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Another Mark Trail Twofer

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(Wednesday) Well, looks like Mark is finally getting around to doing some research, only after making his accusations. That’s not the usual sequence of events, I think. 

There are lots of home-based test kits on the market, though they will tell you that the most accurate testing is when you send a water sample into an EPA-certified water testing lab.

Admittedly, Mark is summarizing the actual steps. From what I’ve read, even home kits require carefully measured amounts of water and acid reagent, including other steps. To be fair, the Mark Trail comic strip never pretended to be Mr. Wizard or an actual science lab. Still, he might have noted the importance of careful measurements.

One thing that is more difficult to excuse is the dwarvan left arm of Mark in panel 3. What happened there?! Maybe there are more dangerous elements in the water than Mark figured on, but I can’t see how Rivera or her editors overlooked it.

(Thursday) Calm down, Mark! The cane toad was the Sunday Animal of the Week back on August 10th. Frankly, I hadn’t realized that cane toads were standard features of new golf courses.

I reckon we are supposed to assume Mark and Happy spent a lot of time testing the different waterways of Lost Forest to ensure they found the correct source, so Rivera spared us from looking at several more panels of Mark and Happy wading in water with test tubes and miniature arms. Or not. Instead, the story jumped ahead to Mark again interviewing the reliable Ranger Shaw.

Speaking of continuity (just pretend that we were), if we omit the weak golf scene or move it to the end, the story still hangs together. Mark seems to be going through the motions of an investigation, even as biased as he obviously is. Perhaps an editor at KFS saw the early strips and told Rivera “Hey! Where is the investigation part of the story? Mark is just throwing out accusations with no evidence! Put in an actual investigation, Rivera, or I’ll have you ghosting for Family Circus!”

Watch Mark get older!

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Go ahead if you wish, and comment on the changing map topography in the first two panels. Maybe it’s a two-sided map. I don’t know. Or comment, if you desire, on how Mark aged between Panel 2 and Panel 4.

Well, will Mark and Happy start with the waterway alongside the resort for the first test? Could save a lot of time. Run several tests. If they come back negative, Mark owes the Cheddersons an apology. Then he’ll have to investigate the other sources. It would be a hoot for Mark to discover the pollution source was the Sunny Soleil Society! How would Cherry take that result!?

Speaking of maps, it would be kind of cool if Rivera produced an “official” map of Lost Forest, kind of like A.A. Milne’s map of the Hundred Acre Woods or Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Why not? None of the prior artists every produced one that I’m aware of. There is, as some of you know, an official “Mark Trail Wilderness” area along the Appalachian Trail in northeastern Georgia. It’s quite extensive, though I’ve never visited it. We don’t need a map quite that big, however; just the area around the Lost Forest community and its surroundings. Too bad E. H. Shephard is no longer around.

Hold on to your patience:  We’re not done, yet!

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What was it that Ralph Kramdam used to wail after messing up once again on The Honeymooners? “Me and my biiig mouth!” Fine. I misread the tea leaves. I thought for sure that Saturday was the end of the story when Mark mentioned writing up an article with Happy. Reckon I should have waited for the dust-up to settle down.

It looks like we are moving into Part 3, in which actual work gets done. If that’s what happens, I’ll need to rejigger the story’s grade.

In any event, I’m anxious to see this investigative journalism get into gear.  Will they be checking online for filed paperwork and inspection reports? Will they wade into the river to take water samples by the resort to get analyzed by a proper lab (as opposed to going to Doc Davis)? Will they have to face off against the gator while they sneak around the resort grounds? Or does all of this palaver really just mean “Let’s write that article“, after all?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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The polluted lake story ended yesterday, or so it seems. Of course, we could have another week for the epilog, a standard feature of Rivera’s stories. As for the week, itself, as Cherry’s peacock story appears to have ended, Chet and Brett Chedderson (patiently waiting on the sidelines all week so Mark could help trap the wandering peacock) returned on stage to renew their verbal assaults.

