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Compost bin very good to ME! 

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Well, the story is finally moving along. Very good. But Cherry’s composting plans have a few issues:

1) All of these “bins” look the same. Not a good thing when you include trash and compost. So why place the trash receptacle next to the compost bins?

2) Are these compost bins properly ventilated? They look like they are cheek-by-jowl. Granted, we cannot see their back views, but what we can see is not promising.

3) They seem a bit large for composting bins, especially non-commercial bins. That’s a lot of stuff to keep turning and a large space for compostable refuse to heat up and cook.

4) And how about removing the compost when it’s ready?

Okay, enough carping over details. This is a comic strip, not a documentary or a how-to video. So, I’ll wait to see what Rivera reveals on Saturday. She could put all my nitpicking to shame. Or maybe you could.

Oh my goodness! Lots of catching up to do!!

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I sort of kept up with the goings-on while enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend… lots of travel and not a lot of time or computers available…  anyway, in reading the Thanksgiving installment, I recall being particularly thankful in the fact that Mark did not commit the classic blunder of using the wrong form of the personal pronoun when inviting Mr. Holland onto the boat…  “Spend a few days with my wife and me…” rather than “with my wife and I…”

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But Mark, it’s really not your boat now is it…  but that’s OK, we will let you live in your own fantasy world for now… And that’s right, Mark, Mr. Holland is simply too busy raping the natural world to afford any time away from the office…

But with Great Flourish and Dramatic Purpose, Mark moves from the cockpit to the bow of the great vessel, imploring Mr. Holland to come see the “photos” he has taken…

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And like a Striped Bass (Which Holland recalls not photographing as a child but hooking, landing and gutting…) he takes the bait that Mark has laid out for him…

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Mark, now so pleased with himself, his face so aglow with pure rapture that it’s drawing Cherry into the caper, we now get to see Justin Holland in his thoughtful and pensive state… And we soon get to be introduced to the real villain- Mitchum- who “single-handedly arranged the purchase of the property near the GREAT swamp…”

But Justin, you really are unaware of the vitriol you are about to face, aren’t you??  The lit torches and pitchforks that await you upon meeting “some of the local people…”  they aren’t in the mood to talk or shake hands, they want a pound of eco-flesh- yours…

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So now we know that Holland is simply a pawn in his own company, probably came into his wealth the old fashioned way- through a blood line, a member of the “lucky sperm club,” and now we get to see just how ill-suited he is at running a conglomerate…

 

airline TICKETS???

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Please let this be a connecting flight and not an indication that Mark is bringing his brood with him…  Nothing would spoil this party faster than Mark not being allowed to go off and do what he does… unfettered, unencumbered…

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My goodness, look at the passion on display in panel one.  Bill Ellis may have a desk job, but clearly he has the heart of an ecowarrior… Don’t let the blue blazer and horn rimmed glasses fool you- he has more passion and pluck contained in his left index finger than, well, one might imagine…

But mark what do you mean with that last comment?  Have you been holding out?  Mailing it in??? Have you been giving The Magazine only some fraction of your “best?”  Oh well, no matter, off you go!  Better get your shots up to date while you are at it.  Don’t want you laid out by malaria or Dengue Fever…

Yes I have heard of Jacob Hickman, too…

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Or at least the Google has… he was a lineman for the Nebraska Cornhuskers and decided not to turn pro… Oscar the Otter is shocked by the news as well… is that his mother Mollie or did she get poached by Big Mike?  I forget now…

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How strange that Mark immediately assumes that it will be a phone interview… I don’t think that has EVER happened in his career.  Maybe Mark is (strangely and uncharacteristically) aware of the financial state of the print media industry and therefore is doubly surprised that Woods and Wildlife would spring for a trip to AFRICA… (all right- cue the music- Toto’s AFRICA…the only song EVER to include a reference to Kilimanjaro and rhyme the word Serengeti…  )  Hurry boys, she’s waiting there for you…

