Sometimes I get the feeling that Rivera is parodying the saccharin “bon voyages” that Mark and Cherry exhibited in the pre-Rivera era, such as in this James Allen contribution:
But I’m not here today to compare the artistic approaches, though I’ll agree that Jules Rivera’s version of a kiss is certainly more of a cartoony smooch like you’d see in an episode of The Flintstones. Okay, maybe it’s not limited to just the kiss, either. The contrast is startling.
But cartoonist James Allen and his predecessors didn’t think it was necessary to spend/waste so much time on the usual Mark Trail’s Departure Scene as Rivera does. On the other hand, Cherry was certainly more of an old school, wifely worrywort before Rivera invigorated her.
Pre-Rivera, it used to be the case that Mark would say goodbye to Cherry on their porch, so getting driven to the airport these days at least gives us a bit more of what was most likely kept “behind the scenes.” Other than that, it’s kind of the same ol’ thing, except for Rivera’s humor.
Speaking of airports, for those of you coming in late: The “Tom Hill Airport” name is a reference to one of the earliest and best Mark Trail artists, who not only handled the earlier Sunday nature strips but also ghosted a lot of the dailies that had Jack Elrod’s name on them.
Anyway, I’m kind of surprised. This is the usual set of panels that I would expect to see published on a Saturday, as Rivera wraps up the prologue for the week. So, what will we see tomorrow? It occurred to me that it would be very interesting if Rivera would include a sequence of Mark trying to get through TSA Security. If there was ever a situation where humor and bad luck was called for, that would be it.
Four panels it takes for Mark to just say “Ok. You two handle it. I’m outta here!” And that is because Rivera again sacrifices plot for her distracting humor. At least Duke had the decency to actually inspect the water heater up close to confirm his initial long-range analysis!
Art Dept. I wonder if Rivera uses a “model sheet” for reference? That’s a page of images, poses, and expressions for each main character, referenced to ensure consistency. Panel 3, for example, gives the impression that Mark must be almost 7 feet tall, based on his arm. Or Cherry must have shrunk to 5 feet. Either way, it’s a bit disturbing. Even the figures seem awkward, as if standing around and posing.
Feel free to comment on my analysis or on the strip, itself.
Let me see if I understand this scenario: Duke the plumber (with his now-trimmed beard) arrives from the now-named De-Bait Team Fishing Club (formerly the De-Bait Team Fishing Lodge) and announces he brought along his plumbing supplies, as requested by Mark.
Why would Mark have to specifically request plumbing supplies? Did Duke bring his fishing equipment on a prior plumbing job?
But isn’t Duke just one of the in-house fishermen over at the Lodge, er, Club? Sure, but he’s not just a weekend plumber. He has his own business truck, as seen in the background, with the leaky shock absorber. Perhaps that is why Mark and Cherry are going to get stuck with a big bill.
Well, hypocrisy lives on in Lost Forest, and Cherry’s patronizing scold flies out of her mouth in panel 2. Apparently, only Mark has the proper moral authority and power to lay fist-to-face against any troublemaker in Lost Forest. That is, Mark’s and Cherry’s disapproving rebuke in panel 1 is ironic, given Mark’s penchant for getting into fights at the drop of a hat. As if Mark has never been arrested, either.
Cherry seems to treat Olive as a child. Clearly, Cherry’s opinion of her sisters is somewhat low: Danger! Danger! The woods are dangerous! And a short while ago, Cherry feared that Peach might have a problem locating the trash bin at the foot of the stairs. Seems to me that Olive handled herself quite well and put the Grungy Boys in their place. Is Mark jealous?
So, exactly how will Mark sort out any troublemakers? Five will get you ten that it involves some amount of physical argumentation. I don’t get this entire sequence. Since Olive was defending herself and Rusty, why should she fear getting arrested? Why are Mark and Cherry so uptight? Help me out here, people!
There was a book written in 1884 called Flatland, a satirical story where all life forms were geometric shapes. Today’s strip reminds me of the conceptual framework of that story, as the figures and landscape here look like overlapping flat planes. Panel 1 is the principal example, with Rivera’s common “stage prop” flora and weirdly formed figure of Mark. More on that, shortly.
So it is Monday as Rusty and Olive share their story with Mark. How will the rest of the week shape up? Mark’s own adventure will almost certainly not begin until next Monday. I’m not even sure I remember what it’s supposed to be. Wait … oh, yeah. Mark gives a talk to a tech conference in New York about the influence of AI on the environment. But will Rusty’s mention of the Grungy Boys throw a monkey wrench into Mark’s plans? Can he resist getting in a few more punches for old time’s sake? Can he ever think of another method of behavior modification?
