Peach’s “Jerry Springer”-style confession does give one pause to wonder whether Rick’s behavior manifested itself any earlier, unless their relationship was short-lived. And the Pitts are clearly not ones to go running to the police or an attorney, either.
Cherry might want to rethink her decision to give shelter to her sisters, for the sake of her own family’s safety. Rick sounds like the kind of person who would come after Peach. But I hear what you’re thinking: “What about Mother Pitt?” Apparently, even Rick knows his own limits, as he didn’t try to threaten her.
Rivera paces today’s strip the same as yesterday’s but in doing so, the overall pace of the story has slowed down, since we have to wait until tomorrow to learn about Rick’s reactions. I’m betting today’s and tomorrow’s strips could have been consolidated into one. We could cut out panels 2 and 4 as extraneous. We really don’t need to know who or what this “famous buck” is that Rick poached. That it was poached is good enough.
Art Dept. On the other hand, I’ll give points for the background coloration in panels 3 and 4. Their somber tones help reinforce the drama. In fact, I was going to mention that yesterday, since panel 4 did not have a tone-setting background, in spite of its darker content.
Art. Dept. (This is George being a mega-geek today) I think Rivera’s pacing in today’s 4-panel installment is well timed, with no extraneous fat to trim out. After the panel 1 premise is established (“What did he do?”), panels 2 and 3 waste no time or space in establishing the basis of Peach’s former affection for her boyfriend, Rick. In panel 4, Rivera ends with Peach’s conflict, creating a cliff-hanger designed to get us to “turn the page” and discover the truth by which Peach made her fateful decision.
I also like the manner in which Rivera transitions Peach’s backstory from current time (panel 1) to her past, via flashback. Panel 2 shows the start of her flashback as the “Current Time” Peach literally looks back on her past time with Rick. Notice that Rivera shows Peach still talking using a conventional speech balloon. By panel 3, we have moved into Full-Scale Flashback Mode, as all of the images are now part of Peach’s flashback. Her recollection is carried forward only in narration boxes.
Otherwise, the overall drawing remains sketchy. I would have liked to see Rivera alter the style (or at least appearance) of the flashback panels as a further visual reinforcement of the time/place change.
I’ve already gone over the fact that moose should not be found in Lost Forest, unless Lost Forest has relocated to upper New England or an upper region of one of our other northern States. So we’ll move on. (Ed. note: I missed the erroneous comparison before posting.)
Today’s strip solidly stamps the main focus of this story. I expect Cherry will grill Peach on the person’s name and the reason he is such a lowlife. That should conclude on Wednesday, if Rivera is efficient.
Wait. Did I just write that? Sorry, I picked a bad day to stop drinking chocolate malts. In fact, Mark and Cherry took most of last week to drive to the airport. Can we expect any less on the return trip? Nope! So tell Olive to move over as we hop in to catch the dialog.
Art Dept.Panel 1 is somewhat nicely drawn, including flora that doesn’t look like it was copied from Hägar the Horrible. On the other hand, drawing things in motion can be difficult. Cartoonists often use horizontal “speed lines” (what Mort Walker called “hites”) trailing behind the moving object to suggest motion. Rivera uses them on occasion, though sometimes blended into the terrain (see the last panels for December 11 and 12). No room for hites today. In fact, the truck in panel 1 looks empty!
Call this the Week that Weaved, if you wish. As Cherry dropped Mark off at the local airport to fly down to Florida and protect Max the Manatee from danger, the Fickle Fates of Airline Scheduling conspired to have Cherry’s two sisters, Olive and Peach, fly into the airport at the same time. Well, truth be told, Cherry knew they were coming, so she likely scheduled Mark’s plane to take off around the same time to save herself another trip.
And lucky Cherry, not only did airport police not chase her away from the curb while waiting on the sisters (as noticed by commenter Be Ware of Eve Hill), but she learned that the visit is really to get Peach out of Florida and away from her violent ex-boyfriend. His identity is a mystery at this point, but we do know that he is heinous, which is pretty far down the scale of personality attributes. Speaking of mysteries, will we continue with Cherry’s story on Monday or pivot to Mark and Max the Manatee?
While you’re flipping that coin, I hope you’ll stick around long enough for the Nature Monologue.
Growing herbs (outside or inside) is certainly a useful sideline and doesn’t take much work. We grow several herbs, which is to say, my wife does. I have a brown thumb, because anything I try to grow turns to … well, my wife is the gardener and she keeps me away from it.
One thing I tire of is TV commercials with the always smiling faces of the actors, even people in those dreadful, omnipresent drug commercials. Cherry and Mark’s frozen smiles in today’s nature chat just trigger a reaction that makes me want to immediately turn the page (or scroll away).
