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What’s the difference between a cave and a tree? Apparently, nothing!

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What’s that hackneyed cliché, “the plot sickens…” That groan in panel 1 may lend some weight to regular reader Daniel’s quip yesterday about a possible guest appearance by former adventure story co-star and cave-clickbait, Caria. Mark might have second thoughts about Rusty looking into that convenient hole in the wall to see what is going on in the next passageway.

Meanwhile, Rivera continues pitching this comic strip to . . . uh, well, I’m just not sure who. This does not strike me as the kind of strip a “younger reader” would find appealing. For one thing, the Wackiness Level is just not high enough, if that is what Rivera is shooting for. Rivera’s early statement about wanting to get Mark involved in more current environmental issues has only intermittently been attempted over the life of the strip. Showing Rusty as some suddenly “aware” boy affecting a TV sitcom eyewink as he delivers his punchline (panel 4) strikes me as uncharacteristic of him and smarmy.

Wooo! This was one scary close call, wasn’t it!?

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Interesting. A wave from nowhere rushes through the cave; a cave that seems well lit. Perhaps that’s just more artistic license. This sequence could have displayed some real drama, had the cave been dark and we could only see indistinct forms, thanks to the helmet lights.

But once again, any sense of actual drama is trivialized. To make the point, Rivera organized today’s strip in a joke-a-day format, as she often does (panel 4).

Another story day lost to self-pity

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This is at least the second time Sammy Spotter has whined about only being a bird watcher, rather than the film’s animal wrangler, as he was originally described (can you guess the date?).  Like me, you might also be wondering just what view Mark has seen that merits his excitement. Maybe he just likes dark cave entrances.

Some of us might be sitting around the digital fireplace right now (preferably Nick Offerman’s 10-hour marathon), pondering just how this Wesley Wingit character got trapped in the cave in the first place (assuming Mark is correct). Did Wingit get a foot trapped in a giant clam? Did a cave boulder suddenly roll atop him, with a rising tide? Maybe Wingit got lost in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. As this is a family strip, I doubt he will show up as a floater.

Anyway, if the rescue gets complicated, Rivera could resort to a Gilligan’s Island dux ex machina, where the castaways simply made various props and costumes show up as needed.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Missed this week’s dailies? Boy, they were something! Why, there was fighting, shooting, car chases, abductions and rescues, and all manner of hair-raising cliffhangers! I mean, it was, uh, …uh, hold on. My mistake, I was reading Little Orphan Annie and got confused for a moment…Okay, I’m focused.

So what about the past week in Mark Trail? Well, not much happened, to be truthful. Rivera devoted the week to a “post-Bill Ellis phone call” conversation in which Cherry convinced Mark it was a good idea to take Rusty along with him as the “plus one” allowed by Ellis for Mark’s newest over-the-top adventure. You know the one I mean: The assignment is to find a movie director possibly hiding in a house that the director filled with lions and with actors for his current movie project. It’s a crazy enough concept that I think Rivera must have been rifling through Carl Hiaasen’s recycle bin. Say, do you think one of Mark’s stable of nitwit troublemakers will wind up involved in this story?

We’ll soon see, but don’t pass on today’s nature talk. It’s another story-locality subject.

Nothing says “Feisty Defense Lawyer” like a dude in a cheap suit sporting a five o’clock shadow. After reading up on this interesting issue, there certainly do seem to be various factions involved in this Catalina Island predicament. Still, I wonder why Mark is smiling (panel 6) while discussing another kick-the-can-down-the-road answer from the local government. “Kill our deer!? No way!” exclaim local citizens. It’s no surprise that cute Bambi-faced invasive deer attract more sympathy than actual (but less cute) native animals and flora that are being imperiled by these deer. Cute=Protect. I don’t see anybody protesting the eradication of zebra mussels or spotted lantern flies. Sure, “Stop the slaughter!”, residents chant. Okay, they can watch Bambi stand-ins die by the hundreds from starvation and disease once they have all but exterminated local resources. Hey, at least it’s natural.