Art Dept. Now, the image of Mark in panel 1 presents a common technique of “Starring Role overrules Nature.” For example, in movies where most of the characters would have to wear a hat, mask, or other facial obstruction because of a local condition, almost invariably the movie star’s head or face would be unobstructed, so as to be seen very clearly. Here, a “flattened” Mark greets Olive and Rusty, who are physically behind Mark; yet Mark faces us, while his eyes look sideways to suggest he is really facing them. Of course, in the real world, Mark would likely be facing the two arrivals, so we would see the back or 3/4 view of Mark. Why not just draw it that way, then? At the very least, Rivera could have drawn a more realistic image of Mark twisting his head back over his shoulder.
Sure, this is a nerdy bit of trivia that many readers may not notice or care about one way or the other. At least I’m not hitting Rivera for the disappearing ground behind the cabin.
A peaceful, bucolic day in Lost Forest revealed Rusty Trail and Olive (of the Florida Pitts) taking a peaceful, bucolic walk. But are they bird watching? Looking for Spring flowers? Taking soil samples to test for changes in soil nutrients? Uh, no. They are on another cryptid hunt.
Olive, an aunt who genuinely likes Rusty, played along until they heard a buzzing sound. When they went to investigate, they spied The Grungy Boys fooling around with a riding lawnmower in a clearing. Olive began recording their antics on her phone.
Honest Ernest, the chief Grungy, saw Olive and Rusty and became irritated. He approached the interlopers, demanding Olive’s phone so he could presumably erase the video. Honest Ernest claimed their activity was in protest of being arrested for breaking up office equipment in Lost Forest and leaving the debris behind.
Unfortunately, as Ernest tried to grab the phone, Olive, who has a long history of scrapping, planted a solid right cross that knocked Ernest off his feet. The hapless Stooges looked on in disbelief as she read to them from the Book of Olive.
I’m guessing this is a draft of Mark’s AI talk for the upcoming Cricket Bro Tech Convention in NYC. It’s a good start, at least. It has the added virtue of avoiding bad puns and jokes, and I think we can all appreciate that!
Not that I would promote violence for the sake of violence or even for the sake of ratings, but who can resist enjoying the sight of Honest Ernest taking a strong right to the face? I think we have to give Rivera “artistic license” for a right cross knocking Ernest’s head to the right instead of the left. Well, we just gotta see that face!
I’m glad to see that Olive has maintained her hard edge and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. Of course, Rivera plays up Honest Ernest’s bullying and patronizing behavior for effect. With Olive and Peach now living in Lost Forest, this certainly changes the dynamics of the local cast. I hope.
As Honest Ernest implied, this situation certainly is something of a repeat performance of the situation illustrated in the adventure labeled as “Thanks-alotl for the E-Waste.” But there is some logic to this, as Ernest, himself, admits when he says they are just reacting to what happened to them before. In other words, this isn’t just a case of Rivera being too lazy to think up a new plot.
But to play Devil’s Advocate, are the Grungy Boys actually breaking any laws? Are they illegally destroying natural habitat? Or are they just horsing around on a riding lawnmower, like kids on ATVs? They don’t appear to be littering, in spite of Olive’s assertions in panel 4 of Friday’s strip.
Once again, I’m breaking tradition and will combine today’s strip with tomorrow’s into a single, hopefully more cohesive, post. Enjoy your day (or night) and see you tomorrow!
A recent display of Mark’s much vaunted Fists O’ Justice!
Hoo-boy! I didn’t see this one coming. I was prepared to dismiss the Wednesday strip as just more of the same. For the most part it is. But what was that BZZZ?
Well we found out today. It seems that the so-called Grungy Boys must be riding electric lawnmowers in Lost Forest. After all, gas-powered mowers don’t buzz, right!? Does this make the dudes green? Well, it’s hard to call this a race when only one person is riding.
Now, what’s with putting in the incompetent Grungy Boys once again as the vilains du jour? C’mon, Rivera! They are just wannabe 3 Stooges. Perhaps they are sufficiently “bad” for somebody of Rusty’s age and may just become the stock bad guys for his adventures.
Art Dept. When I first looked at Panel 1, I thought Rusty and Olive were looking down at elves because of the ridiculous disparity in proportions between them and the Grungy Boys. Ouch! Rivera could have chosen the viewpoint she employed in panel 3, where the same figures could have been depicted without the problematic proportional distortions.
But then I was amazed at how boneless the Grungy Boys are depicted! They look like the rubberized progeny of Gumby. It doesn’t help when they are also depicted as flat figures with no apparent volume.