Insults flew from both sides as Happy Trail finally sided with Mark. The result was that the entire Trail family was thrown off the resort, permanently. No doubt, Happy Trail paid a fair amount of money for his charter membership fees, but tried to save face with the “I’ll see my own self out” trope dripping from his lips as they left. Maybe not quite that dramatic! Happy apologized to Mark for not sticking up for him earlier on (i.e. when Mark flew off the handle, accusing the Cheddersons of environmental sabotage, without having done any actual investigation). Then Cherry and Rusty conveniently disappeared from the strip for the last three days as Rivera focused on their father-and-son Hallmark greeting card moment.

And that leaves us with this: What was the point of this story? Was the premise of mysterious lake pollution and a new golf course just an excuse to bring in Happy Trail? The first half of the story, focusing on discovering the source of the lake pollution was just fine, as is. Happy’s appearance could have provided Mark with a colleague to help with an investigation.

But Mark’s plans (and the story) were sidelined and ultimately undermined when Happy Trail revealed the real reason he showed up was to invite them to the new golf club and water park that he just joined (even though he lives in Florida). And that’s when the story began to go sideways. If I was a writing teacher (thank goodness for students I am not!), I’d give the story a D. The focus on water pollution got twisted into a morality play about parenting. The pollution angle became secondary or forgotten. However, this is an adventure strip about nature and human interactions with the environment. It is unique in that regard. If we want to read strips that focused on human relationships, there are plenty of those already available. But there is only one Mark Trail strip. Why waste it on mere humans?

Rivera’s underwater drawings are often better executed and more evocative than what shows up above the water. Take the image of Mark raising his forefinger in panel 4 … Please! Did that come from a “Draw Mark Trail” contest submission!?

Seriously, does Mark/Rivera expect everyday people to run chemical tests on tap water?  Well, it might be a good idea, but Mark should have included some information on where test kits can be obtained. I’m surprised Mark and Cherry don’t have their own side business: Mark Trail’s Tap Water Test Kits.

Okay, so this really is the end of the story. I think.

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I’ve never seen an alligator yawn before. It’s an interesting sight, isn’t it? Well, he isn’t the only one …

But, wait! What’s all this father-son relationship jazz? Wasn’t there an entire family here? Or is that why the gator looks fatter than he did a few days ago? Yesterday I posited three possible reasons for this story. It seems that it really was about father-son bonding; or at least, that is what is turned into. Blech!

So now, Happy and Mark are going home, arm in arm, to write an article together. About their trip. If Kelly Welly was here, she’d probably throw golf balls at them for wasting this opportunity.

“You’re a nature journalist”, says Happy. Aren’t they the ones that write those Sunday newspaper articles about fishing for bigmouth bass with Gadabout Gaddis, hunting squirrels in the Big Woods, and taking Ol’ Blue duck hunting? But they leave actual investigative work to trained professionals.

Art Dept. You might think the giant speech balloon in panel 1 is another kind of narration box. But, no. The balloon’s tail runs up Happy Trail’s shirt, but was accidentally colored in. At first I thought Jules Rivera was satirizing the misplaced speech dialog trope of pre-Rivera Mark Trail.

What ever happened to Happy’s Nine Iron?

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What started out as an informal (that is, unpaid) investigation into local water contamination has turned into a contest of rivals to see who swings the biggest golf club. From here, it certainly looks like Rivera either lost track of the plot or simply jumped the tracks and went into a different direction. I’m only surprised (well, okay: disappointed) that the dads didn’t join in with the boys to have a more interesting and enjoyable four-way slugfest. Now that would have been an interesting sight. I think Rivera missed an opportunity for some real fun!

