… and where are they? Some random Ballroom at a Downtown Marriott?
Once again (and I sense that we have another Allen-replacement tryout in the making…) Mark doesn’t even look like himself!!
…until he does again. Clip art? But, ummm… Mark didn’t write the film… As we (or Joe Soucheray) would say, “Reporting isn’t what it used to be…”
Just as we are focusing on the Hollywoods, a Bighorn Sheep takes front stage… Not unusual, except for the fact that the state of Georgia, the location of Lost Forest, remember, is not exactly in the species’ natural range…
…only to have it sacrificed on the alter of the favorite story type for Trailians everywhere! Poaching!
Oh my! Bighorn down! And who is this guy? Clearly up to no good! He’s not even very good at picking assistants with henchman-like names- “Digby!” Ha!
Although he does look like a Digby… And thanks Bald Guy in Charge for establishing that you are breaking the law!! We’d certainly be lost without that data point… Is that a hacksaw in hand? Is that still the preferred method of de-horning a Bighorn?
Strap in, Campers! Classic Mark Trail Cheese (served up with Ritz Crackers) on the horizon!!
Oh Mark, always the voice of reason, always the sober one… I mean, have you EVER taken a drink? Not that it matters of course… Enter the stretch with the ridiculous wheels and low profile tires… complete with Hollywood Action Hero Jeremy Cartwright!
Cue the Girlfriend/ Producer! Blonde, of course, and expression as vacant as the face of Cutter’s Bluff!
“Mr.” Trail! Twice!! This is hilarious! What makes Mar Trail “tick?” Figure that one out and you will have solved one of the greatest mysteries of all time!! Notice too, how Jeremy’s head blends into the vehicle interior! Sort of like that Pirates of the Caribbean movie where the pirates had all started to become the ship!
Oh, Mark, you selfless hunk, always thinking ahead and of others…
Cherry is about to take the news well…
…yes, just think, you can finally earn your keep, Mark. You have been freeloading for decades now and finally your ship is coming in!
…”one of your stories…” How cute is that? Out of the words of foundlings comes the truth! Mark tells stories! Based loosely on the “facts” that he scrounges up while on assignment, only to come home saying, “Dang, I wish I had bothered to take some pictures and jot down a few notes…”
How does Rusty know about Jeremy Cartwright? Do they go to movies? I don’t see a satellite dish on the cabin roof… Perhaps he streams the films on his phone? And how do we know that Mark is going to have an actual part/role in this feature? I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time a writer/academic (read Indiana Jones) got into a scrape or two…
Can’t wait to see “Miss Spencer…” And the only other “Cartwrights” I have known is from the show “Bonanza” where the family owned most of (probably) Montana and Wyoming…
Ah, the court of public opinion in the age of Social Media. Say or do one bad thing and you are CANCELED!
As opposed what? An advance team from a film shoot just showing up at Mark’s doorstep? That’s mighty big of you, Bill Ellis!!
As for James Allen leaving the strip, we shall have to keep an open mind. Clearly all the artistic tryouts over the last months were epic fails, at least in the tradition of Elrod and Dodd… But as we said many times, it’s the writing that had suffered so, and the interminably long story arcs the most frustrating aspect. Not saying that the art is easy, but the world is full of talent. Not sure what this asset is worth to The Syndicate, but perhaps throwing a little more money at it (finding an artist and a writer…) would yield more positive results.
As we get to now re-live the story, first spoken aloud by Bill Ellis to himself, now spoken to Mark Trail complete with his pithy reactions, we must ask the question, Why would you need anyone’s permission to do a movie about Human Trafficking?
