A bit of a recap today from last week, because we all know people have short attention spans. Actually, this is nothing new in comics. They’ve been doing recaps for a hundred years. For continuity strips, Sunday strips were themselves sometimes recaps of the previous week’s dailies for families who only subscribed to Sunday delivery. Anyway, if you missed my post yesterday, consider yourself caught up.

Announcement: Starting tomorrow, I will be on vacation for four weeks. Chances are I will have to post Tuesday with Wednesday. No big deal. This doubling or even tripling up may be more frequent, owing to my circumstances. Comics Kingdom’s latest marketing ploy makes this more difficult for me, but I’ll do my best to not miss any days.

Action builds as Trail decides his unconfirmed fears are more important than exposing the Crypto Bros.  Rivera continues to indulge in Batman TV Sound Effects (Grip! Snatch!). Everybody in the strip seems fixated on full names. What a day. Hey, watch out for that wolf spider (I think)!

Now, why would The Professor expose himself to Trail (as he did yesterday), if he didn’t want to be interrupted? I suppose predetermination wins out once again. And we have another cliffhanger that will only unfold next week. This reminds me of the Rocky & Bullwinkle episodes that always ended with cliff-hanging reminders:

“Tune in again next time for ‘Play NiFTy for me’ or ‘Say it Loud! It’s fake and I’m proud!’”

Cue the theme.

What’s with this habit of Mark Trail always using Sharp’s full name? Can’t Mark Trail just call him “Professor Sharp” or even “Sharp”? Does Jules Rivera think we would forget a character that makes an appearance in the strip at least once every two or three months? It’s not as it is what’s-her-face, that uh, reporter, you know, who is Mark Trail’s rival or something, right? How many times has she been in this strip since Jules Rivera took over? Yes, who could forget . . . her?

Anyway, pretty nice panel 4. Very manga-ish.

So, another dramatic moment arrives. Which way will it go? I hardly think Sharp is going to suddenly agree with Mark and just do a fade. So, he’ll attempt (at least) to expose the Bunco Brothers. Will Mark intervene or be smart and rush his family to safety? Will we see Sharp storm the stage in this Saturday’s strip to call a stop and announce he has a revelation?

He shoots, he scores! These gals look a few years older than Rusty, so it’s major cool for Rusty that they would even talk to him. That blonde girl’s face and mannerism reminds me of another, somewhat older, woman that appeared this strip. You might have figured that out, as well.

Anyway, aren’t we all glad that Rusty learned an important lesson about relationships and self-worth today? I hope it pays off for him in the very near future. Maybe the girls will stick around to help Rusty hunt the Specter. The sooner the better! I’m starting to worry that Mary Worth might show up, thinking this is a soap opera, not an adventure strip.

Are we going to have another week of mattress stuffing? I think that will be my new go-to word for padding a story. This stuff doesn’t move the story along. However, I give it a pass, because it focuses on Rusty and it shows that, not only is he not too young to notice girls after all, but he found enough grit to approach them.

The big question many boys and men face is “Why the hell am I afraid of approaching a member of the opposite sex?” Sure as hell I am not the guru holding that wisdom. Still, big points for Rusty’s new-found courage in the face of disaster. Next time, Rusty, talk about what the girls like to do!

On second thought, perhaps this is not mattress stuffing, after all. It is a focus on Rusty’s life, which is kind of a secondary storyline in this adventure, right? So, yeah. We’d all like to see this story (whatever the actual point here is) move along to a hoped-for successful and even action-packed conclusion. At the same time, we have to allow for some “real life” to play out a bit, here and there. Flesh on the bones, and all that.

Wow, at first, I thought “Cathy” the comic strip character, was making a cameo appearance as a skateboarder in panel 4. Having a guest cartoon character would be a first for Mark Trail, though it is often done in other strips.  And say, do you see how the stage decoration behind Happy Trail in panel 1 kind of makes him look like a turkey? I wonder if Rivera is making some kind of subliminal statement here.

I reckon that Worrywart Mark has to stick around for the surprising revelations from Professor Bee Sharp that will predictably set off the fireworks. Then Mark can go into his Hero Act again to save the family from the soon-to-be-rioters. But let’s face it: Happy Trail has lost his antennae for detecting danger.

I’m not even going to pretend to understand the disconnected aphorism in panel 3.

However, I admit that I like the way Rivera connected the ground line in panel 2 with the halfpipe curve in panel 3 to create some visual continuity.  The continuous line is not a revolutionary device, itself, but a subtle way to reinforce Rusty’s viewing in panel 2 to what he sees in panel 3:  So, we see the skateboarder through Rusty’s eyes. Except that, Rusty is in the background of panel 3. Rats! That theory is DOA.

And that’s why I wound up doing this blog instead of teaching art history classes.

Okay, why have we spent all week on this pointless back-and-forth questioning between Mark and Dad? Did Rivera recently re-watch the Da Vinci Code? Is it simply to make a transition into next week’s focus on Cherry and/or Rusty? Seems a bit much for that to me. As I’ve pointed out before, none of this is news and it all goes back to their conversation in Florida. I think we have to chalk this up to padding the ol’ storyline, something that we’ve seen in Vintage Mark Trail stories, as well. Like the flapjacks Dad brought up this past Tuesday, we can give Rivera points for keeping another old tradition going!