This being Thursday, there are still two days left in the week. What to do? That’s not really time enough to resolve this story, so there will be at least one more week. Will Rivera turn Mark back into an investigative reporter, skulking around the resort at night to get hard evidence? Will Happy Trail want to go along and relive his younger days of activist nature journalism? I’ve always wondered about Happy’s “been there, done that!” attitude, as if he simply got burned out from chasing poachers, kidnappers, arsonists, and weirdos and now wants to live out his life like a normal person, indifferent to the environment.

But maybe the Trails will just head back home and forget the whole thing, which may be what a lot of readers are doing, already. I really want to see some suspense and drama. Even for a little bit.

Happy Trail takes his turn

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If I remain “in story mode”, then I blame Mark for creating this mess through his ham-fisted investigation, such as it was. Instead of going covert or at least subtle, Mark decided to confront the Cheddersons, head-on, without solid evidence.

If I look at this from an outside position, I have to wonder what Rivera had in mind moving the story in this direction. Is it getting us closer to uncovering the source of the pollution or has that already been “established” merely through Mark’s biased assumption? If Mark is satisfied the golf course is the source, shouldn’t either try to get them to clean it up or report them to the “proper authorities”?

Well, I might be asking too much. Maybe Mark will turn over his “evidence” to Ranger Shaw, who will once again hem and haw and hesitate, until Mark browbeats him into confessing that he got a free lifetime membership for looking the other way.

The gloves don’t come off, but words do fly!

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Mark Trail demonstrates another one of his well-known techniques on how to successfully investigate wrongdoing and solve a problem. Or maybe not.

As much as I don’t want to make this a pure snark-filled diatribe, I have to say this is pretty lame plotting; to say little of the dialog. There are a number of issues we can pick on, just today. I’m not sure I have the energy for all of it. So, I’ll pick one or two.

For one thing, it seems to be that, even now, Chet Chedderson has not made a single comment about his prior entanglements with Mark; and there have been two: the Zeeba Mussels story and the Bear Necessity story, where Chet had only a walk-on cameo at the start of the story. I’m wondering if he even remembers who Mark Trail is, and if that is a deliberate decision on Rivera’s part. That is to say, why would Rivera want to cause Chedderson to not recall Mark? Readers with better minds than mine may recall that the Bear Necessity story was when Jules Rivera made the unfortunate decision to change Mark’s face from sporting his stubbled beard to the tramp-like five o’clock shadow he now has.

The strip today reads more like comments on social media. Hey! Maybe that’s deliberate, since it’s become the standard for interpersonal communication, especially among the age group this rebooted strip is supposed to be aimed at.

Art Dept. Rivera continues to play on the “Like Father Like Son” trope, coming off like the parody she likely has in mind. And I think this is the first time we’ve actually seen a golf bag (panel 2). But more important than any of this (to me) is that I think Rivera drew this manually with pen and ink, rather than a her digital tablet. The lightness and variety of lines, and the unusual hatching on Brett’s face and especially in the tree behind Mark in panel 3 lead me to this conclusion. I’m not saying she’s using old Speedball or Gillotte nibs; it’s probably a set of technical pens with different line widths. Sorry, I’m just getting a bit too geeky here. But I’d like to see her stick to using these pens, as it might loosen up her drawing and make it more interesting. Again, I could be totally wrong. Digital tablets have come a long way since I last used them.

Looks like Brett was just biding his time to teach Mark a lesson.

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Hoo-boy. I suppose Mark is under contract to solve all problems within his immediate vicinity, regardless of whose problem it is. I don’t see Cherry too bothered by it, and Happy Trail is happy to share in the solution, as well. I’m not sure if this is the “end” of Cherry’s adventure, as she is seen here as a mere background appreciator. However, Honest Ernest happily gloats as he puts the recovered peacock back into his van, somehow parked on the golf course.

And regular reader Daniel Pellissier  pointed out that my theoretical plot twist of trapping the wrong peafowl was full of holes, because a close-up of the captured peacock in Saturday’s strip showed the bird with his male plumage intact. Still, in the real world, that kind of treatment would have to be really bad for the peacock and his tail feathers.

