Talk about disconnects:  

• Mark mutters about drilling, when all we’ve seen and heard is hammering.
• People are building a skate-board halfpipe and Mark is upset that nobody told him about it.
• The forest is still burning.
• Mark mentions an event that hasn’t even been brought up before. What event!?
• We see and hear a mysterious figure that suddenly appears behind Mark.
• And we experience Mark’s now-typical over-reaction.

Put all this together and what do we get?

I’ve no idea! But at least the art looks more carefully designed today.

The quality of absurdity in writing is difficult to grasp, especially when you do not expect or look for it. Vintage Mark Trail stories sometimes had a sense of the absurd about them, though it was usually an unintended byproduct of odd storylines and hokey dialog. Rivera seems to deliberately make absurdity a central part of her stories; not just specific scenarios, such as the one today, but entire plotlines.

There are authors, from Cervantes through Kafka, Hunter Thompson, A. Lee Martinez, and Carl Hiaasen, who write absurdity as a professional chef creates tasty dishes. By comparison, Rivera is a working apprentice. But she is in good company and early in her profession. And those writers did not work within the confines of a daily comic strip. Dashiell Hammet did, for a short time.

Rivera’s use of absurdity is not based on literary satire, arcane existential philosophies, or quasi-religious experiences, as we sometimes see in the authors mentioned above, but in the more mundane madness of daily life, where unexpected weirdness interacts with everyday expectations. Thus, a skateboard ramp gets constructed in a forest area with no explanation, at the crack of dawn. Still, there has to be more than just odd characters and contrived situations. Rivera could cut back some on the weirdness and work on stronger storylines. Nevertheless, we could hardly admit that the storylines offered by Allen, Elrod, or Dodd were much better.

Speaking of which, I suspect James Allen had a taste for the absurd, which he injected from time to time. The clown train story (Feb-Mar 2018), the unnecessary bat-cave pursuit, and the over-the-top Pacific Island catastrophe come to mind.

Anyway, why is Mark sleeping by himself?

What Rivera has been doing since she took on this strip is to consistently run a secondary storyline alongside the main (Mark) storyline. This is one of Rivera’s better contributions to Mark Trail (along with the reduction in exclamation marks!), providing—for a comic strip—a more complex story environment that wants regular viewing to keep things straight. Until this Oregon Vacation story, Cherry has been the chief star of the secondary stories. Now, it is Rusty’s turn to fill the alternate plot. Rivera has kept Rusty’s storyline along what we might expect to see for a pre-teen boy. Little Orphan Annie he is not. But Rusty is trying. So, will Rivera finally let Rusty have more room to grow?

Dept. of Curious Observations:  Panel 1 is a curious image, don’t you think? Aside from a bear cartoon-bombing the scene, we see what appears to be an open door with trees growing directly in front of it, making the doorway inaccessible. I thought that picture on the wall was meant to represent a painting; but now it is clearly a strangely-drawn window in which we see Rusty crafting his plans. The room is clearly lit, yet the adjacent doorway is totally in darkness.

Finally, a tip of the hat to BobS on CK for opining that the SurfSquatch graphic novel that Rusty is reading might have been produced by Cricket Bro’s corporation as an advertising tool. Clever connection!

That has to be one weird looking image in panel 1. Sorry, but it looks to me more like some kind of high school banner left behind after a pep rally.

Rivera proves to be thrifty with her tropes, as she has gotten a lot of mileage out of crickets as land shrimp. It was that remark that Rusty (back in March 2021) caught on a video with Mark and posted online that led to Mark’s California trip and everything that’s followed. So it has come full circle, so to speak.

And Rivera repeats her oft-used image balloon comparing a shrimp and a cricket. Rivera uses this visualization frequently, as regular readers know, though I’m not sure what the real purpose is.

Is Rivera just riffing off her meme here for the humor aspect, or is she trying to draw out some larger issue or symbolism? How did Rusty make the link between crickets and shrimp? Is it simply because SurfSquatch is now some kind of nautical creature who apparently gets his meal from the ocean?

The suspense is palpable. Perhaps the creature will be saved by the Seaside Specter. If the squatch survives on seafood, why would it think to search the forest for its kind? I reckon logic is not a strong part of its mental processes. Wait a minute, it started out as a surfer, right? Never mind.

So, where is this plotline heading? “The Saturday strip” is not an acceptable answer.

At least Rusty’s pajamas are not decorated with cowboys or clowns, but his aversion to relationships with girls indicates he is probably even younger than the vintage Rusty was, though not by much. This explains why he still likes sleepovers, rather than chasing girls.