It’s not like the publisher of Woods and Wildlife magazine would suddenly wake up and say, “Hey, that’s our story!!” But I suppose that this allows for a new chapter in the Mark Trail Story- Mark as expert… Oh wait, he plays that all the time…
But who is the lead? Is it the Mark Trail/ Nature Writer character or the Chubby Academic? I recall that there was a bit of a siren involved- Carina! Prof Gabe’s erstwhile assistant… Who got less handsome and more siren-like as the story unfolded…
Squirrel in the foreground, random voices coming out of the woods alerting Mark that his phone is ringing… Mark spending time with his best friend Andy…
“It’s probably Bill Ellis?” Is he the only one who calls you? I love the fact that we are bridging old with new… back in the day it would have been “Mark, the phone is ringing…” But now everyone has their own phone… a far cry from the party line…
Oh, Mark… such a wag you are. You’ll never forgive Bill Ellis for sending you on that wild Yeti chase… the one that cost Harvey Camel his life… Oh, you tell it, Bill Ellis!
… and it ain’t Mark. Signed the deal without even getting Mark’s input?
Return to Bill Ellis talking to himself, explaining to himself what he, Bill Ellis, is fixing to do… What’s he like off-camera? “Hmmm,” Bill Ellis declares aloud to himself, “That Chimichanga I had for lunch isn’t sitting too well, I think I will soon have to avail myself of the private lavatory in my CEO-Suite… I will have to give the cleaning crew a heads-up to stay out of there for a while…”
As Editor Bill Ellis (white guy, first panel) continues to prattle on, to himself, apparently, we see the continued over-use of the word “that.” I have never seen the like of it! And how much effort and ink would it have cost to draw in an assistant, someone for Bill to talk to? And now that he has told all of us what is going down, he still has to call Mark and repeat himself! Or is he actually on the phone (right hand, first panel) and talking to Mark right now?
What? Kind of Johnny Depp bad? Alcohol, drugs, out of control binges? What constitutes a “Bad Reputation” in the Trailverse? I can’t wait to see how this manifests!
Sure why not? Why wouldn’t Mark receive a prestigious award? But the Dodd Award? It appears to not be a thing… And what better option do we have than to revisit an old story line that introduced tedium in our time? Not to mention that Mark would have had to be clairvoyant to know that is little trip with Professor Gabe into the caves would somehow come full circle to include his trip to investigate Aztec ruins and Dr. Carter’s use of LIDAR, but then Mark was probably busy and never goat around to writing the White Nose piece until after his brush with the traffickers… But I digress…
Bill, are you talking to yourself? Are you the only one in the office? It would seem that the magazine industry is such that you probably had to lay everyone else off… Now you get to play all the roles, even to the point of being your own errand-boy and sounding board!
Marne Spencer… Enter the Siren! Who seems to have a Thing (already) for Mark… And that Action Hero, Jeremy Cartwright, who hasn’t heard of him? Who has, no doubt, wanted to play the role of MARK TRAIL his entire life!!
Who owns the rights to Mark’s stories? That’s the real question here…
Yes, Mark, as you have been saying, ad nauseum…
Boom! Right on cue!
Let the chorus ring out!
Took the words out of my mouth, Rusty (from a few days ago…) Boy! Such tension! Such intrigue!! Where do we go from here??
…it’s done. Overdone.
This has been a blessedly short “story.” But that’s the point. We are so bereft of plot under the Allen regime, we are left with dragging nature lessons and factoids through the daily strips.
We experimented with different styles of art during the “Kids Kamping” storyline, and then the best we can do, when it appears that the artistic standards have been re-established (although not clear whether it’s Allen’s actual pen or not) we are reminded that this strip really has nothing to offer. And it’s not just pining for poachers and flapjacks (although that would be nice) it’s that there’s really nothing worth following here.
Which leads me to this: Where the hell is Chris “Dirty” Dyer? Raised from the dead, no compunction about killing, a score to settle. Why hasn’t he come back into the picture? We last saw him testing flame throwers on some secluded Caribbean Island while recruiting a man-servant. And when was the last time we have seen Mark land a left hook? Policing is under deserved scrutiny these days, but I would think that comic strip vigilantism would be on the rise!
The look on Rusty’s face says it all… Really, Dad? Yet another topic upon which you can claim expertise?
