I am pretty sure that Bill and Mark are in the same time zone…  and I always picture Bill Ellis’ office to be somewhere on Madison Avenue in NYC… not on tony Park Avenue, but a block over.  Not low rent but not high either.  This is after all a PRINT Magazine we are talking about here…  and unless it’s part of some conglomerate like Condé Nast, it’s probably limping along financially…  But here’s my point:  either Bill Ellis is putting in ridiculous hours at the office, or he is at home, spoiling the dinner hour taking Mark’s call on his -what- Walkie Talkie??  He still doesn’t seem to know how to hold or use a smart phone- and is still all suited up like he is at work- c’mon Bill, throw on a smoking jacket or something.  Relax, dude…

Such a look from our hero…  Bill has hit the trip-wire in the Trail-brain, that’s for sure…  first West African Black Rhino, now the White!!  This injustice has to stop!  And who is better equipped to undo generational poverty and black marketeering in sub-Saharan Africa than our own MARK TRAIL?!?  Pack your bags, Mark, you are going on safari!

Are you trying to say something here, Bill Ellis??  Like that’s ALL he writes about, and MAYBE he could try another angle this time??  Is James Allen taking a shot at his own strip?  Funny.

But it’s like they don’t know each other- Not “Hey Bill, Mark here…” but rather “Bill Ellis, This is Mark Trail!”  Mark seems disappointed in panel three that Bill only considers his seminal piece on the West Africa Black Rhino as “good…”  “C’mon Bill, I was on fire!  That was my best work!” Mark’s face seems to say…

Well, it looks like Mark might be off somewhere…  Thank goodness.

We never get to see Mark hunched over his typewriter, bullet sweat flying off his brow, pencil clenched in his teeth, trying to make a deadline to get his story into the next issue of Woods and Wildlife magazine…  Or is it hunched over his laptop, connected to the magazine through a high-speed satellite internet connection…  we HAVE seen laptops and flat screen TV’s in the Trailverse…

But oh thank goodness! A trip!!  A chance to renew himself and his fists with the outside world…  Our strange Odyssey into the world of “Mark Loves Cherry” can soon become a distant (and fleeting?) memory…

But can you blame him?  I mean for how many decades has he been drawn, suffocating and not allowed to be a man…

And there HE is… RUSTY.  He looks like he has grown up a bit, not the scary, shape-shifting little sprite out of our worst dreams… He almost looks human…

One thing sure hasn’t changed, though.  Bad, random, non-sequitur dialogue.  Mark offers up “I left my cell phone in the house!” Cherry responds that she “didn’t hear is ringing!”  What?  Like your phone rings off the hook, at night?  Whatever…  Careful there Mark, you know that this is how babies are made, don’t you??

As the cranky hermit crab from The incredible Mr limpet (Starring Don Knotts as an animated fish amongst live actors) would say…  These two need to get a room, or at least box seats at Target Field and get caught in the Kissing-Cam…

Are we done yet?  That’s all you get Cherry!  Let’s head home!!  For what?!?  I don’t even want to imagine…

It’s THE BEAR!  THE WOUNDED BEAR!  I thought it was in Doc’s care and custody!  Ranger Dusty! Gather your men!!

Possibly wounded bear eludes police, DNR agents in Savage on Page B1 of Friday, May 30, 2014 issue of Star Tribune

Remember the grandson played by Fred Savage from The Wonder Years questioning his Grandfather played by Peter Falk in The Princess Bride??? He was being baited and switched into listening to a chapter book being read aloud to him whilst sick in bed…  That’s what I feel is happening here…  OK, James Allen, WE GET IT…

But let’s examine the words more closely…  Mark is feeling lucky because he HAS A PLACE TO LIVE… and will do almost anything to not mess that up… Even subject himself to Cherry’s advances…  Even make Cherry feel like he really cares about her… Or is this James Allen getting back at Elrod for years of inattentiveness on Mark’s part?

I might add at this juncture that James Allen has yet to draw Rusty once since taking the helm…  is this a clear message, that he never approved of Mark and Cherry taking on this troubled, underdeveloped child??

Well, back to “As the Trail Turns…” More blah blah…  What ever happened to punch punch, kick kick??  Mark has this silly grin on his face that can only tell you, James Allen, that he doesn’t quite know HOW to behave now that he has been home for so long…

I am going to start a petition to get Mark back out with the bad guys!  Who’s with me??  But Cherry, let’s be clear- Mark’s “job” being a nature writer is just a front- for what we are not sure, but why don’t you ask him to show you his last check from Woods and Wildlife Magazine…  Is he on salary or is he paid by the article?  Does he get any money for living expenses? Because at this rate you will both be working at Wal*Mart in your “retirement…”

“C’mon Master, I am dying here!” says the Big Dog…  By panel three Andy is hearing what we are all hearing… “blah blah, away from home a lot, blah blah I’m sorry about that, blah blah blah…”  Please let this be the precursor to Editor Bill Ellis or someone calling Mark back to the world outside of Lost Forest.  This is getting tedious beyond words… Aside from the fact that Cherry is doing her best to model for the ubiquitous redneck mud flap profile in panel one…

Black Capped Chickadees are meant to act that way Mark, but not you… C’mon James Allen, let him leave the nest…  He’s much more interesting when he is operating without a search warrant and getting into other people’s business…