Bill, you say Mark looks good in a suit? You mean this combination of olive-beige jacket, light blue slacks and red “spiderman” shirt!? Really? Correct me if I’m wrong, but this may be the first story where Mark wore anything even approaching an actual suit since Jules Rivera took over nearly five years ago.

It’s easy to see Bill Ellis as a stand-in for real-life media corporations these days, bowing to political pressure and threats from their billionaire owners to not make waves. So, how strongly does Mark hold his “journalist” credentials? Will he stand up for his profession or fold like a cheap olive-beige jacket?

More importantly:  How soon can we expect Rivera to put Mark back on his original Nature beat, investigating wildlife and real environmental issues? For all of Rivera’s expressed interest in nature and science, the stories have focused more on the jerks, goofballs, and crooks. For example:

A movie director is trapped in a house with wild lions. Relevance to Mark’s expertise or his focus: None. Lions were catching rays and watching TV. Why was Mark even there?
Manatee rescue in Florida. Relevance to Mark’s expertise/focus: Small. Saw the manatee at the end of the story. Focus was more on attempted kidnapping of manatee, which turned out to be fake news.
School field trip to Washington DC to visit government sites and NOAA. Relevance to issues with wildlife, the weather, the environment? Virtually nil.
Conference on AI and the environment. Learned virtually nothing. No real engagement on issues, but a quick pivot to more absurdities.

Ironically, Rusty’s story covering the Grungey Boys’ tearing up the ground in Lost Forest is closer to the pre-Rivera stories in terms of dealing with issues having a direct impact on nature and wildlife.

It’s amateur night at La Guardia Airport as Mark attempts to coax Bill Ellis into paying for a wacky article he thinks he could write about the AI World. For some reason, Ellis seems reluctant. That’s difficult to see, given that one of Ellis’s magazines is Teen Girl Sparkle, for whom Mark wrote an article on Cricket Bro and his corrupt business dealings in California. I mean, Mark’s idea about AI and the people behind it is at least TMZ-quality subject matter! Is Bill Ellis an AI investor!?

Speaking of which, we sure haven’t seen much development for Jules Rivera’s original Mark Trail/Bill Ellis reboot, whereby Mark would write articles for various magazines in Ellis’s publishing empire. It was an idea that could have provided a wide variety of assignments, expectations, and different editors to coordinate with. But after five years, we’ve only seen three editors, two of them, only once, as I recall. Looks like a dead issue, so to speak.

Art Dept. Rivera’s sketchy, flat drawings and lack of lighting continue to downplay any sense of actual drama (not that there is anything especially dramatic in today’s exchange). Real drama always seems less a priority than Batman-on-TV campiness. I’ve never agreed with this extreme approach Rivera decided on, given that most comic strips are based on superficial, forgettable jokes. But when scanning over Rivera’s Mark Trail strips, it would be hard to not believe Rivera has been treating this more and more like a gag-a-day comic strip that happens to have storylines.

And then there is the ongoing transformation of Mark from a 30-something person to a 20-something person. But that’s for another time.

A real stampede, is it? Just how many people are there, anyway? Didn’t a lot of them already leave, as we saw earlier (May 30)? At that point, people were just walking out. Now, it’s progressed past the riot stage, all the way up to the dreaded stampede stage. But where are these people stampeding to, and why? The hall is not aflame. At least, not yet. If anything, these investors should be chasing down the Crypto Bros!

I’m curious whether Kelly Welly’s scream of “AIYEEE!” in panel 3 is a legitimate use of the expression. It is usually reserved for specific scenarios, such as: 1) Westerns, where Apache chiefs get shot by inexperienced white women aiming a gun in their general direction; 2) When the bad guy misses his chance to kill James Bond and goes hurtling over the side of a mountain; and 3) in comedies like Home Alone, where one of the house breakers climbs in through a window and steps on a board of nails deliberately placed under it. I’m not sure tripping meets the minimum usage requirement.

Perhaps the Crypto Bros really are tapping into the amateur investment pool, which would explain why there are so many people here and why they are going crazy. Professional investors would have seen through this scam in no time at all. And probably already did.

Mark is conveniently absent from today’s panels! Possibly so that he can make a dramatic appearance tomorrow and rescue Kelly Welly, whose personal pronoun we learn is them ((according to the narration in panel 3).

But leave it to Kelly to try and keep up with the crazy crowd (panel 2), rather than just let them pass by. So why did Rivera go for this “rescue the lady in distress” trope? I would have thought Rivera would turn that cliché on its head and have Kelly save Mark. Well, there’s still time for that, Rivera!