Today’s strip is like watching an Infomercial. I keep waiting for Mark and Cherry to tell me how little they want to charge me for their customized mail-order herb baskets that I can grow in the comfort of my own home: “Just three payments of $14.99 (plus shipping) and they will arrive within seven business days! Order now and they’ll throw in the Grow Light! Don’t wait! Call 555-1212. That’s 555-1212. Call today at 555-1212. Why are you still watching? Call now!! Did you get the number? It’s 555-1212.“
So, the Pitt sisters are united once again! For those of you who came in late, I noted back in 2020 that the given names for the three sisters is the basis for one of Rivera’s earliest and better puns. Rivera created Cherry’s family (as far as I know at this point) with the surname Pitt; hence, we have sisters Cherry Pitt, Olive Pitt, and Peach Pitt (note the color of their clothing). Lest you think the surname is contrived (okay, it is!), let me remind you that the Prime Minster of England during the American Revolution was William Pitt, the Younger. And there is that Brad dude, too.
Names based on puns is nothing new, of course, and they litter the history of comic strips. Entire families are rarer. The family that always pops up in my mind is the family of Olive Oyl, (Popeye’s girlfriend), including Castor Oyl and Cole Oyl. Do you remember any other examples? Let me know!
As for the “heinous hunter ex-boyfriend”, whoever could he be? This is clearly going to be the point of Cherry’s next adventure. Too bad it won’t be the dramatically serious story it should be. Maybe the dude will turn out to be Mark’s old nemesis, Dirty Dyer!
Gag me with a spoon! Okay, I get the joke; it’s actually a funny contrast and it doesn’t involve a lame pun. I’m impressed that Rivera carried it off. I might even go so far as to think that panel 1 is also a dig on pre-Rivera departure scenes where Mark and Cherry are always so lovey-dovey. It’s an attractive and plausible scenario, but that may be reading too much into it. Do you agree or not?
Taking out a lot of the pointless and repetitious dialog, I think Rivera could have reduced the current sequence of strips to three days. Yet, arising out of all that bland chit-chat I believe we see the beginnings of Cherry’s next story come to light. With the arrival of Cherry’s sisters I reckon we should get ready for more sibling fighting. Still, I’m anxious to see if Rivera fleshes the sisters out a bit more.
Speaking of which, why didn’t Mark already know about their visit? Do spouses really invite relatives to visit without clearing it with their Significant Other? If I tried that, I’d be the one staying in a motel.
Unofficially, Lost Forest is supposed to be in or around Georgia. So why is there a moose hanging around (panel 4)? It really has to be lost to have wandered down that far south, especially given the moose’s preference for colder climates. Based on last Sunday’s nature study, Rivera had to know about the moose’s habitat. I reckon in her zeal to integrate animals from the Sunday topics into the dailies (or vice-versa), Rivera must have forgotten a few inconvenient facts.
Hmm, let me see if I grasp the essentials: Mark was told that a group of conspiracy nut jobs think this particular ocean-based manatee was chipped by the government to help track and control weather. Okay, that conforms with the kind of stupid ignorance we see on social media and some news networks.
Furthermore, as Max the Manatee is in danger of being abducted, it also makes perfect sense to send Mark Trail the Nature Journalist to Florida to protect it, rather than employ armed guards, for example.
But if there is any hope for sanity and logic, Mark’s idea of being a guardian will turn out to be a fantasy when Mark discovers there is already a crew of private security along for the ride to the ocean, and he’ll be restricted to actually just being a reporter.
To get this out of the way, today is just rubbish in terms of story development. Mark inexplicably thanks Cherry again for the ride then immediately jumps into how wonderful a guy he is. A “guardian” he calls himself? What qualifies him as a guardian of a manatee when there are scores of professional marine biologists at hand? Maybe he means “bodyguard.”
Mark seems to have an overstated sense of self-worth and importance. I’m not sure where the narcissism comes from, since we have not seen much of this behavior in the past. What is Rivera’s motive here? Maybe, just maybe, Mark is being portrayed as sarcastic, but we’ll need to see some evidence for that interpretation. But this is the kind of annoying boasting that leads to embarrassment and failure. In fact, this is generally how Honest Ernest is portrayed.
Art Dept. Today’s drawing is nowhere near as sad as yesterday’s. With the exception of the mirror and door handle, panel 1 is actually well composed and drawn. The angle of the truck and proximity of the interior is close enough to easily see Mark and Cherry while still leaving room for dialog. It helps that panel 1 is a double-wide. Panel 3, however, is another story. Both figures are way too small in scale for the truck. In fact, Cherry looks really bulimic.
