Home » Posts tagged 'feral hogs'

Tag Archives: feral hogs

Some favorite moments captured in today’s strip

Posted on by | Leave a comment

What makes a “Prize Hog”? Size? Tenacity? Skin color? Is there such as a thing as a prize feral hog? Well, I’m not sure where today’s installment fits into the story’s chronology. It could be before yesterday’s panels or just after. Makes little difference, perhaps. The story doesn’t really advance, so much as it just fills in a few miscellaneous spots. Mark is busy scribbling notes and not taking pics. Maybe he’s made a deal with Venus Verité to get copies of her photos. Say, I wonder if Shania and Reba actually got a chance to shoot?

Art Dept. Okay, new quiz: What are those red streaks in panel 1? Why are they arranged around the panel borders and presumably pointing to Tess? I have an idea, but would like to hear yours!

Clearly, Jules Rivera is satirizing (or deriding) the shooting, as she deliberately reverses the usual sound effect from Ka Blam to B-Kam. And yes, I’m aware that we could see all of Rivera’s work as satirizing the original strip.

Next, what the heck is Verité doing in panel 3 and panel 4? Shaping her hands into a virtual frame is a longstanding technique for photographers and even artists, but she seems to be holding her frame up in the air, as if she is preparing to photograph the sky. Maybe she is? But it gets even more perplexing in panel 4, where she holds her hands up above her head, like a ballerina who forgot to pose her legs. And once again, Rivera arranges her cast in a line, or lineup (mabe like an old-fashioned police lineup?) , as if they are on stage at the end of a talent show, waiting to hear who won.

The hunting party celebrates while a dark cloud cover looms overhead.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I know what you eagle-eyed Mark Trail veterans are thinking:  “Who’s that third person in the background, alongside Mark and Venus Verité?” The person is in camo, so I’m going out on a limb and suggest it is Jess, who finally caught up with the hunting party in between yesterday’s strip and today’s. There was obviously enough time for it, since Rivera skipped us past the actual hunt.

And Shania and Reba don’t seem to mind that Tess is once again hogging the limelight. But who is Venus shooting in panel 3? Mark and Jess!? Another herd of feral hogs heading towards them? A rare sighting of a Golden-cheeked Warbler? Perhaps this is yet another example—as we also see in panel 1—of everybody facing towards us, even when the action is to the rear. For example, the three gals in panel 1 stand in a common triumphal post-hunting pose, facing us. Why do that, when the rest of the party stands in their required line, behind them? It’s a curious feature, unless I am totally misunderstanding things.

Rifle enthusiasts will no doubt sharply criticize Rivera’s inability to draw accurate weapons, unless one considers the notion that she is deliberately drawing “kiddie-style” rifles that looks more like BB-guns, rather than serious rifles with sufficient stopping power.

Markey! Markey! Markey! It’s always about Markey!

Posted on by

Mark is already contradicting cartoonist Jules Rivera’s comment in panel 1 about “following” the Hog-Hunting Heroines. So it’s all about Mark today, as the three women he is shadowing fade into a meaningless background, and Mark’s attention is taken up by three wild hogs. I’m not sure about the depth of field or perspective in panel 3, as the hogs looks about as tall as ponies. But isn’t it interesting how Rivera framed the hogs with those tree trunks!?

So who is Mark talking to, if he is more or less alone? Normally, a character in this situation would think his dialog inside of a thought balloon, but Rivera rarely uses them.

Since wild hogs can run up to 25 mph (40 kmph), I’d think Mark would want to stand behind the women with the guns. What I don’t get is why waste a day posting filler material like this, since it does nothing to move the story along or expand on the subject. But perhaps today is meant to be a setup where the women step up tomorrow to save Mark.

Mark Trail’s Slang Seminar: “Heckin’ fast” seems to be a popular phrase on social media among the younger set, and it means what you probably think it means. Of course, it might be obsolete by the time you read this. Still, the term is more specific than “6 7.” Now you can start using it, too, and risk sounding like a heckin’ skibidi toilet trying to be utd.

