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The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat 

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A phone call between Cherry and Rusty served as the transition back to Lost Forest where we found Cherry in a brainstorming session at Squirrelly Sally’s bakery shop, along with Doc Davis, Violet, and Sally, with her omnipresent squirrels. For a community-centered approach to solving the homeless kittens problem, there weren’t many locals.  

The group only just started when the bakery door slammed open to reveal Honest Ernest, who stammered to Violet that he would be happy to “rescue her, er, rescue the kittens” and build a cat shelter. Cherry’s own reaction was curt and tinged with cynicism. Hardly a surprise, there. Meanwhile, Doc Davis gave Ernest a welcome pat on the back and encouragement for his volunteering.  

Frankly, even if Ernest builds the kitten coop, they have to be fed and care for. We’ll have to wait to find out the details. But there’s no waiting for the Sunday Nature Chat! 

As usual, Rivera provides an interestingly customized title panel. Today’s info may or may not be new to you, but credit Rivera for focusing on just one feature; or maybe two. I did some more reading:  The “blueness” comes from scattered light due to the internal structure of the feathers. This feature was first analyzed by Robert Hooke in 1665 and later explained by Isaac Newton. Crushing a feather destroys that structure and the blue disappears, leaving behind the natural pigment. That will be a fun experiment to try (with the feather off of the bird, of course).  But I do wish Rivera would reduce Mark’s appearances to just the first and last panels. Then there would be more room for the subject matter.  

 

The Moving Mark Shouts, and Having Shouted, Moves On ….

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I see some hasty drawing today and a somewhat different-acting Mark Trail. Even his expressions look different. What gives!? Mark began his questioning of Smalls in his standard, outspoken manner. But suddenly, he allowed himself to be shooed away like an unwelcome survey taker or somebody trying to sell you a new roof. Or maybe a … sorry, I’m getting sidetracked.

Now, is Rivera trying to shape Mark into a more controlled nature journalist/advocate? Or is this incident just a one-off? At least we are pretty certain that Miss Mavis is a teacher, not just a parent. And Mark is the only other adult chaperone!

Art Dept. There is something odd about the art today. Mark’s facial expressions don’t line up with how we normally see Rivera portraying him. And as for panel 1, that is my biggest shock. There are several noteworthy features: 1) the bushes exactly frame the lower half of the blue jay, rather than flow naturally behind the bird. 2) The extreme flatness of the scene is jarring. The “white” polygonal shape suggests architecture, but also doesn’t. It’s just a flat, irregular white shape. The steps and backdrop seem to float over it, as if it is somebody’s partial recollection of an event. The upper profile of the white shape mirrors the flow of the bushes. That continuity, in itself, is good classic technique.

But the overall effect of panel 1 reminds me of those old postcards that used to be popular, showing a state profile filled in with various motifs and symbols of the state. Could Rivera have actually had something like that in mind when she composed this panel? Well, maybe my imagination is getting the better of me.