Well, bust my buttons! Is Mark still in New York?! I thought for sure that the story had come to an end. The last we saw of this debacle (May 31^st), the audience was on foot and heading to the exits after learning that a competitor’s AI was being given away for free. Yet, panel 4 shows a relaxed crowd of people (we presume) sitting around the table, as if nothing was going on.

But what’s with Sid stump sneaking away in panel 1, like some kind of animated sprite? His expression—from what we can tell—does not appear at a loss or in shock. Instead, he looks as if he is enjoying the chaos of the Crypto Bros as they see their project tank. Could he be secretly behind this “Free AI” announcement as a trick to ruin the Crypto Bros?

Art Dept. What’s with that head of Mark? His sharp, rectangular face has given way to a kind of middle-aged puffiness; unless he has stuffed his mouth with dinner. But his entire profile just does not look right; it lacks the straight, linearity that has characterized his profile. But this is not unique. There are so many fluctuations in his expressions and the shape of his head that it’s almost impossible to generalize.

Following long-standing tradition, we get to enjoy the site of Kelly Welly (panel 4) pulling her hair out in frustration at the realization that she once again backed the wrong horse. Jules Rivera actually did quite a good job drawing her! And we can enjoy seeing the schemes of Cricket Bro and Sid Stump come crashing down around their feet.

Rivera has resorted to one of her trademark story-ending memes, having Mark break the fourth wall to offer us readers a TV sitcom style retort. I think Rivera oversold the scene by putting Mark in the foreground. A funnier version would have been to show Mark still sitting at the table behind him and turning to talk to us, as Kelly simultaneously goes crazy. It would be like how Mel Brooks created an in-context fourth wall ending for Blazing Saddles, when Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid got on their horses and rode out of town, dismounted, then got into a waiting limo to drive off into the sunset. Great scene and great movie!

Well, for those who came in late, this entire story is one of Rivera’s favorite tropes to satirize: The foibles, corruption, and jerks in the high tech industry. Investigating tech industry fraud or corruption (especially where it might have an impact on the environment), has been one of Mark’s most common plot devices since Rivera took over.

Ah, the perils of comic strip continuity, where deadlines can be tight, especially when the surf’s up. So, maybe Jules Rivera was in a rush and forgot that Cricket Bro wasn’t the one getting the award (panel 1): In fact, he just presented it to Simon Stump two days ago! Was I the only one to catch this!?

But hold on, maybe Mark had a point, after all: This could make a great story about the exposure and downfall of Cricket Bro’s AI scam at the hands of a mysterious “Free AI” vendor. And wouldn’t it be great to have some real drama here, after all?

Now, who could be behind this unexpected crisis? Perhaps the enigmatic, faux professor, Bee Sharp. He and Cricket Bro are hardly pals at this point. Or maybe those two Florida manatee rescuers who discovered that Cricket Bro was behind the attempt to kidnap Max the Manatee as they were trying to save it (you recall the “Manatee Calamity” adventure, yes?).

Cricket Bro’s “AI” project is still nebulous and vague, like an Oort Cloud. In the real world, AI is hardly the one-size-fits-all tool it’s made out to be. People create AI applications for all kinds of fields and industries. Yeah, some of it is “free”, but much of it is not. The free stuff could just be some generic app people use to create cheap composite photos of themselves making out with their favorite movie star (Not that I would know anything about that). But that’s not where big money goes.

No surprise that comic strips usually don’t have the time or the bandwidth to get into the nitty-gritty of real-world tech. Rivera could’ve linked Cricket Bro’s AI product to something more specific, such as sustainability or healthcare, things relevant to this strip’s reason for existing. Yet, all we have at this point is some vague “AI” product.

Mr. Moneybags stands up all angry in panel 3 and demands answers, to which Rivera responded “Good Question” (in case we didn’t get it. I got it.). I can’t wait to see how Cricket Bro and Sid Stump handle this crisis. Maybe they can ask their AI app to produce an answer that will save their bacon and their scheme!

Well, maybe I was wrong. Mark’s position yesterday was not simply a matter of artistic expression; Mark and Kelly Welly actually did change seats. Maybe Kelly wanted to have a better view of Cricket Bro, her boss. Perhaps she has some kind of idol worship, or she’s playing “His Gal, Friday” to the hilt.