Bill Ellis, chill out, man…

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I am pretty sure that Bill and Mark are in the same time zone…  and I always picture Bill Ellis’ office to be somewhere on Madison Avenue in NYC… not on tony Park Avenue, but a block over.  Not low rent but not high either.  This is after all a PRINT Magazine we are talking about here…  and unless it’s part of some conglomerate like Condé Nast, it’s probably limping along financially…  But here’s my point:  either Bill Ellis is putting in ridiculous hours at the office, or he is at home, spoiling the dinner hour taking Mark’s call on his -what- Walkie Talkie??  He still doesn’t seem to know how to hold or use a smart phone- and is still all suited up like he is at work- c’mon Bill, throw on a smoking jacket or something.  Relax, dude…

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Such a look from our hero…  Bill has hit the trip-wire in the Trail-brain, that’s for sure…  first West African Black Rhino, now the White!!  This injustice has to stop!  And who is better equipped to undo generational poverty and black marketeering in sub-Saharan Africa than our own MARK TRAIL?!?  Pack your bags, Mark, you are going on safari!

yes… “COUNTLESS Articles on POACHING…”

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Are you trying to say something here, Bill Ellis??  Like that’s ALL he writes about, and MAYBE he could try another angle this time??  Is James Allen taking a shot at his own strip?  Funny.

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But it’s like they don’t know each other- Not “Hey Bill, Mark here…” but rather “Bill Ellis, This is Mark Trail!”  Mark seems disappointed in panel three that Bill only considers his seminal piece on the West Africa Black Rhino as “good…”  “C’mon Bill, I was on fire!  That was my best work!” Mark’s face seems to say…

Well, it looks like Mark might be off somewhere…  Thank goodness.

Really, Mark? What exactly WAS the last story you filed??

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We never get to see Mark hunched over his typewriter, bullet sweat flying off his brow, pencil clenched in his teeth, trying to make a deadline to get his story into the next issue of Woods and Wildlife magazine…  Or is it hunched over his laptop, connected to the magazine through a high-speed satellite internet connection…  we HAVE seen laptops and flat screen TV’s in the Trailverse…

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But oh thank goodness! A trip!!  A chance to renew himself and his fists with the outside world…  Our strange Odyssey into the world of “Mark Loves Cherry” can soon become a distant (and fleeting?) memory…

Mark Trail is acting like a teenager…

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But can you blame him?  I mean for how many decades has he been drawn, suffocating and not allowed to be a man…

And there HE is… RUSTY.  He looks like he has grown up a bit, not the scary, shape-shifting little sprite out of our worst dreams… He almost looks human…

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One thing sure hasn’t changed, though.  Bad, random, non-sequitur dialogue.  Mark offers up “I left my cell phone in the house!” Cherry responds that she “didn’t hear is ringing!”  What?  Like your phone rings off the hook, at night?  Whatever…  Careful there Mark, you know that this is how babies are made, don’t you??

Mush and Bilge Water…

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As the cranky hermit crab from The incredible Mr limpet (Starring Don Knotts as an animated fish amongst live actors) would say…  These two need to get a room, or at least box seats at Target Field and get caught in the Kissing-Cam…

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Are we done yet?  That’s all you get Cherry!  Let’s head home!!  For what?!?  I don’t even want to imagine…

Breaking News!

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It’s THE BEAR!  THE WOUNDED BEAR!  I thought it was in Doc’s care and custody!  Ranger Dusty! Gather your men!!

The Bear

Possibly wounded bear eludes police, DNR agents in Savage on Page B1 of Friday, May 30, 2014 issue of Star Tribune

Is this a KISSING book??

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Remember the grandson played by Fred Savage from The Wonder Years questioning his Grandfather played by Peter Falk in The Princess Bride??? He was being baited and switched into listening to a chapter book being read aloud to him whilst sick in bed…  That’s what I feel is happening here…  OK, James Allen, WE GET IT…

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But let’s examine the words more closely…  Mark is feeling lucky because he HAS A PLACE TO LIVE… and will do almost anything to not mess that up… Even subject himself to Cherry’s advances…  Even make Cherry feel like he really cares about her… Or is this James Allen getting back at Elrod for years of inattentiveness on Mark’s part?

I might add at this juncture that James Allen has yet to draw Rusty once since taking the helm…  is this a clear message, that he never approved of Mark and Cherry taking on this troubled, underdeveloped child??

