questions before he has a chance to prepare a defensive response.

Well, that appears to be the goal, but for some reason, Mark’s odd expression (“Ohh! A bee stung me!”) in panel 3 dilutes the dramatic moment, so Range Shaw seems more concerned about that, then being taken aback by the qestion, itself.

Art Dept. The function and appearance of the current art has been the subject of recent discussion. Intent, ability, purpose all come into play. As regular readers know, we have discussed this topic many times. It is no secret that Rivera’s art has changed over time, where the art now looks like a mashup of storyboard drawing techniques and TV cartoon-inspired simplicity. Or worse.

from Jan 23, 2021. Sorry I don’t have a more detailed version.

It wasn’t always this way. Look back at Rivera’s start. The “cool dude Mark” pose is from a series of early publicity images Rivera drew in late 2020, when she took over the strip. The strip, above, from January 2021, is part of Rivera’s first story. You should easily see here a greater attention to detail, naturalism, and even dramatic sequencing in Rivera’s use of a single, continuous landscape to portray a sequence of events over time. In art history circles, this is known as “continuous narration,” so this concept is not original, but it is rare to see in comic strips. It is a grittier style like that sometimes seen in graphic novels. So, considering what we see these days, the question arises: What happened?

Somebody tell Robbie he doesn’t need water wings for Slip ‘n Slide!

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Okay, two birds with one stone, and all that. The boys get to play on a Slip ‘n Slide (not recommended for adults!), and Mark does some preliminary data gathering about the contaminated lake.

Rivera’s habit of showing animals squawking, gaping, and staring in our direction continues, unabated. As noted previously, it’s overdone, even if it is meant as parody of the pre-Rivera tradition for depicting wildlife trapesing through the panels.

Finally, I wonder why the sky is a pale orange. You, too, right? Or maybe not. Was it just a choice of the colorist or does it actually play into the story? An orange sky can signify different things:  A sunset, a nearby forest fire, the prelude of an oncoming storm, or even a sky filled with dust and pollutants. However, nobody in the strip seems worried by it, so it’s more than likely just a curious color choice.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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

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

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

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

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

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

(click photo to see enlarged image)

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

Hooray for contamination! Maybe we’ll get a story out of this?

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Yes, Rivera’s art can certainly be atrocious, as recent critic Rich grunkle duck likes to point out. But more often, it is inconsistent, not always sunk to the bottom of the comic strip swamp, though today’s strip is a good candidate for that distinction. If this, and other recent strips were all we had to go on, it would be difficult to disabuse the accusation of non-stop slop.

As for this storyline, my fear is that, once again, Rivera will give lip service to the topic, itself. Like the just completed AI and the Environment story, very little time was actually spent on the topic and we didn’t really learn much more than a few platitudes. As this is a strip with a focus on the environment, one might expect a bit more depth.

But was it any different in pre-Rivera stories? Mark’s infamous bat-cave adventure had virtually nothing to do with bats or wildlife problems. Doc’s buried gold adventure took place in the desert. The bank heist and fake kidnapping story also partly took place in a cave with a silly sideshow of calming a bear with candy bars. The premise of Mark going to visit a friend to see gray wolves was soon forgotten.

None of these stories were really what we would call “nature-oriented”, as opposed to just being adventure stories. But, however far-fetched and contrived they were, they were still presented seriously, providing elements of plausible danger and suspense, with a feeling that somebody could get hurt (reference the Yeti, Oh My Yeti story, where the leader actually did die!). But ignore these elements and the stories, themselves, become thin and mediocre. That is: take out all of the “Indiana Jones” traps and pitfalls in the Bat-Cave story, and all you have left is a story of three people, trapped in a cave by human traffickers, making their way through a cave system, finally locating an exit and winding up swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

Those elements of danger and suspense taken seriously are almost always missing in Rivera’s stories. Their absence helps lays bare the dead-ends, lapses, and plot holes in her stories. Why she leaves them out is not clear. It’s not from lack of awareness. Again, her first story certainly did exhibit real elements of suspense and danger, along with strong emotions. But that is nothing like what have been getting.

Just when they thought it was safe to go into the water …

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I’m surprised to see Rusty brought Robbie along, given their long history of rivalry. Otherwise, all I can say is “Thank Goodness!” there is a snag in this otherwise boring swimming story. Given that a fence has been (partially) erected with a warning sign, we might be lucky enough to see some kind of toxic spill or industrial pollution that Mark can investigate and give us a more interesting story to read.