As for this cryptid tale, it brings up questions:  If it is the case that a normal surfer dude somehow transmogrified into the SurfSquatch, where did the female SurfSquatch come from? Did she also start out as a surfer babe who hit the Big Wave the wrong way and came out as a SurfSquatch? Or is she some other kind of cryptid? Can cryptids of different species have sex? Is Rusty’s book even up-to-date on contemporary gender roles, so that “his beloved mate” has her own entry in the book?

Finally, what does SurfSquatch do in the daytime? Is he a bagboy at Whole Foods? A barista at Café Reina?

I have to say that the criteria for becoming a bona-fide cryptid look pretty weak:  “One day an otherwise normal shoe salesperson sat down in the store’s breakroom to eat an unripe banana. Walking back through the stockroom, the salesperson suddenly transformed into BananaFoot. Its appearance in the store caused customers to suddenly start slipping on the floor and twisting ankles. After that, customers started slipping on floors in shoe stores across the country and began posting about a secret government BananaFoot conspiracy to coerce people into buying expensive high-top shoes with ankle support.”  

By the way, after composing the paragraph above, I suddenly realized the surfboard in panel 2 apparently turned into what looks like a banana in panel 3. Now, is that a subliminal influence or what!? While I don’t get the connection of a banana to Surfsquatch, I did not consciously notice that change when I wrote the first paragraph. Anyway, I decided to not change it.

So, what will develop out of this Rusty Interlude? Does it mean he’ll finally return to his cryptid hunt? Perhaps Rusty will team up with Professor Bee Sharp, to the further indignation of Mark. Regardless, let’s get this hunt back on the road!

So, all of the following happened over the course of a single day!?

• Cherry and Rusty took the light rail into downtown Portland and spent “the day” sightseeing, including lunch and visiting a bookstore.
• Meanwhile, “the four men” (including Happy Trail) drove to an animal rescue site funded, in small part, by the two brothers.
• While there, they received word that the lumber mill was on fire.
• They made their way to the lumber mill, or at least, to a bluff overlooking the site.
• Somewhere along the line, Happy got separated from Mark, Bro #1 and Bro #2.
• Happy apparently texted Cherry about this unfolding crisis (perhaps in the drive over to the fire), which caused her and Rusty to leave Portland and return.
• Meanwhile, Mark got disgusted with the brothers’ inability to do anything, so he ran down the hill to “save the workers”, only to disdover Dad has somehow beaten him down there and is up in a tower.
• Powerlines came down and lay across the grounds, blocking some employees from escaping.
• Mark climbed the tower to get Dad down. But they determine that the power to the lines can be turned off if Mark makes it to the power station through the fire.
• Of course, Mark found it, turned the power off, and saved the employees (and Dad).
• Everybody loves Mark. Even Cherry somehow showed up for the post-crisis celebration.
• Wood mill employees complained to Mark about poor and dangerous working conditions.
• And now it is dark, with Rusty all alone, reading the magazine he bought in the bookstore.
• A bear walks by Rusty’s bedroom. Will the bear test Mark’s Sunday thesis that most monster sightings are just normal animals, such as bears, not being seen clearly?

Well, I have to agree. This certainly has been a long day!

So, is Rivera building the case that Mark Trail suspects Pappy Happy of suffering from early-stage Alzheimer’s, making Mark feel it necessary to butt into his dad’s affairs to protect him? Or maybe Mark thinks his dad is just the gullible type that takes people at their word? Then again, Happy did make a business agreement with those two losers, so he might have a point. Dad deserves to get a little bruised.

In other news, looks like the applause has quieted down, this being the Saturday installment. Mark’s rescue has already passed into local history and legend. Is it time to move on?

Where do we go from here? The Trailverse sometimes works in mysterious ways. Maybe Rusty’s Seaside Specter started the fire to chase people away. That’s a classic “monster” kind of thing to do. And that could be a great way to bring the Trail family together again, for a really special vacation.

I seem to be following in some footsteps of founder Dennis when he sometimes posted multiple strips at one time, probably for a similar reason to mine:  I got busy and couldn’t get back in time. Today is therefore a twofer.

It is clear from these two and the prior days that Rivera likes to spread one event across a week’s worth of strips. This week, it is the post-rescue analysis. I’m not sure why these workers stuck around in a work environment they knew to be dangerous, unless their personal situations were bleak. But to develop the plot or at least provide a suitable stage for Mark to exercise one of his virtues, these guys had to be innocent victims of the Burn Brothers’ ineptitude and malfeasance.

But why unload on Mark? Happy Trai had been here before and was happy to leave things as they were, rather than force the issue with the Bunko Brothers. Why? And when did Cherry develop her Brooklyn patois (“…minding these guys’ business…”)? Mark’s closing bromide would have sounded better had he conjugated “run” as a gerund, to match “doing”.