But Cherry’s week in the sun has set (so it seems) and we return to the sturm und drang of Brett Chedderson’s beef with Mark Trail, who broke with the tradition of not insulting your hosts by insulting his hosts. I’m not sure what that yellow traingular design is behind Brett in panel 3, but it can’t be a good sign.

It reminds me of those high-back collars you see on old-school villains (e.g. Ming the Merciless, The Evil Queen of Snow White, and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula). If Mark hasn’t fully exercised his fists o’ justice, this might be a good time to do so, unless a better idea pops up.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Rivera side-slipped us back into Cherry’s Runaway Peacock story, while still on the golf course. As you may recall, she popped up the Saturday before, in the middle of the Trail-Chedderson Slapfest, along with the errant peacock. The fight immediately stopped and the peacock disappeared. Mark volunteered to help Cherry chase it down, the pollution fight, seemingly forgotten.

Then we cut to a scene of Honest Ernest with a butterfly net trying to catch the peacock and failing. Comparisons to “Coyote and Roadrunner” were obvious. At least Rivera showed good taste in what she borrowed from.

When Ernest complained about Mark and Cherry trying to hog credit for catching the bird, they assured him they didn’t care. It didn’t take Mark long to come up with a way to trap the peafowl using sticks, Happy’s golf club, and a granola bar that Cherry happened to have. Exactly how the trap worked is not really explained, but the bird was considerate enough to wander into it. Honest Ernest grabbed the trapped bird and ran off to impress Violet with his capture. Exciting stuff.

The only thing I’ll add is that Rivera may be throwing us a curveball.  The peacock shown and trapped this week did not exhibit the long tail that the (male) peacock originally displayed. Either Rivera forgot that “subtle” distinction when she drew the bird or she is playing off the fact that there are “feral” peacocks loose in this country. So it is possible that they trapped the wrong bird (a female in this case) which will backfire when Honest Ernest returns it and claims credit. This could be the best ending yet for one of Cherry’s stories.

For sure, I thought that Rivera would create her custom title panel using mouse droppings to spell out the title. Seemed obvious to me! Well, I read up on hantavirus and, frankly, I’m pretty bothered, especially as there is no specific treatment (cure) or vaccine against it; and fatality rates go as high as 50%! Uffa! Sure, it may be rare and mostly in western states, but that’s not the same as “non-existent.” We get an occasional mouse, especially in the Winter. I’m doubling the mouse traps this year. Maybe get a cat or two.

I see it now: Mighty Mouse was really a foreign agent, sent here to spread hantavirus under the ruse of “coming to save the day.”

Honest Ernest shocks Cherry by claiming the bird and the credit!

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Well, I don’t know why Mark and Cherry are surprised by Honest Ernest’s actions. After all, they told him that they were not interested in the credit, just capturing the peacock. Yet here they are, dismayed at Ernest taking their word on it.

I was hopeful that Mark would at least explain how his trap worked; you know, just in case a peacock shows up in my backyard one day.

What happened to the tail feathers?

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Okay. This is, uh … well, uh … naïve? Is some kind of time-lapse sequence happening here, where the peafowl eventually (and quite fortuitously, I might add) found its way to the correct spot and discovered the granola bar? It’s possible, though that’s a stretch because these birds don’t have an outstanding sense of smell.

But I’m dying to know how this trap actually worked. I’m thinking there is supposed to be some kind of motion-sensitive mechanism linked to the snack bar or its leafy support that springs the trap. That could explain why the trap is shown off to one side. I’m no hunter or trapper, so I’m hoping that the Saturday strip will get me up to speed. But based on panel 4, I just don’t see how this works.

I’m also hoping this is just a case of my own ignorance of such things and not that Rivera is just making up a bunch of crap.