Art Dept. Apparently, Rivera believes it is important to show the shocked expressions of the gang after they arrived at the swimming hole, though Cherry looks more like a teenager that just got goosed by her boyfriend. In any event, it’s another one of Rivera’s oddball examples where everybody is facing away from the object they’re reacting to. Now, is there any reason they couldn’t all be showed facing towards the fence, as people do in real life?  

Surprise, shock, or disappoint could certainly be implied through body language, just as much as through facial expression. Here is a simple example of what I’m talking about. You’ll have to just imagine a fence in front of this dude.

Other compositional solutions come to mind here, but facing away from the fence is not one of them.  Another missed opportunity.

And yeah, I know the station wagon in panel 1 looks off, like one of those old school ColorForms stick-ons.

Okay, now there’s a good reason not to go swimming in that particular lake!

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There goes Rivera once again, wringing out yet another sappy 3-panel gag strip, featuring the “mom packs for a six week vacation” trope. Real comedy gold. If the hokey poses of Mark and Rusty in panel 2 aren’t contrived enough, in panel 3 Rivera has them standing in the doorway, looking gobsmacked (“Uh-oh, there goes Mom again!”). Yet more sitcom tropes worthy of Nickelodeon. But this just does not fit Cherry’s personality. I’m wondering if Rivera is making these choices on her own or if she’s getting advised from people at King Features on ways to make a strip about nature and the environment appear cute and appeal to more readers (maybe like the kind of people who enjoy Hi and Lois and Garfield).

Art Dept. One day Rivera will figure out bears. As we’ve seen in the past, she’s used different approaches, or perhaps, different online sources. Now, using reference images is not a negative in comic strips. In fact, cartoonists have been using visual references for over 100 years. It’s a lot easier now since cartoonists don’t have to maintain filing cabinets full of photos and drawings.

I’m pretty sure that Rivera used this online image as her source. Note that she even used several of the same river rocks in her own representation.

Perhaps she manually traced it (as artists would have done in the past) and then improvised the texture and lighting. Or, she ran the image through several transformations with her software. Whatever, I think she went too far, creating a bear with a strange surface texture. Sometimes you just shouldn’t fool with Mother Nature.

A fun idea suddenly becomes cringe

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Whaaat!? Rusty wants to get driven to a lake!? What about the water beside the cabin? Okay, that could just be a very small lake or pond. So why don’t Rusty and his friend just bike to the lake? Surely it can’t be that far away? Why, in my day …

Anyway, one positive takeaway today is that we’re done with the post-shower happy talk and on to a different family activity. Yay! Another thing that you probably noticed is that we are viewing a rare appearance of Mark and Rusty not wearing their standard-issue uniforms. That’s something for your diary. Still, another point is this: We see a lot more of Rusty than we did in the pre-Rivera days. I believe this expansion of the family is an overall good thing. At the same time, a little goes a long way and we just had a Rusty story. It’s time to let Rusty rest for a while in the “Mark Trail Occasional Character” closet, along with Doc Davis, Andy, and the Donut Lady.

Art Dept. In Panel 3 Jules Rivera employed her usual elliptical “panel arc” I mentioned the other day. It fulfills its role of highlighting the person talking. But in panel 4, Rivera cleverly reconfigured the arc by transforming it into what looks like a wall of oozing paint, dripping diagonally down. This “melting arc” still highlights Rusty, but also reflects his sinking feelings about going swimming his friend and his parents.

Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a kite?

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Really, not enough cold water? Does the Trail family maintain refrigerated cisterns!? Oy vey, if this week isn’t going to progress beyond tiresome punchlines, all I can do is hope that Bill Ellis calls tomorrow so Mark can get back on the job as quickly as possible. Even then, this home interlude could stretch to two weeks, since Jules Rivera likes to start stories on Mondays.

Art Dept. Yesterday’s first panel was a well-planed composition. Today’s panel 1 is a compositional mess. The hummingbird should have been placed more to the right, with the cabin below and to the left, so they don’t overlap. In fact, Rivera should have made this a 3-panel format,like yesterday. She could still have easily consolidated panels 2 and 3 into one and killed two birds with one panel.

Alas, what’s with the drawing of that Ruby-throated hummingbird? Is it actually gliding!? Hummingbird wings are a blur, unless captured by high-speed photography, which makes for fake-looking drawing. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this bird will be the next Sunday topic. Mark last talked about hummingbirds on April 21, 2024.