An all-too-common complaint is Rivera’s supposed lack of artistic ability. I don’t believe that. I think it is deliberate. We have seen many some examples of finely crafted panels. However, today is not one of those days. The everyday banality of the scene, itself, is perfectly fine and hardly different from similar pre-Rivera scenes, except for the difference in Cherry’s attitude. It’s nice to see that Cherry is not the mewing, tearful housewife of “the old days.” Rivera’s attempts to create “greeting card” maxims (panel 3) is the only real jarring text.
Art Dept. Here is where, once again, I am perplexed and frustrated. From the cabin bedroom in panel 1 to the outdoor scene of panel 3, if you removed Mark and Cherry, I’d almost swear I was looking at panels from Snuffy Smith and Li’l Abner. Well, maybe not quite that good. Panel 3 is especially galling in its crudeness. It makes me wish Rivera would go back to using clipart and tracings. Is this another case of “Gotta go, surf’s up.”? Or maybe a challenge to the syndicate to see how much she can get away with? This is the kind of stuff that draws out regular scanner, Mark the Contrarian Commenter. Except that I stole his thunder.
As Cherry and Mark celebrated the completion of the catio, resolving the issue of where to keep the cache of found kittens (and possibly their mother, though I’m not certain), Mark received his usual just-in-time phone call from Bill Ellis. Interesting how that always seems to happen. Have we ever seen an instance of Mark getting a call from Bill while he was in the middle of a project or adventure?
Bill engages Mark to head to crazy-land (Florida) to assist/report/confound the transportation of Max the Manatee back to the ocean from his landing in a resort pool as the result of recent storms and/or floods.
The problem: It seems there are some militant anti-climate activists that have been making threats to the company moving Max, because meteorology is evil. What that has to do with Max the Manatee is a mystery. But Mark is gung-ho to go and help save Max! Not that we know exactly what Mark is supposed to do or why, but if this sounds whacko, remember two things: The action takes place in Florida and this is just another Mark Trail story.
A nicely-composed title panel leads us into this brief presentation, including some sound advice for presumptuous tourists and distracted drivers. You likely won’t run into a moose unless you live in or visit the upper United States, Canada, or northern Europe. As bad as it is to collide with a moose on the road, colliding with something as small as a deer on the road can also be dangerous to drivers and bikers. I always get a bit nervous and cautious driving through forested areas, especially in the Fall during mating season. When driving in northern Minnesota, the only way I want to see a moose on the road is in my rearview mirror!
Another twist in the story: A conspiracy theory that meteorology is evil. Sure, why not? There are plenty of real world, goofy—that is to say, paranoid and stupid—claims about government controlling the weather. Real meteorologists get harassed and receive death threats. And what does a business that moves manatees have to do with meteorology, anyway? Sometimes I wonder if the Middle Ages really ever ended.
I’m sure if scientists could figure out a way to mitigate weather and climate extremes, we’d all benefit. The idea that government wants to make weather worse is just plain moronic, especially since government resources (including taxpayer dollars) have to be used to assess and fix the damage. Nope! Government prefers to spend our money on more dependable projects, such as the Military, congressional pork barrels, and energy industry subsidies.
But Mark is correct: Florida is one of the Capitals of Crazy. Still, what the heck is Mark’s role in this incident? He is not in law enforcement, not a trained bodyguard, and not a private detective. So, I’m quite anxious to see just what he will do when he gets to the scene of the slime.
Ding! Ding! Ding! One of our longtime commenters, Downpuppy, expressed more or less the same flashback thought in Wednesday’s comments that Mark expressed today in panel 3:
Indeed, Downpuppy! Now today’s strip does clear up one thing: Bill Ellis stipulates in panel 2 that Max the Manatee “needs a quick ride back to the ocean.” That means he was originally blown out of the ocean and into the wave pool. I suppose Max must have gotten his name after being tagged by marine biologists.
I have presumed Max the Manatee is male. Bill Ellis also refers to Max that way. But what does he know!? That assumption could have been wrong, as there are plenty of women with the name or nickname “Max.” Perhaps that’s what Mark was thinking of in panel 3 regarding his concern over an inopportune birth event.
We should note that this time, Bill Ellis only wants Mark to go to Florida to “cover the story”, as opposed to saving Max. Naturally, Mark ignored this nuance and immediately went into his “Save the Wildlife!” mode. This is why I think it would be a good idea if Mark’s job description changed from reporter to fixer. Mark doesn’t seem too interested in journalism, anyway.
It also seems to me that Max the Manatee will have already been saved by the park’s staff or given a burial at sea before Mark can get down there, especially with all that traffic and horrible parking.
Now, where did that weird park name come from, I wondered. I did a bit of searching and discovered the “Zoom Flume Water Park” in East Durham, NY. In addition, there is the “Universal Volcano Bay”water theme park in Orlando, Florida.