Rusty, you are a patient soul…
What, Andy’s been gone a day? Police won’t even file a missing person report that fast! It is kind of Cherry to encourage him, though.
And here we are back at Cutter’s Bluff, a familiar sight for all avid Trailians. Not to mention Rex, the ill-tempered grizzly who saved mark from a certain end years ago…
So this little lesson should wrap up pretty soon, with the mystery intact since there’s no way for Andy to tell his humans what he was up to…
…like so much Andy-scat.
Look, If I want to learn new things about nature and such, I would find the Sunday edition of Mark Trail… The Dailies used to be focused on action and moving a plot forward…
…instead we are using Andy clip art from day to day- notice how the shot of Andy is I- (clap hands once) -dentical from day to day, just superimposed onto a new back ground?
Ataboy, Rusty. That’s using the ol’ bean… Mark’s face has returned to unrecognizable… And what’s with the lonely log in the fireplace… that’s an interesting metaphor… Has the flame at Lost Forest gone out, signaling the end (blessedly) of Mark Trail??
…oh the writing!! And let’s be clear: Racoons are largely nocturnal creatures… what the hell is one doing out with the Deer and the Robin (which seems to have taken on goliath proportions, even with perspective in mind…)
Back home we are pondering the disappearance of Andy…
…with everyone except mark pitching in to set the table… while he waxes on about vague stories of wayward pets finding their way home… Read an article? Sure you did, Cherry… sure you did. That look on you face in the center panel might as well say, “Shut your pie-hole, Nature Boy, isn’t there a story you should be flagging down somewhere other than Lost Forest?”
With Rusty and Cherry holding down the ‘Fretful’ end of the spectrum, Mark feels compelled to dismiss their concerns…
I mean, aren’t we going to go look? Aren’t we going to put the word out? That tag around Andy’s neck- does it even have any useful information?
Well, that didn’t take long…
Trucker Travis, having vocalized his inner monologue, realizes that something is afoot!
Well, then, I bet there IS a dog in the back of your Truck!! Barks like a dog, it’s bound to be a dog.
Oh, Andy, this could have been so simple. But no, you had to run off… Who knows what life has in store for you at this point… miles from home, running in a random direction. The story starts… now!
…Andy was caught in a “Deer Trap.” And no one knew where he was! This would have been the late Summer of 1980, and I would faithfully check in on Andy every morning over my bowl of Wheaties… and I knew that time wasn’t on Andy’s side, or mine, since I was about to leave home for a new academic year and I realized that the Wisconsin State Journal did not carry Mark Trail!!
To my delight, my dear mother began clipping out the dailies and sending them to me on a weekly basis- mounted to typing paper, with (of course) snarky comments in the margins… In case you wonder where I got this idea, The Daily Trail, I guess it all goes back to that…
And the artwork seems to be back on track… hallelujah!
When we last checked in, Andy was eye-balling this panel truck from a distance… And Rusty had been dispatched by Mark to call Andy in from the storm…
…what a difference a few days can make- Andy seeks shelter from the storm, leaps into the box, and voila, he’s made himself an unwitting captive.
Trucker Travis closes the doors without taking a good look inside- I mean, why would he?
Besides, Andy seems quite comfortable on the hard metal deck and isn’t fazed in the least in the fact that he truck has now started and is moving…
So here we go, Ladies and Gents. Remember- Andy has a tag. People can read, there’s this thing called the internet… Yet it will probably be a year before he is reunited with his humans…
I’m Sorry, unless you show me some form of conveyance document, complete with consideration, the amount of which both parties acknowledge as sufficient, Lost Forest Is The Davis House, as in Doc an Cherry… Not the Trail House, as in Mark. We have established over the years that Mark has fallen backwards into money and lives at Lost Forest, Schtupping the Owner’s Daughter (we assume) without so much as a farthing leaving his bank account…
… But what have we here?? Development? The bane of any good conservationist? Especially the kind that is already set and “has his?” Sort of like Al Gore’s house, which is not exactly Off the Grid…
The Daily Trail 