…and you know, Mark, I do have a life… one that actually gets satisfying when you are away…

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Well, back to “As the Trail Turns…” More blah blah…  What ever happened to punch punch, kick kick??  Mark has this silly grin on his face that can only tell you, James Allen, that he doesn’t quite know HOW to behave now that he has been home for so long…

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I am going to start a petition to get Mark back out with the bad guys!  Who’s with me??  But Cherry, let’s be clear- Mark’s “job” being a nature writer is just a front- for what we are not sure, but why don’t you ask him to show you his last check from Woods and Wildlife Magazine…  Is he on salary or is he paid by the article?  Does he get any money for living expenses? Because at this rate you will both be working at Wal*Mart in your “retirement…”

Andy says, “I’m Outa Here…”

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“C’mon Master, I am dying here!” says the Big Dog…  By panel three Andy is hearing what we are all hearing… “blah blah, away from home a lot, blah blah I’m sorry about that, blah blah blah…”  Please let this be the precursor to Editor Bill Ellis or someone calling Mark back to the world outside of Lost Forest.  This is getting tedious beyond words… Aside from the fact that Cherry is doing her best to model for the ubiquitous redneck mud flap profile in panel one…

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Black Capped Chickadees are meant to act that way Mark, but not you… C’mon James Allen, let him leave the nest…  He’s much more interesting when he is operating without a search warrant and getting into other people’s business…

Metrosexual Mark…

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Well, forget everything I just said (as in yesterday) about how relieved I was that James Allen wasn’t changing any of the long-held notions about role clarity…

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Maybe “doing dishes” isn’t the end of Mark as we know him, but it is a departure from what was…  and what we held most dear about him and his cloddish, oafish, generally obtuse nature…  so there he is, sleeves all rolled up, drying dishes… I am speechless…

No, Mark, you are not … STARVING

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Maybe a might peckish after heading out for an afternoon drive only to find yourself fighting for your life and spending the night in a tree!

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But of course you were able to forage… “Some Berries for breakfast!”  not much to keep body and soul together, huh, Mark??

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So of course we find ourselves back at the table where meals are served and strong, black coffee is poured…  Cherry, Baby, what IS going on with your face in the first panel?  You return to your normal look of utter supplication at the sight of your man, but seriously, you look a little alien whilst pouring coffee!

I am SO glad that James Allen isn’t messing with any of the well-defined roles in the Trail-verse…  Doc fixes animals (without receiving so much as a thanky-kindly…) Cherry serves and Mark sits there like a prince…  But wait!  Cherry made a joke- “glad you were able to get away from that bear, Honey…”  Bear…  Honey… Get it??  Ha! That’s a joke, son!!

Let’s take inventory of the expressions here…

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Dusty the Ranger reminds me of Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes… same protruding, fixed lower mug… and then there’s Mark- cracking wise- “Well, Ol’ Friend, (he says in sort of a Ronald Reaganesque fashion) the bear delivered THAT message himself before YOU had a chance to… ha!”  He’s literally cracking himself up!  And Cherry looks back in, what? I don’t know… disbelief?  How’s the shoulder, Mark?  I bet it only hurts when you laugh…

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This must be as fun (or maybe scary and disconcerting) for Mark as it is for us… All these new emotions to try on.  It’s like when Data the Android received the “emotion chip” in an episode of Star Trek The next Generation… what will Mark do with all these new found emotions?  Cherry isn’t sure she doesn’t want the old, wooden version back…

“What happened to the man I married?,” she must be wondering…

And they already have a suspect in custody?  What up with that??  What’s Mark to do now?  I don’t get where this is going…

Well, I told you that that story in order to tell you THIS one…

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Hold the phone!  Keep the clock running!  This story has only just begun!!  The look on Mark’s face is telling- jaw is clenched, eyes are narrowed, posture is forward…  Meanwhile the look on Cherry’s face tells the real story, as in, “Oh dear, there he goes again… off to save the natural world from evil-doers…”

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And of course what is Dusty’s job other than to TELL MARK about what is going on?  And then stand back and watch Mark do his job?  I mean, what?  Dusty is actually on the payroll and has in his job description to bring in bad people, but why would he do that if he has this crazy vigilante living in his jurisdiction??  Well, maybe they will work together…  maybe we will get a little Dusty back-story to help round out his character…  Remember, this is James Allen’s world now…