Sigh! It seems as if Rivera is going to pad this post-rescue vignette out for the rest of the week. Today, we have the common TV/movie meme of the tough-looking dude with an aggressive approach forcing Mark on the defensive, only to be gob smacked when the Big Lug suddenly professes his undying gratitude for the rescue. And never mind that they didn’t get out earlier, when it was possible.

So, who is next in the appreciation line? Maybe the beavers. But more likely, the Bro Brothers, but they will probably be more upset over the loss of lumber.

Calling Jerry Mathers! So, I avoided the obvious title for today’s post. Mark misspeaks in panel 2, as beavers go after the utility poles, not the power lines. Beavers do move around, so it’s possible the mill was there first. And with a large surrounding forest, it isn’t that likely the beavers would go after treated utility poles instead of normal tree trunks. But it happens. Would be easy enough to wrap fencing around the base of utility poles in places like this to deter beaver logging.

Turns out my fence idea is hardly new and is used to protect regular trees, as well! (https://www.beaverinstitute.org/management/tree-protection/) I wonder if Mark will recommend that strategy to the Scam Brothers, or will he instead berate them for their animal insensitivity? Mark certainly can get a bit self-righteous and over-the-top.

In today’s episode, everything settles back into normal space-time. As a fire militia has finally shown up to put out the fire, Mark and Cherry revert to their standard husband-and-wife/parent roles. This means Mark also regresses to his normal Clueless Mark persona.

Note that this “clueless” aspect of Mark’s personality generally reflects the “clueless dad” character found in family TV shows of the 90’s and beyond, such as “The Simpsons”, “Married with Children”, “Malcolm in the Middle”, and “Everybody loves Raymond”.

As a point of comparison, Vintage Mark Trail found his contemporary parallel in the “Wise Father Figure” of 1950s TV programs, such as “Father Knows Best”, “Leave it to Beaver”, and “Bonanza”. Of course, Vintage Mark Trail has been endlessly ridiculed for his apparent lack of Quality Time with Rusty. I’ll admit to making grand generalizations here, but I’m just looking for possible ambient influences in Rivera’s changes to Mark Trail, such as what she might have seen on TV while growing up.

[slightly edited] Turn off the power and all is right with the world, huh? Did somebody/everybody forget there is a big fire all around them? BTW, did anybody call the forest service? Anyway, as we observe Mark hastily run towards the sudden appearance of Cherry, we also unhappily observe the appearance of hastily drawn art today.

Still, at least Mark took the initiative to face danger in order to save the workers (and his Dad). Behold! This means that Mark completed his first solo hero adventure, as far as I can tell, since Rivera took over. Not a big adventure, but an adventure all the same.

Now how did Cherry get to the mill in the first place, as there was no other vehicle at the Bros’ house? It’s a bit far-fetched to believe that the Bozo Brothers went to get her. They’re probably busy trying to figure out a way to blame Mark for the fire.

Panel 1 presents us with the “Heroic Mark in Radiance” aura, paraphrasing a manga reference (I think) to Dragonball Z, something I noted in prior submissions as far back as April 2021. It ties in nicely with various Pokémon references in the strip that one of our readers has pointed out to us from time to time. Given Rivera’s presumed age and avocation, she would certainly have watched these animations while growing up.

How did all of those “trapped” employees wind up in the clearing by the power station in the first place? Did they follow Mark? Perhaps we must assume all of this stuff is located between the downed powerlines and the flurry of flaming foliage. Whatever the answer, Mark regains some of his former hero status points for his unselfish action and accomplishment (especially compared to the Useless Brothers). Finally, take note, readers: We have our first actual adventure in this story. Let’s hope there is more.

Okay, this is another of Rivera’s digs at the Entitlement Bros and the kind of self-absorbed people they are meant to represent. You can also tell that from his pose and accessorizing. Just how or where Jadsen came up with his own walkie-talkie is one of those things that just occurs out of convenience for the story, like the hardware in the fire tower.

By the way, with the heat that the fire must be generating, don’t you think Mark would have shed that long-sleeve flannel shirt he always wears? I sure hope he has ass-kicking deodorant.

We can’t be sure of the actual topography of this area, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too concerned. Jon Wick gets away with a lot of stuff and we accept it for what it is. Why should this be different? As with any fire, we should assume that it’s going to spread and pop up in different places. After all, this is an adventure story! Still, I can’t help remarking that those are pretty darned tall people in the background.

Mark might have taken one of those employees along; they are certain to know the layout far better than he could. Then Mark could not only locate and turn off the electricity, but for his second act he could rescue the employee on the way back when that person would be sure to suffer a twisted ankle or something worse. A double-hero trophy for Mark! That might have been too much, though. Perhaps Rivera didn’t want to wander into fantasy.