Also, we haven’t heard much from ol’ Doc Davis for some time. In fact, we’ve hardly heard from him at all since Rivera took over. >DING! DING! DING!<  Rivera tops off flapjacks and story padding with yet another Vintage Mark Trail tradition for the Hat Trick. Rivera is hot this week!

But no points for Doc. Nobody in their right mind makes chili in a pressure cooker.

Rivera continues to pour on the cynicism with these industrial green walls. Meanwhile, a pointless conversation ensues, as Mark describes the very reason why nobody is going to buy anything at this farce of an event; except maybe the naivest. Crypto currency and NFT markets are way down. Crypto Influences are the last people I would expect to con, since they are already part of the Crypto World.

Still, I reckon some of them might look at this like a stockbroker who buys in a slump, believing the stocks will eventually rise and pay off. But let’s face it:  The point of this adventure is to trash NFTs, block chains, and crypto currency; not to praise them. So there is clearly going to be a big hubbub.

Speaking of which, what is the pedigree of the NFTS that the Douche Brothers (as Rivera refers to them in interviews) are hawking? If it’s the crap that Cricket Bro was photographing a while ago, then I think we’ll have our casus belli for a possible riot. And let’s not overlook Professor Bee Sharp, who will be sure to offer up a stinging rebuke of the Brothers and their operation. Ladies and Gentlemen, have your drivers keep their cars running for a likely early and quick exit.

Artistically (to borrow a term), Rivera’s work seems to be shape-shifting. Based on what I wrote yesterday, I’ll take the strip on its own terms for now, though I am at a loss how to explain panel 4, where Happy Trail looks like his head is going through some kind of spatial distortion field. What happened to the lower half of the face, for goodness sakes? At first, the disconnect between the head and the mouth reminded me of that old quasi-animated TV cartoon show “Clutch Cargo”, which surrealistically featured human lips superimposed over the faces, to save on animation costs. The effect was quite amazing and eerie. You can find examples on Youtube (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHsXKMtDzw). The panel 4 face of Happy Trail could double as a Dick Tracy villain: “SmudgeFace” or something like that.

But look:  Even the radiance lines (panel 4) that Rivera likes to use around figures look weak and varies from her usual approach. Here is an example from a few days ago: Okay, I’m just pulling up examples and making some comparisons. I could be off-base.

But I don’t get why Happy is still acting clueless (like son, like father?) about the NFT thing, when Mark explained it do him back in Florida (March 7-11). Maybe ol’ Pop is suffering from dementia?

There was a time, starting back in the 1860s, when the artists we know as “Impressionists” were ridiculed by the traditional art world for their work which was considered childish, brutish, and unartistic. In fact, the Impressionists deliberately violated traditional norms to develop their own artistic visions. In time, these new styles became accepted and popular, influencing many artists for decades to follow. So what?

As much as Rivera’s art has been criticized, her approach is almost certainly a deliberate turning away from the traditional old-school illustrator-style of vintage Mark Trail, just as the stories have moved on (more or less). I think this is obvious. I’ve tried (now and then) to rationalize some of Rivera’s more seemingly erratic work as a possible victim of deadlines. I have no proof either way. Anyway, it is not an issue of whether Rivera can draw in a traditionally acceptable style. Clearly, as I’ve pointed out, she can. The issue for many of us is why does Rivera choose to draw this way?

We find ourselves now in a position similar to those Parisian upholders of the Official (Academic) Style of Art in the 1860s, viewing the new l’art terrible. We are perplexed, angry, and uncertain. I just read a recent article quoting Tea Fougner, an editorial director at KFS, talking about the Mark Trail makeover:

“We realized that to really continue [Ed Dodd’s] mission of bringing natural science to everyone, it was important to make Mark, Cherry and Rusty broadly relatable to today’s audience, and for them to deal not only with current events but with the kinds of issues facing millennial parents and their kids today.”

This may be a bridge too difficult for some of us to cross. KFS and Jules Rivera are targeting a younger segment of society through different storylines and subject matter, using a different aesthetic that seems to align itself more with contemporary alternative comics and Cable TV cartoons than with the traditional style favored by Dodd, Elrod, and Allen. I don’t think there is anything wrong with anybody preferring the traditional Mark Trail; it is what we grew up with. I also think it is worth trying to stick it out for a while longer, to try and understand this different approach Rivera is taking. It would be really helpful if Rivera would explain the motivations and artistic approach she chose for this strip, and possibly even why the style dramatically changed shortly after she started.

Sometimes the artwork just doesn’t make sense. Last week, Rivera seemed more on the ball, more in control. Today, especially, this really does look like somebody else—clearly less talented—took over for the day. Either that, or Jules is having a bad week. I mean, this really does not look like it was drawn by the same person at all.  Even that window in panel 3 looks more like a painting that fell off the wall. Space, proportion, line, and details are all wrong. It’s like comparing the average artwork in the Charlton comics of the 1960s to the artwork in Marvel comics of the same time.