Transformers: Going hog-wild!

Posted on by

Okay, the message is fine. It fits into the format and purpose of the strip. But Trichinosis is only one of the dangers these wild pigs can spread. To be clear, I’m repeating and summarizing information I found on reputable medical and nature/animal websites. But don’t my word, alone. Look it up.

There are over 30 infectious diseases and even more parasites linked to these wild hogs. On the other hand, trichinosis can come from any uncooked or undercooked pork, even the chops you buy at the supermarket, though they have a very low risk these days. While a kid, my mother was always concerned when she cooked pork chops, so she always overcooked them, out of caution. Maybe that was why “smothered pork chops” were so common.

Pig farmers are more concerned that the razorbacks may reintroduce swine flu. There is no upside here, so I don’t discount the concern and anger Rivera expresses through these women. But Tess is not exactly blazing a new trail, as she seems to suggest (panel 2). Wild hogs have been hunted for many decades.

Art Dept. This is a day for odd faces: At first look, Mark’s head in panel 1 resembles somebody who had a serious accident. Looking more closely, it appears to be just a slip of the pen. But it’s more interesting to see the transformation of Tess from a “beauty pageant” looking redhead in panel 1 to an angry wild hog vigilante in panel 3 (yes, I know Shania is the one with the actual pageant experience. Still…). Even the shape of Tess’s head changes from a rectangle with a soft v-shaped chin and mounds of red hair framing the face like some kind of hood, to a squared-off, determined face with a hard, flat chin. I wonder if Tess uses a cartoon stunt double for her “vengeful hunter” close-up images. We’ve seen this vision of Tess Tigress’s personality before, and I’m content to remain on this side of the strip, thank you!

So much for the “lady’s point of view.”

Posted on by

I reckon Bill Ellis will never know how lucky he was that Cherry did not recommend her brother, Dirk, as a better replacement than Mark! He would certainly provide a special touch to that group.

We also see a more sinister-looking, less personable Ralph the Rat Snake (maybe?), who has nothing to say to Mark. And I’m not surprised, given how little time Mark has spent with him. Hissssss!

Okay, gang! After reading today’s strip, is there anybody here who has figured out the group’s leader? It sure isn’t Diana Daggers. The one illustration we saw of the group certainly does not lend itself to close identification of anybody in particular. As the group is based in Texas from a preexisting book club, we can safely rule out Kelly Welly, who doesn’t fit the look, anyway.

So who does that leave? Clearly, this isn’t anybody new.

Unless Rivera is looking back down the Trail Timeline to one of those earlier female opponents, I’m guessing this will turn out to be Tess Tigress. After all, her phony “Tiger Touch Center” was located in Texas. She also has a background in using rifles (or shotguns). And even though she had reportedly fled the country to avoid prosecution, there’s no reason she wouldn’t come back, even under a different name.

But, that’s just a guess. And my track record has been pretty poor, lately.

Cherry takes a stand.

Posted on by | 2 Comments

Something is tragically—or stupidly—mixed up. As I stated yesterday, reporters are observers and recorders, as we all know. So why is Jules Rivera putting out this obviously preposterous proposition of Cherry having to hunt feral hogs as part of the assignment? Is Rivera setting us up for some kind of a joke at the end of the week? Is Bill going to clarify: “I was just kidding, Cherry! Of course you don’t have to hunt feral hogs. You just have to tag along with three women who do!”

I know some of you are going to think about that final narration box. No, not the fact that it is again present, but its contents: “Yep. That’s canon.” It seems to be a loose application of the term “canon”, which normally refers to an accepted, recognized body of work in literature or music. There are also different applications of the term that refer to laws and rules that do not apply here.

This different, personal use of the term seems to be popular on social media, where a speaker feels something is a “significant event”, “official”, or just true. As cultural outsiders, the rest of us would have probably just written, “Yep. That’s a fact.”