Peevish Kelly Welly is justified for getting angry with Mark about his smartphone etiquette. Why does Rivera continue to make Mark act like a rube? Can the Mark Trail strip influence people to be more concerned about our world, its wildlife, and the environment if Mark can’t demonstrate enough respect for the people around him to mute or turn off his phone during an event?

Maybe that ship has sailed. I was in a public library today when I heard a phone ring across the way, breaking the silence. A woman carried on a conversation for several minutes, not bothering to talk softly, walk outside, or tell the caller to call back in an hour. And I wonder what fascinated Mark about a free AI engine, given his disdain for AI, block chains, crypto, etc. Perhaps his amazement is a realization that even more people will now play with AI, using ever more energy and creating ever more pollution. What Mark may not realize is that there are already several free AI programs available, even if they are limited versions of the full, paid products.

Vera sounds like she has a good head on her shoulders. And if she had an invitation that allows a guest, she’s clearly wise enough to not let Mark know about it. Mark, on the other hand…. As for this awards show being an opportunity for another article, perhaps what Mark just smells is his Cricket Protein Bar.

Like the other female bit players that show up in this rebooted series from time to time, Very does not try to seduce Mark the way women did in the pre-Rivera days. The “pre-Rivera Mark Trail” was not only immune to these advances, but openly hostile to them. The current Mark Trail shares the same disinterest, and it seems the feeling is mutual.

I don’t wish to get political here, but I wonder what Mark meant when he said to himself “…I have to ask Kelly Welly to be their plus-one?” Was this a slip of the pen or an indication that Kelly has adopted third person personal pronouns? If so, they hasn’t said anything about it.

Let’s recall the point of this story: Mark was assigned to attend an AI conference at the request of Cricket Bro, so he could present a counterargument to AI being compatible with the environment. Fine. However, the actual panel discussion was held only within the last two weeks of the story, where there were few, if any, actual points of discussion. So if readers were looking for good information or arguments on AI and the environment, then as the Dread Pirate Roberts once said, “get used to disappointment.”

Still, there were a few things missing: Where were the usual questions from the audience? And whatever happened to Sid Stump? Was he just making a cameo appearance? And what does Rivera’s dreadful pun even mean?

Art Dept. Presenting anonymous figures in a crowd can be done in several ways. Rivera normally creates background figures even more sketchy that the main characters often appear (e.g. panel 4), usually in a purple tint (see the May 8th strip). In panel 1, the anonymous crowd is in the foreground, presenting a new challenge. Their flat, outlined shapes are over-accentuated by their black outlines, making them look like cardboard cutouts. I think a better effect would have been to omit the outlining completely, so they would draw less attention to themselves by blending together in more of an amorphous mass.

But you might ask, “What about the crowd shot in panel 4 of the May 3rd strip? It shows actual human figures from the rear, still in purple.” Well, you might not have asked, so I took the trouble of asking for you. Thank you. I think it might be an issue of scale and view. That May 3rd panel is fairly tight and close, so we only see one row of viewers.

So, Rivera crams a bunch of viewpoints into one day for a panel discussion that was spread over two weeks. Did we learn much of anything about Going Green with AI? Did we learn much of anything about AI? Or Green? Granted, this is a comic strip, a nature adventure strip, even. Still, part of this strip’s calling card has been its self-imposed mandate to promote environmental education, respect for wildlife, and appreciation of nature . . . within the limits of its storylines.

I didn’t see much of any of that here. We didn’t even see an actual example of AI Going Green! Now, I don’t think this was all that different in pre-Rivera days, though the strip then did focus more on local stories about nature and animals, so the connections were more obvious. Not so much here, which is why a bit of “show-and-tell”, with some numbers and data, would have helped. By all means, keep the goofiness, but don’t ignore the serious stuff.

But that wasn’t really the point, was it? Most of the panel discussion was mere snark, and another opportunity for Rivera to parody technology. Finally, poor Mark looks like a hapless dude hoping the audience doesn’t start throwing things at him.

Well, that’s a non-answer, Mark (panel 2). And the wrong approach. It makes you look insincere and smug. Crypto Bro’s rhetorical trap allowed him to play up his brotherly love act at Mark’s expense. The panel discussion again veered off-topic, although moderator Kelly Welly kept silent.

But should we? Jules Rivera has so far turned this panel discussion into a “Gotcha!” circus, which is disappointing. But Mark Trail is a nature/environmental strip and it would be great to see some serious issues and questions out of this meeting. Otherwise, what difference does the format of the strip make if the content continues to focus on irrelevant carping, jokes, and petty actions? Mark has two days left this week to do something valuable. Will Rivera gives him the chance?