Did the plumber sell Cherry a gold-plated water heater?

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Here we begin a week of post-assignment family time. The family time segment has always been part of the strip (as far as I can determine), but Jules Rivera likes to expand on this period, injecting more than her predecessors did. In the old days after Mark came home from an assignment, the family would eat, then Mark and Cherry would sit in the living room or on the front porch and chat about how dangerous Mark’s assignments were. Then Mark would get a phone call and he’d be off on another trip. That process hasn’t changed all that much, except Rivera likes to flesh out this time with “everyday problems” and activities to add more dimensionality..

Anyway, there’s a nice duck landing by the Trail cabin. Not sure when this lake (or river?) showed up again. And is that a side door? We know that the front door is centered, with a porch. And we recently discovered that the back door has a stairway leading down an incline, suggesting the cabin is on some kind of promontory. Maybe this is a separate, adjunct building housing their shower and bathroom facilities. Rivera has a transactional approach to the strip, such that if the Trail cabin or its property needs to look a certain way, it will. I don’t know if it’s because Rivera doesn’t care or if she just needs the changes to fit the current storyline.

I leave Mark’s dialog in panel 2 (“I feel at ease after a good shower.”) for you to comment on, if you feel inspired or coerced by your own sense of values.

Art Dept. Panel 1 is a nicely designed and illustrated composition. However, I’m puzzled by the design of  panel 2. Rivera employs her standard panel arc compositional device. However, we can see that both sides of the arc are not drawn along the same curve and will not connect. This is unusual for Rivera, who has drawn this device hundreds of times. I don’t recall another case with this kind of looseness. Then consider the figure of Mark. At first, I thought the head was too big. But I covered up the arms, so the body and head don’t look too out of proportion. I think it must be the arms are too small for the torso. Rivera can usually handle foreshortening much better than this, even though she can be inconsistent. We know that Rivera deliberately distorts figures, though her motivation is not always obvious. However, these two quirks do not line up with her eclectic (or crude, if you wish) style. Was she in a hurry? Had a bad day? Did she let one of her fellow artist friends ghost-draw the panel? I dunno, but it is visually jarring.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark is a good boy. That’s a good boy, Mark…fetch!

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Ah, home at last! And what a cabin! Every time it gets shown, it changes shape and dimensions. At least, this extended cabin seems more likely to house four people and two dogs.

And we have finally, once and for all, finished with this AI adventure! But based on this story, Cherry is not the only person who isn’t aware of all the AI effects on the environment. Mark could have at least turned his laptop around to give us a peek.

And this is for his own blog, so I don’t get why he knuckles under. Job protection, I must assume.

Art Dept. Have to say I like that pose of Cherry in panel 3. It’s got a certain vibe to it that reminds me a bit of old black & white movies. Can’t say I remember anything in particular, so this is a pretty bland comment. Anybody else get this vibe? Or a different one?

Mark finds something to do with his long wait at the airport.

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What a pushover! Is Mark under an exclusive contract with Bill’s magazine empire? Mark ought to shop his article to less cautious media sources. Concerns over AI lawsuits? From what I’ve seen, media companies are suing AI companies for copyright infringement by illegally mining their data. But this is TrailWorld, where, like the Bizarro World in Superman comics, everything is the opposite of Earth. Exactly why a journalist wouldn’t name names in an exposé doesn’t make much sense. Otherwise, it’s just another blog.

But I’m naming names: You hear that, Bill Ellis of Woods & Wildlife? You hear that, Amy Lee of Teen Girl Sparkle? You hear that Rafael Suave of Fish Magazine? Cowards, the lot of ya!

The joke of the day

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Bill, you say Mark looks good in a suit? You mean this combination of olive-beige jacket, light blue slacks and red “spiderman” shirt!? Really? Correct me if I’m wrong, but this may be the first story where Mark wore anything even approaching an actual suit since Jules Rivera took over nearly five years ago.

It’s easy to see Bill Ellis as a stand-in for real-life media corporations these days, bowing to political pressure and threats from their billionaire owners to not make waves. So, how strongly does Mark hold his “journalist” credentials? Will he stand up for his profession or fold like a cheap olive-beige jacket?