Howdy Trailheads and other people who think that what was good in 1956 is still good enough for today Sorry, I have no commentary today because today’s strip is largely a repeat (continuation) of yesterday, but without any new information.
I’ll publish Wednesday’s and Thursday’s strips together. That will leave Friday and Saturday to close out the week, so I’ll likely post both of those days together, as well, unless something changes in the content.
Meanwhile, you can use your extra time wisely to read through as many earlier postings of mine as you can tolerate. Take notes if you wish, as I respect carefulness in others, though I have little of my own. Feel free to post your own comments (find the link) and put in your two-bits worth of your own on virtually any aspect of the comic strip or my writing. I don’t ask you to be kind, but I do ask you to be respectful, apolitical, and without words that would get your mouth washed out with soap by your parents.
Regular reader Daniel Pellissier commented yesterday on a general improvement in the artwork, especially the water scenes. Indeed, Rivera does a good job with that. The above-ground scenes also seem better handled in regards to composition (e.g. panel 1), figures, and general ambiance. However, it is still unfortunate that the flora are treated merely as background and stage-scenery. It would be nice to at least show more articulation, if not better resemblance to actual types of trees and bushes.
Today’s submission looks like we are going to have another week of filling in space before a new adventure begins. As scintillating as it may be to watch Rusty once again moan about his inability to prove the existence of cryptids to his friends, there likely won’t be much to say on a daily basis.
As you might recall⏤assuming you have not dozed off⏤we went through a full week of Mark and Cherry going on a nature walk, then a full week of Mark talking on the phone with Bill Ellis about a new assignment. Now, it looks like we might get a third full week of fluff!
I sure hope I am wrong. But if not, I may gather the strips for the rest of the week and post a combined blog on Saturday. Before you write, I recognize the illogic of that statement. I clearly cannot know what the rest of the week’s strips will show before they are published. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Well, here I am eating my words, or at least blushing for forgetting to take into consideration that the Sunday chat subject (i.e. catfish) could also apply to upcoming panels!
And we learn that Cherry’s two sisters are now going to live somewhere in Lost Forest. Does that mean they will figure into some of the ongoing stories of Cherry, and maybe Mark? That could present some needed variety in Cherry’s stories. As Rivera defined her, Cherry was originally pretty feisty, but her personna has flattened out lately. This seems to be a lot of what happened to the “original” Cherry of Ed Dodd’s days, when she was an outdoor gal, frolicked with a pet bear, and camped in the forest. Later, she got more domesticated and less interesting. Rivera’s Cherry is not yet the stay-at-home figure of old, and I see no reason to believe she will evolve that way.
But Olive still retains a lot of her independence and aggression. At least, she is drawn that way. So, I hope she can hold on to her personality if she is going to be a recurring figure in the Lost Forest landscape.
This week was the prologue for a new Mark Trail adventure. I’d like to think that it has the makings for real suspense and action, but I can only beat up on myself so much. Bill Ellis called Mark and spent most of the time this week stroking Mark’s somewhat cautious nature to get him to accept a speaking engagement at a technology conference in New York City. The topic is about artificial intelligence and the environment (so I am calling this adventure “A-I A-I Oh!” Catchy, huh?) Mark was properly skeptical, as he could only speak on the negative effects of AI on the environment. Ellis told Mark he will get a big payday for the talk. Mark was even more skeptical and dismayed to learn that the conference is hosted by long-time serial nemesis, Cricket Bro. Bill Ellis must get his kicks making Mark squirm.
In spite of mounting pressure all week, Mark found a clumsy, if effective way to back out of the engagement (“let me think about it“), only to be undone when Cherry suddenly popped up to announce they had an emergency water heater leak that required a lot of money to fix. The last image we saw was an unhappy Mark giving in to Bill Ellis. NYC, here we come!
Was anybody looking for river giants, as Mark concludes? I wasn’t and I don’t recall Mark being curious any time recently. Until now, of course. Anyway, we get a topic that is unrelated to the current or most recent adventures. Unrelated nature topics were common in pre-Rivera times, whereas Rivera often focuses on creatures and environs related to Mark’s or Cherry’s current adventure and location.
And that is a good thing, I believe. Why? Well, it provides continuity throughout the entire week, and it serves as a way to highlight aspects of the location where the current story takes place. Still, it has never been required and takes nothing away from the Sunday topic, itself. But it does make me very curious to see what Rivera comes up with for topics related to New York City.
Oh, poor Mark. Thrown into the fires of fate by reality, or at least by a diabolus ex machina (by the way, I like that fiery symbolism in panel 4. Good imagery!). We know that sometimes reality bites. And it sure looked like Mark was about ready to turn down Bill’s proposal, too. So sorry, Mark!