As readers know, I try to not be exclusively or even mostly snarky, especially with regard to the art. But I admit I’ve been having trouble trying to resolve the apparent inconsistent quality and styles in the panels, from one week to the next. A cynic might say Rivera is doing this deliberately, but I can’t see that. Rivera was a professional artist before she took on this strip. It goes against common sense for an artist to deliberately sabotage her own art or reputation. Again, it’s not like she doesn’t know how to draw. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, even in the banner illustration of this blog site (though the illustration is a bit stretched to fit across the screen, I’m afraid). But this is about as bad as I’ve seen. Is somebody else ghosting the panels? That has to be the case!

Regarding the story, itself, I didn’t see Dad complaining about Mark working on vacation when he had to depend on Mark to save him and the lumber mill workers! Anyway, shouldn’t Dad already be aware of Mark’s research, since it was back at Dad’s house that Mark first expressed his displeasure and suspicions about Dad’s business relationship with the Crypto Brothers. Instead, Happy should be asking “Okay, son. Am I in the clear or do I need to get an attorney?”

Did Mark bring all of Dad’s business records with him? Or maybe this is Dad’s laptop. Whatever, Mark is a bit naïve if he thinks a manual scan of records is enough to clear his Dad. When did Mark become an expert on legal business contracts? I think a forensic dive carried out by a professional would be a better idea. But time is short, so Mark takes it on himself to perform the analysis. Will a granola bar endorsement be limited enough to keep Dad in in the clear? Why don’t we ask the talking beaver!?

Readers of the new Mark Trail will remember how Mark used to have conversations with a snake and, on occasion, other animals.  These two-way chats have not been seen in the strip for a long time. Now it is different:  Having animals talk on their own without a human interactor is a new twist; and I think it is a mistake.

Conversations with animals gave Mark a kind of psychological outlet to think things through. Did he actually have conversations, or was it just a psychosis? The ambiguity was a nice hook. But this is wrong-headed, as it presents—as factual—talking animals. But this is not Get Fuzzy or Pearls Before Swine.

Finally, some actual meat on this bone of a story! The moral dilemma we brought up earlier has come to light after all.  And it’s a doozy! Mark had an opportunity to do something earlier, instead of taking field trips and rescuing lumber mill workers. In fact, he could have also let Dad and his partner back in Florida work this out, while he went on his family vacation. But no. Mark couldn’t let it go.

Not only has Mark derailed the family vacation, but he is now in the unenviable position of watching his Dad possibly go down with the Crypto Brothers. Can Mark even stop Professor Bee Sharp at this point? Should he? One wrinkle is that Dad seemed okay with the business arrangement, in spite of Mark’s earlier warnings and protests.

Still, Mark’s only play is to somehow derail the business relationship and kill the event before it takes place. And there is so little time left. This looks like a case for the Impossible Missions Force.

A cartoonist might summarize a Friday (or Saturday) strip on Monday to catch people up. It is unusual to see a recap of what was published just the day before! Still, the revenge angle was not hard to predict.

So, why is Professor Sharp wearing that dark blue (or is it black with blue highlights?) hobbit robe instead of his usual white lab coat with yellow interior lining? It can’t be to blend into a green forest. Anyway, Mark might take a hint and change his own attire once in a while. Phew!

Well, the ball is back in Mark’s court. What will he do with it?

Once again, we see Mark placed in a storyline where he is plainly out of his depth, as well as his area of expertise. As we know, Mark is here is because his father got involved. As in his original confrontation with Cricket Bro and Professor Sharp, Trail is again an unwilling participant. Yet we haven’t seen much intervention on Mark’s part to get Dad away from this train wreck.

We saw earlier (during the Zebra Mussels story) how Cricket Bro tried to enlist Professor Sharp into his NFT enterprise, but it wound up biting him in the ass. This time, Sharp and Trail seem to have a similar goal, even if they are not on the same side. It could just be Sharp looking for revenge against Cricket Bro for getting scammed. But will Professor Sharp’s thirst for revenge also take down Happy Trail?

For Mark, his chief goal now should be extricating his dad, legally, before lawsuits start flying and the Feds show up. I don’t think Mark’s Flying Fists O’ Justice are going to be of much use here, so I hope he knows some good lawyers.

“Gah!” is right (to acknowledge Dilbert), we didn’t wind up with a new nemesis or protagonist. I was hoping at least for Cherry. But no, it’s just another recycled opponent to push Mark’s buttons (which are probably getting pretty worn down by now). This is like the old Batman TV series, where he seemed to just fight the same five or six master villains. Over and over again. Now, Professor Sharp mentioned this “event” thing, too. (Doesn’t he have a class to teach some place?)

Oh, I remember now:  They are talking about the “big crypto influencer event” that the Crypto Bros are putting on (see the April 4 strip). That explains the half-pipe, as well. I reckon guests can roast marshmallows over the coals of the surrounding forest fire.

On the other hand, Mark certainly needs to have a talk with Cherry about those bicep pix, which might explain why he was sleeping by himself.