More importantly:  How soon can we expect Rivera to put Mark back on his original Nature beat, investigating wildlife and real environmental issues? For all of Rivera’s expressed interest in nature and science, the stories have focused more on the jerks, goofballs, and crooks. For example:

A movie director is trapped in a house with wild lions. Relevance to Mark’s expertise or his focus: None. Lions were catching rays and watching TV. Why was Mark even there?
Manatee rescue in Florida. Relevance to Mark’s expertise/focus: Small. Saw the manatee at the end of the story. Focus was more on attempted kidnapping of manatee, which turned out to be fake news.
School field trip to Washington DC to visit government sites and NOAA. Relevance to issues with wildlife, the weather, the environment? Virtually nil.
Conference on AI and the environment. Learned virtually nothing. No real engagement on issues, but a quick pivot to more absurdities.

Ironically, Rusty’s story covering the Grungey Boys’ tearing up the ground in Lost Forest is closer to the pre-Rivera stories in terms of dealing with issues having a direct impact on nature and wildlife.

Mark pitches, but Ellis calls a strike!

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It’s amateur night at La Guardia Airport as Mark attempts to coax Bill Ellis into paying for a wacky article he thinks he could write about the AI World. For some reason, Ellis seems reluctant. That’s difficult to see, given that one of Ellis’s magazines is Teen Girl Sparkle, for whom Mark wrote an article on Cricket Bro and his corrupt business dealings in California. I mean, Mark’s idea about AI and the people behind it is at least TMZ-quality subject matter! Is Bill Ellis an AI investor!?

Speaking of which, we sure haven’t seen much development for Jules Rivera’s original Mark Trail/Bill Ellis reboot, whereby Mark would write articles for various magazines in Ellis’s publishing empire. It was an idea that could have provided a wide variety of assignments, expectations, and different editors to coordinate with. But after five years, we’ve only seen three editors, two of them, only once, as I recall. Looks like a dead issue, so to speak.

Art Dept. Rivera’s sketchy, flat drawings and lack of lighting continue to downplay any sense of actual drama (not that there is anything especially dramatic in today’s exchange). Real drama always seems less a priority than Batman-on-TV campiness. I’ve never agreed with this extreme approach Rivera decided on, given that most comic strips are based on superficial, forgettable jokes. But when scanning over Rivera’s Mark Trail strips, it would be hard to not believe Rivera has been treating this more and more like a gag-a-day comic strip that happens to have storylines.

And then there is the ongoing transformation of Mark from a 30-something person to a 20-something person. But that’s for another time.

The pre-flight debriefing continues…

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Often, Jules Rivera uses this post-story time for Mark to relate what happened to the principle participants, instead of just rehashing the story. And <ahem!>, rehashing is my Sunday job, Jules!

So there are four more days left. Will Mark drag out this postmortem all week long? Will he deal with another loose animal running around the airport?  Or will he just get on the damned plane, already, and spend the time annoying the crew? I’d like to see him order Brunswick Stew made with possum and squirrel meat. That should go over really well with the flight crew.

Art Dept. Ever think that Bill Ellis looks like a boy made up to look like an adult?

Thoughts on the color purple

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Those purple people in panel 1? We all see them without seeing them, the silent swarm of humanity you avoid as you move through the day taking care of your important tasks. No time to talk or interact, so keep moving. Still, if you were to walk up to one and suggested getting a cup of coffee to pass the time, you might get pepper-sprayed or arrested by the cops. Yes, they are real people just like you or me, but it’s safer to dismiss them out of hand. And you move on.

Rivera adds some humanity to these purple people from time to time: That guy checking his watch as if he realizes he forgot what time zone he was in and arrived an hour too late. The gal enjoying a chat with her beau, while peeking at the angry dude behind her. The angry dude leaving the city with a carry-on full of misery, because his girlfriend broke up with him; yet not realizing she is currently talking with that gal on the phone. Then there is the guy sitting next to Mark, miffed that he can only hear Mark’s side of the conversation.

Finally, there are the shadow people, mere darkened silhouettes that barely pass as human forms, devoid of any differentiation. They are hardly more than extensions of seats, sidewalks, and windows as we pass them by with little more than a moment’s notice. Oh, they say there are a million stories in the Naked City, but we wound up in Mark’s.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This week focused on the aftermath of the revelation of a free A-I App undercutting the fundraising purpose the Crypto Bro’s A-I Awards Night Dinner. Investors spent the time throwing objects, yelling, and running around in circles (or perhaps figure-8s). Why? I’m not sure, since the A-I is presented at a very abstract level, like some monolithic entity. It’s the digital boogey-man.