As for the cost of fixing or replacing a furnace, I reckon I’d have to know more before I could say that Cherry’s estimate had any accuracy behind it. And what is a small fortune to the Trails, anyway? It would be nice to get a professional estimate before making this decision, but I have the feeling that too much reality would ruin the point of putting Mark into the position of having to accept this assignment.
Oh, Mark. Keep your values in check and Just Say No! Don’t let Bill Ellis gaslight you again. Ask for something in your wheelhouse: There must be a stranded penguin to rescue, somewhere; a mining company possibly sinking illegal shafts on protected lands; or maybe a corrupt editor setting up rigged assignments of dubious merit, just to gin-up ratings. Just don’t give in, Mark. We’re with you! Don’t do it, Mark!
Last week (or so) I proposed a thought experiment about what Bill Ellis did in his spare time. I found a possibility: Moonlighting as a meteorologist for ABC under the assumed name of Lee Goldberg.
Bill Ellis⏤when not forecasting the weather⏤doesn’t seem to treat Mark seriously. He is happy setting up Mark as a punching bag for Cricket Bro (aka Rob Bettancourt), as Mark rightly assumes. But to what end? What does Ellis get out of this besides a cut of Mark’s fee?
Nothing mentioned (so far) about how this assignment has anything to do with journalism, much less which magazine this assignment is destined for. Is Mark supposed to write up the conference for publication? It’s a puzzle. Maybe Jules Rivera is finally transitioning Mark into more of an outright, independent troubleshooter, troublemaker, “Edward Abbey” type of activist, with Ellis more as his handler or manager than an editor. So “journalist” then becomes Mark’s cover job, rather than his actual job. If so, let’s get Diana Daggers in on this as his partner. She could definitely stand some hardening up in this strip. I don’t want to see her go the way of Kelly Welly or Dirty Dyer.
Clearly, Mark has a limited view on AI and has not investigated areas that might hold positive benefits, the energy-hogging data centers notwithstanding. There’s no end of people pooh-poohing and raising flags about AI’s problems. For once, Mark is right (panel 1). So there must be something else, right?
Once again, Rivera plays Mark like the Batman in those 1960s TV shows, where he fights the same circle of comic villains, over and over. We’ll have to see if this really unfolds the way it is presented or is just a smokescreen for something else. Most of you have probably recalled a prior story about Mark investigating a missing journalist and bear activity at a mountain retreat for STEM professionals, (“Bear Necessity”, begun Feb 2023), only to run into a bevy of returning guest villains and a hidden agenda.
So what is Cricket Bro’s real motive? He was the behind-the-scenes inspiration for the recent conspiracy-based manatee kidnapping farce in Florida. Do you think that Cricket Bro is looking for revenge (once again)?
Okay, I’m going to withhold judgement for just a bit. We’ll assume the tie-in could have something to do with the environmental impact of large, energy-consuming data centers that also use lots of fresh water for cooling. Or, perhaps this audience of IT professionals is interested in how AI is being used in various environmental industries and programs. Who knows? But I would bet there would already be at least a few experts on those topics at this “tech conference.”
In any event, this topic involves detailed, technical issues and policies. Is Mark at all qualified to speak on them with any authority? Investigating wild horses in Utah and uncovering a hidden data center in the desert doesn’t amount to a lot of experience, but it’s better than nothing, I reckon.
Maybe Mark doesn’t have to be a technical expert. Maybe he can take an ethical and philosophical position, assuming he is still aware of the current issues and ideas and how they are being handled. But I share Mark’s reaction in panel 4. This is not exactly in his wheelhouse and he runs the risk of looking ignorant and incompetent. Why does Bill Ellis think Mark Trail is qualified to give such a talk in the first place?
Perhaps Bill Ellis should have suggested Mark write a “weekly column” for Teen Sparkle Magazine or have Mark investigate an active volcano, as regular readers Daniel and Downpuppy commented yesterday.
I’m hoping that this offer was so red-hot that Bill had to give it to Kelly Welly, Mark’s “old timey” competitor for choice assignments. At least, she used to be, in the pre-Rivera tradition. And she did make an appearance or two in some of Rivera’s earliest Mark Trail strips, but has never been seriously retained. At first I thought that Diana Daggers was going to be the new replacement “female rival”, but maybe Rivera thought that it played up to old-school stereotypes.
In any event, I reckon we’ll learn about this bigtime assignment soon enough. But this brings up another point, doesn’t it? How is a “hot assignment” relevant to magazine publishing, unless the magazines Ellis represents have already transitioned to online? And what happened to all of those magazines Ellis represents? It’s all become just so much background, hasn’t it?
The Daily Trail 