Art Dept. Rivera customized the two central panels where the lower parts take on the look of traditional thought balloons. Is Rivera trying to get artsy? Nope. I think she is just customizing the panel shapes to reflect that they represent a flashback of sorts for the story Bill Ellis is recounting. That is, an extension of the mental thought balloon that Bill Ellis displays in panel 1.
Small talk with Bill Ellis has evolved over the pre-Rivera days. Its purpose seems to revolve around pointless chatter. Why does Rivera find this at all interesting? Is it only for a lame attempt at humor?
While we ponder that psychological dead end, we should probably expect to see the rest of the week filled by Mark, Ellis, and maybe Cherry, discussing Mark’s next assignment. Curiously, we have seen very little of those various magazine editors that Ellis once told Mark he would be working with from now on. Did Rivera lose interest in continuing this feature? Frankly, I thought that they would provide new approaches to Mark’s assignments, due to different needs of the various magazines.
Sometimes it just seems as if every innovation and feature that helped make Rivera’s take on Mark Trail at all interesting and different has been, or is being, abandoned.
Hoo boy. Building a shelter is only part of the solution, Cherry! The kittens have to be taken care of, too, beyond having Doc Davis “fix” them. Still, celebrate the accomplishment for what it is.
Cherry’s point about unexpected phone calls (panel 3) is valid. This “unexpected job-related phone call” is a convenient and common story trope in comic strips, books, and movies. And for new readers of Mark Trail, it’s a long-running joke related to the idea of Mark wanting little more than getting back on the road as quickly as possible.
On the other hand, we could entertain the hypothesis that Mark had his phone deliberately turned off during the construction job and having it now turned on, he is getting the alerts. So much for Bill’s sixth sense!
In true Mark Trail fashion, the School Trip story (“Rusty Goes to Washington”) ended with a sudden jump back to Lost Forest as Cherry enlisted Mark in her crusade to build a “catio”, or cat shelter. Rusty conveniently faded from the story during the drive back. Meanwhile the pathetic image of a humbled Honest Ernest came into view when Cherry and Mark pulled into the back of the Sunny Soleil Society HQ. Ernest was found crouching beside a wreck of a structure.
Humbled by his own incompetence, Honest Ernest at least had enough integrity to admit he was in over his head and needed help. Here is where Rivera lost focus and tried to expand this minor situation into a larger one by claiming the Lost Forest community came together to help build this simple structure. Unfortunately, Rivera’s drawings suggested the only people present was the usual cast. This is the same kind of exaggerated, specious claim Rivera made earlier about the community coming together to brainstorm ideas on how to protect the kittens.
Mark, Cherry, and Ernest completed the cat shelter, even though it looked more like a tool shed than a “catio.” But with that we seem to have come to the end of this adventure (“Kittens and Kablooey”). So, let’s move on to the Sunday nature monolog.
Okay. A pleasing Sunday feature that fits into our approaching Winter environment. Another nicely designed title panel, as well. Do some penguins make bad dads?
As we learn that Violet is still married, another story reaches its TV sitcom conclusion. That “catio” structure still looks more like an enclosed back door to me. I am going to have to do some research, but Mark’s shirt pocket looks awfully small and practically decorative rather than functional. It just doesn’t figure into Mark’s lifestyle.
I had an idea: In “Mark Trail Confidential”, Mark Trail historian Mark Carlson-Ghost reveals the fact that earlier stories were regularly recycled during the 1980s and 1990s. I’m not sure how obvious this was to regular readers at the time, unless you’ve been reading this strip for the past 50+ years. Furthermore, there are no reprint Mark Trail book collections to reference, as there are for other vintage comic strips.
These recycled stories were presented as a minor scandal, but stories and plots are continually re-harvested in virtually every visual and written medium. I think Rivera could follow suit (if she hasn’t already) and adapt some of those earlier—pre-Rivera — stories, especially for Mark’s adventures. This could free up Rivera to put more time and energy into drawing.
So, the catio did get finished. Honest Ernest helped. But the catio looks nothing like the catios you can buy. Didn’t Rivera at least look for examples online for reference?
And now, the next obvious question: Where are the rest of the townsfolk? That person behind Mark in panel 4 has to be a badly-drawn Cherry, not Larry of the 3 Stooges. There is an anonymous figure behind Cherry in panel 1. Is Lost Forest really this small of a community?
I think not, so it is egregious for Rivera to make that exaggerated claim in panel 1. What is the point? Why not just state that “some of the townsfolk” were helpful? Or even state only that Mark, Cherry, and Honest Ernest completed building the catio and that’s that. Did King Features fire all of their editors?
Art Dept: Well … uh …, oh, what’s the use? Maybe Rivera should remember what she once commented about on another platform and revert to drawing with pen and ink, rather than a digital tablet.
The Daily Trail 