Art Dept. Okay, Even Rivera refers to this bird as a male, so where the heck are the long tail feathers? They don’t retract into the body. Now, the female is noted for her lack of long tail features. They are a characteristic of the male peafowl, used both for attracting females and as a kind of self-defense. If you go back to July 12 and August 7, the bird clearly shows the full tail plumage.

Is it possible that Mark, Cherry, and Honest Ernest are chasing the wrong peafowl and wound up catching a female by mistake? After all, there are peafowl in the wild, having escaped from, or been set free by, private owners.

Now, that would really be a really interesting thing to see:  Returning with the wrong bird, only to have Violet’s mother realize their mistake at the big Summer Banquet!

Mark outlines his cunning plan to catch the peacock

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Hoo-boy, here we are again, as Mark “McGyver’s” a trap for the runaway peacock, who is obviously going to hang around the golf course long enough to be enticed. Seems like Honest Ernest isn’t the only one playing Coyote to the peacock’s Roadrunner. I suppose it is supercilious of me to ask questions, such as where you get tree branches on a golf course. But of course, they are on the edge of Lost Forest.

Can Mark can build a big enough trap out of just branches? How will he lash them? Will he build a trap door, as well? These questions, and more, are apt to be ignored in favor of just showing the finished trap, as this is not an episode of Wild Kingdom. A blanket could also be used, so wouldn’t a mother also carry a blanket for ad-hoc picnics and resting?

But why specifically nuts, when peacocks will also eat grains, seeds, fruit, berries, and even leaves? Mark could probably find most of that stuff more easily than having to rely on motherhood to save the day.  Quibble, quibble, quibble. I know. You’re saying “Enough with the obvious questions, George! We get it, already! ” Sure, a trap is likely better than trying to run down a peacock or catch it with a small net. But the peacock has to be near enough to the trap in the first place to be suckered. Well, today is Thursday, so a lot has to happen for that peacock to be caught by Saturday. And thank goodness for that!

Art Dept. I was going to say something about the characters in the middle ground in panel 1, but you probably know what I would be saying. Consider it said. Otherwise, I’ll conclude with criticism for the longer-than-necessary run of boring panel layouts. An inventive, interesting layout can make even a dull or dumb story more interesting.

Mark finds an easier problem to solve

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Frankly, I don’t know why they would want to help Honest Ernest, unless it was to help him sink into a deep hole. But, Cherry still has her job with the Sunny Soleil Society to keep. Maybe she could look for other clients, but I don’t imagine there are too many paying customers in that sleepy little village.

Are you confused by the storyline? Of course! Mark and Cherry have magically transferred into the Cherry and the Runaway Peacock story, leaving the lake pollution story, as well as the probably perplexed golfing party, on the other side of the comics page. I reckon Mark got his “you’re killing my environment” anger out of his system for the time being, as he seems happy to devote some time to this trivial event. But credit to Rivera for continuity: Mark’s facial scrapes from his fight with Brett remain in place.

Art Dept. Sometimes I wonder if Rivera uses marionettes as models for the characters. I mean, check out Mark in panel 3. And there are more of those “lines beyond the borders” today, too. One might think that Syndicate editors would catch that stuff and fix it before publishing. But that might be optimistic. It could be they just slap the strips online and send them out to the newspapers, as is.

Catch the latest news on The Great Peacock Hunt!

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All regular readers of Mark Trail are long familiar with Honest Ernest, who probably started life as the school bully; only now, he is depicted more like an older version of the Class Clown. So it makes sense that Rivera would depict him here in a role reminiscent of the Warner Brothers Coyote with his ACME butterfly net trying to catch the Roadrunner, played by local favorite, the take-no-prisoners wandering Peacock.

Art Dept. I noticed the same kind of pinched-in, distorted face in panels 3 and 4 today that I talked about yesterday. This kind of distortion of facial images in background figures has often plagued the strip, and I believe it might be due to size restrictions on Rivera’s digital (or manual) pen. It’s as if she is trying to cram too much detail where it becomes more noise than information.