Mark and Kelly Welly watched the chaos unfolding from their table. Mark, inwardly smiling at the event’s collapse, suggested they quickly leave the room. But Kelly took the opportunity to stand up for her sex and trip on the floor, thus exposing her to the footfalls of the panicky investors still running mindlessly around the room. Kelly was surprised to see Mark stop and rescue her from catastrophe and was nonplussed enough to actually question Mark on this point. As he gave his usual “It’s what I do” answer, Kelly laughed at him for his naiveté and ran off, leaving Mark behind. Mark bravely waves it off. Now, why would Jules Rivera play up Kelly as a woman trying to become tough and independent, only to turn her into some kind of 1950s vulnerable and helpless movie gal who trips at the slightest sign of trouble, requiring a strong male hero to rescue her from certain doom? And after she is rescued, she becomes snippy and self-centered, then runs off. Am I misinterpreting anything here?

For today, Jules Rivera gives us a wildlife present for Father’s Day. Even more than usual, Mark needs to impart his own snarky comments, distracting as they are. Personally, I’d prefer he spent more time with his family instead of mugging in almost every panel. In fact, it would be just fine to limit Mark’s personal appearances to one panel at the start and one at the end.

Does this now mean Mark won’t get paid?

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Poor Mark got dissed once again. Well, it was to be expected. But it’s not a problem for Mark. He was Ted Lasso long before there was Ted Lasso. So Mark just put on his happy face and rationalized away Kelly Welly’s behavior.

But how is it these investors are still running around in circles inside the center? I mean, why aren’t they on the way home, to a bar, or to their attorney? Not that they have any case against the Tech Bros, because they were also “victims” of this rumor. My money’s still on Sid Stump, who probably engineered this fiasco in order to unload his own troubled AI product.

But this time, Rivera lets us all know, in no uncertain terms, that this adventure is over. And that’s fine by me!

Art Dept. It’s not always clear who does the coloring of strips. Sometimes it’s the cartoonist but other times it’s a staff colorist at the syndicate. Now, Rivera works electronically, so there is no reason to think she wouldn’t do her own colors. I’m only bringing this up to make a small, pedantic point. When movies are made, there is a person in charge of continuity, to ensure characters and repeated locations match up throughout the movie. This week, Mark’s suit is orange, whereas when he first appeared at this event (late May, go look it up), his jacket was olive. Yesterday, his slacks were orange, but today, they are blue. Is this a continuity issue or is Rivera just playing with us? This is the kind of hard-hitting, detailed analysis you don’t get over at Comics Kingdom or other comics blog sites!

“Here I come to save the day!” That means that Mighty Mark is on the way!

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[Ed. Note: OOPSIE! I thought for sure I had published this brief entry, but it got left in the draft folder.]

Okay, Mark is still the true blue boy scout of old. But is he helping any of the other people who are equally likely in trouble? I’d probably also want to hustle out of a room filled with those things running in the background! And I reckon that’s all there is to say for today.

Or is it? Bring me up short by adding in something I missed or didn’t think about.

Kelly gets stampeded while Mark disappears

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A real stampede, is it? Just how many people are there, anyway? Didn’t a lot of them already leave, as we saw earlier (May 30)? At that point, people were just walking out. Now, it’s progressed past the riot stage, all the way up to the dreaded stampede stage. But where are these people stampeding to, and why? The hall is not aflame. At least, not yet. If anything, these investors should be chasing down the Crypto Bros!

I’m curious whether Kelly Welly’s scream of “AIYEEE!” in panel 3 is a legitimate use of the expression. It is usually reserved for specific scenarios, such as: 1) Westerns, where Apache chiefs get shot by inexperienced white women aiming a gun in their general direction; 2) When the bad guy misses his chance to kill James Bond and goes hurtling over the side of a mountain; and 3) in comedies like Home Alone, where one of the house breakers climbs in through a window and steps on a board of nails deliberately placed under it. I’m not sure tripping meets the minimum usage requirement.

Perhaps the Crypto Bros really are tapping into the amateur investment pool, which would explain why there are so many people here and why they are going crazy. Professional investors would have seen through this scam in no time at all. And probably already did.

Mark is conveniently absent from today’s panels! Possibly so that he can make a dramatic appearance tomorrow and rescue Kelly Welly, whose personal pronoun we learn is them ((according to the narration in panel 3).

But leave it to Kelly to try and keep up with the crazy crowd (panel 2), rather than just let them pass by. So why did Rivera go for this “rescue the lady in distress” trope? I would have thought Rivera would turn that cliché on its head and have Kelly save Mark. Well, there’s still time for that, Rivera!