Art Dept. Try to ignore (or block out) Cherry and Mark in panel 1. Those are some wickedly stylized trees and landscape in panel 1. They could belong to a completely different comic strip. In fact, I think they are better than the flora Rivera has been drawing recently. Now, I’m not saying they are more realistic or representational, not in the least. Rather, their surreal appearance suggest a wholly different vision. If Rivera were to apply that aesthetic consistently to the strip, we could see a remarkably different version of Mark Trail.

Do war correspondents throw grenades and shoot people? Some confusion today about the duties of a reporter.

Posted on by

To ask the question she did, Cherry must have strange ideas about what Mark does on assignments. And I don’t know why Ellis fumbled his response by implying she actually might have to shoot hogs. Heck, if Cherry was like that, we probably wouldn’t be seeing Honest Ernest around anymore.

Taking both statements together, I don’t get the point Rivera is trying to push here, other than Cherry doesn’t like hunting animals. And we already learned that. Maybe two more days for Q&A before Bill throws in the towel and moves on to Kelly Welly.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

Posted on by

What a week this was for Lost Forest race fans! The Grungey Boys Nighttime Lawn Mower Race was once again in progress. Hidden behind some bushes, Rusty, Olive, and family muscle, Dirk, were on hand to view the action. But they did not come as fans. This was the night Rusty would put an end to the destructive actions of the Grungey Boys in Lost Forest! You might say it was a race against slime. Or you might not. Just make up your mind.

Why it’s called a race is unclear, since there was always just one riding lawn mower, always ridden by Honest Ernest. And just how fast does a riding lawn mower go, anyway:  8 mph!? Woo! Do you get the impression that artist Jules Rivera may not be taking this adventure strip—or its readers—seriously?

Still, the race had to be stopped! Being a family strip, rest assured that nobody got hurt, unlike in the old Mark Trail days before Rivera took over. Back then, people really did get hurt and some died. They had a different notion of “family viewing.”

Anyway, Rusty came with a large barrel of water. When the time was right, the three tipped the barrel, pouring the water down the slope. Even though much of the water had to have gotten soaked up by the ground on the way down, apparently enough made it onto the forest floor where Ernest was racing. At first, the water just splashed as Ernest zipped along at 8 mph. But thanks to the scientific process of combining water, silt, and clay particles, the forest floor become saturated and squishy, creating mud. And that’s all it took to stop the races. Really! Honest Ernest and his friends were stymied by the mud and couldn’t figure out what to do. Not real sharp tools, those guys. We ended the week and this “Nickelodeon“-level adventure with Rusty celebrating the scientific success of his cause-and-effect plan. Keep in mind that, in the past, most of Rusty’s plans did not work out, so it’s noteworthy that this one did. But it was a low bar.

Up here in the big city, feral hogs chase away the rabbits and raccoons that keep eating up our garden…so they can eat it up, instead. Okay. Not really. But unless that is feral hog scat spelling Mark Trail in panel 1, it is not one of Rivera’s more creative custom titles. Had to be a tough challenge, though.

While you’re here, please enjoy the animatronic squirrel!

Posted on by

Sheesh! You know, I was gonna snark on how Rivera still can’t draw beards because they look so fake. And then I thought:  Maybe it is meant to be fake! Dirk is into the whole “avoid government” thing, paranoid about government surveillance, global conspiracies, etc. So why wouldn’t he choose to disguise himself from the hidden agents in the sky and in the trees?

Then again, why wouldn’t Dirk just grow a real beard? Doesn’t take much effort, unless he is one of those dudes whose DNA missed out on the beard gene. We’ll have to wait for additional information. But it sure looks like one of the hokiest, fake beards I’ve ever seen; like those fake beards the prison escapees wore to disguise themselves in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?

Otherwise, good ol’ boy Dirk must have left the Pitt/Davis household while the younger Pitts were just wee seeds, since Cherry sees fit to make introductions. But will we get to see some of that feral hog poetry? Could be interesting!