PS: I sometimes look at the Comics Kingdom comments, but only after I post. So, I want to let you know that I did not pinch my Roadrunner analogy from Bill F‘s comment. Frankly, I figured most Mark Trail readers would have picked it up, anyway, especially with the pose of the peacock in panel 3.

How about a zesty bowl of potpourri commentary?

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Welcome back to the Third Annual National High School “Draw Mark Trail” exhibition, where the excitement level is hovering around the “Our son drew that one!” level.

We were all impressed with an entry from yesterday (Sunday), drawn by 10th grader Zigmodo R. Pettyfogger of Zuni, Ohio with a “Walking Dead” interpretation of our favorite wildlife journalist. Gotta say, Zigmo, you nailed that one!  Okay, we hope to return to this exhibition, but for now, let’s get back to the current story…

“Segues!? We don’t need no stinkin’ segues!” The Mark-Brett confrontation has been pushed aside for the moment as Rivera makes a giant pivot at a moment’s notice, continuity be damned. At least her appearance on the greenway did stop the playground altercation going on, so there is that. But how is it that Cherry can’t seem to see the peacock she is looking for, as it continues to fly all around her? Or is that a depiction of her mental state?

And what will Mark do from here on, now that he’s blown his cover and killed whatever cooperation he might have been able to inveigle out of the Cheddersons?

What are we to make of this odd intrusion? In the past, Rivera has, on occasion, put Mark or Cherry into each other’s storyline, usually for a short time to help the other out. But this time around, it isn’t just Mark and Cherry doing cameos; we have a convergence of their two separate stories, to the point where it becomes a question as to whose plot we are currently following. Is this a bit of cinéma vérité, perhaps? Or am I just making stuff up because I wanted to use the term cinéma vérité ?

In other news: I just paid my yearly dues to renew the domain name (thytrailbedone.com) and storage space on WordPress for my daily scribbling. So I’m committed to another 365.25 days of following the misadventures of the Trail Family. Also, I was just daydreaming about what might happen if Jules Rivera turned the entire Trail family into a team of environmental journalists/advocates, going on assignments and saving the planet. You know, like in The Incredibles movies. Well, the Trails would probably lose the cabin for lack of a second income; and they could get arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor for keeping Rusty out of school and putting him into harm’s way.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This was the week that wasn’t. Was it? It was make or break week for the polluted lake story. Mark and Happy continued with the golfing expedition, along with Chet Chedderson and his son, Brett. Rather than continue with his ruse of just being a guest of his dad so he could covertly investigate the resort, Mark jumped right up to accuse them of deliberate environmental damage, bringing about a heated exchange. This resulted in a fit of desultory face-punching between Bret and Mark, until Cherry suddenly popped onto the scene, more or less accompanied by that errant peacock nobody seems to be able to corral. It wasn’t clear if the peafowl showed up on its own by happenstance, though why a peacock would even want to invade a crowd of humans is unclear. There must be a reason for all this tomfoolery. But it sure looks as if this storyline has crashed and is in serious threat of burning. Why so?

It’s too early for this story to arrive at a conclusion. Plot-wise, it is still in the midway point; or at least, should be. At this point, Mark should be investigating the resort grounds more thoroughly, possibly even at night, as he did with Diana Daggers while investigating a secret data center site in Utah.

Instead, Mark couldn’t keep his mouth shut (as his dad recommended) and let the cat out of the story bag too early before gathering actual evidence. Did Mark find evidence for the assumed runoff? Did he compare onsite fertilizers with the sample that Ranger Shaw had taken from the lake? Did he interview the groundskeeper? No. No. And NO! It would have been simple enough to dramatize all of this over another week or two, building to a dramatic climax.

Ok, which is it, Mark?  “Super typhoon” or “Super Cyclone” (panel 4)? It’s all Potatoes and Potahtoes. Typhoons (Pacific Northwest), cyclones (South Pacific and Indian oceans), and hurricanes (mid-Atlantic and Eastern/Central Pacific oceans) are geographic synonyms. The term “cyclone” was coined in the 19th century by an English sea captain studying tropical storms in India. The term “typhoon” has a confusing origin, with the Chinese using a similar word for such storms as far back as 1124 CE, though “typhon” was used in France at least as early as 1504. And “hurricane” was derived from a Spanish term, which was taken from the name of a Caribbean god of evil, which evolved from the ancient Mayan god of winds and storms (“Hurricán”). Etymology is very cool.

Figured out the flags, didn’t you?

Is this a subtle tip o’ the Mark Trail Hat to its own past?

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Taken at face value (pun intended), Mark appears to be getting the worst of this “tussle.” Either Mark is holding back or his vaunted Two Fists O’ Jello … I mean, Justice, are not doing the job they were anointed to do.

Now, as for panel 2, I’m gobsmacked, as the Brits sometimes exclaim. We can see that Brett is shocked, as well. But I like his expression! Cherry showed up as if she is arriving at a neighbor’s backyard BBQ party … accompanied by her pet peacock!? I don’t see a string or leash, so how is it the peacock also showed up?  They don’t even like people. Did Cherry win it over with her winsome ways? Did she bring along rare peacock food to entice it?

Or is the peacock on its way to actually attack the Cheddersons, just on principle?

At this point, I thinking that a once-plausible storyline has rolled into a hazard, and there will be penalties to pay.

Tip of the hat: Okay, what’s with today’s podcast title? If you observe all of the dialog today, notice that every statement ends with an exclamation point! This was pro-forma for dialog in the Mark Trail strips before Rivera took over. One of her improvements was to stop that and only use them when they were called for. And she has been fairly consistent with that. Until today. So, are all of those !s in every speech balloon appropriate for today?

Mark demonstrates how to break your hand

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Well, I guess if Mark wanted a fistfight, then using the word “Bully” was the right word, after all. But why would he want to fight?

Okay, I’m going to have to go along with the crowd (as I suspect) on this one. This is just stupid. Infantile. Embarrassing. Insulting to the readers. Not serious. Not even convincingly drawn!

Maybe referencing some actual boxing images could have at least helped Rivera draw the choreography.

But it just doesn’t fit. And speaking of not fitting, check out panel 3 and tell me when Brett acquired a sixth finger? I only ask because the top digit of his hand cannot be a thumb.

Mark has them where he wants them!

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Well! Since the verbal gloves came off yesterday, words continue to fly. By the way, I like how Rivera poses the two Cheddersons, like some kind of Doublemint Twins gag from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Well, “like” may be too strong of a word, but they do look like some kind of 2D prop held up by a board in the back.

Wouldn’t it be just a hoot if, after Trail gets through his entire spiel about evil golf course pollution, the Cheddersons reveal that they use only organic and environmentally-approved procedures for maintaining the course and handling potential runoff; and that they have a seal of approval from every environmental agency in the region. Then they reveal that they saw Ranger Shaw dumping something into the pond several evenings, so they reported it to the EPA for investigation. And that makes sense, given Shaw’s dodgy past with illegal dumping. Fully chastised and realizing how wrong he has been, Mark apologizes, quits his journalism job, and goes to work as a troubleshooter for Chet’s company. At least, no more worries about busted water heaters or Doc Davis’s rent and care at the nursing home.

Okay, that won’t happen.

But, a “Bully”!? C’mon, Rivera! How does that fit into this scenario? I don’t think being a bully is required to operate a golf course or to pollute the environment. Does it? Is that supposed to humiliate Brett? Is it Rivera’s intention to make Mark look like a hypocrite?

As you can see, I’m treading lightly here, keeping my eye and words strictly on the strip. I seriously don’t want this to go the social media route. So, please keep any comments focused on the strip. You can draw your own conclusions about external relationships, but keep them to yourself. I don’t want to see them. And I’ll likely remove or edit out any such comments.