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Hippies!? I wonder if Rivera got this cornball dialog from an editorial written during the Nixon era?
If Rivera is looking for inspiration, I recommend The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Rivera can then turn Mark into a wildlife journalist with a secret nighttime identity as an environmental commando. After all, Mark has a family to support, so he can’t quit his day job. Even Superman has to pay his bills!
Fighting words, Jules? Maybe they are for drunken frat boys, basement-dwelling Internet trolls, and spoiled progeny with identity issues. So I wonder how this part of the story will play out over the next several days. It doesn’t seem like Mark would take such easy bait as this, but …
I recently stated that I thought this story had legs. As a story, itself, I still believe it. Whether Rivera can follow through and keep it intact is another matter, altogether. And from a practical point of view, the premise of the story (Nobody knew about this resort) is weak. But there’s a reason for it, I think:
Nobody just suddenly builds a golf course/water park resort. It requires lots of planning, surveys, permits, public and private meetings by a zoning commission, following regulations about placement, easements, sanitation, etc., and more. That can easily eat up a few years (paying off various officials, notwithstanding). That means the notion that nobody in Lost Forest knew what was going on is difficult to accept. In reality.
And that’s the catch: If comic strip stories actually tried to be comprehensive, nobody would have the patience to read them, would they!? And the real point of the story is not “How to design and build a golf resort in the country”, but “How will Mark uncover the source of the recently-discovered environmental damage and resolve it?”
What about today’s blog title? Alas, I’m completely without honor or shame. I’m certain this kind of headline flim-flammery will bring in readers by the boatload. I mean, it works on other sites…!
What do you think? For all the time Cherry and Rusty spent at the water park—which had to be at least an hour—this foursome didn’t get very far, as the main building is still right behind them. I doubt the gator kept them occupied that long.
Also, I would be peeved like Mark to discover that his own dad won’t back his play, especially knowing that Happy supposedly had the same “job” in his younger days. At the least, it suggests Happy Trail is somehow more mixed up in this business that he is letting on.
At least we can hope for some actual fisticuffs and wrestling on the fairway! Maybe it will even inspire our friendly gator to crawl back out to make a quick snack of the loser.
Art Dept. I can’t think of a more “cartoony” face in Mark Trail than Brett’s (panel 2). He looks like he was pulled out of a classic Archie comic book.
We first met Chet Chedderson as an unscrupulous shipping magnate in the Zeeba Mussels story ( 8/12/21-2/4/22), as he tried to prevent Mark from investigating and reporting on the occurrence of invasive zebra mussels arriving in American waters on the hulls of his tankers. Chedderson even went as far as hiring thugs to beat up Mark. Mark doesn’t seem to hold much of a grudge. So Chet became this strip’s symbol of corporate greed and environmental indifference. After a brief, unmemorable cameo in another adventure, he is here again, taking on the role of a rich dude building a golf resort without regard for the local environment. His son is merely a projection of his father. But this is all quite in keeping with traditional Mark Trail bad guys, insofar as their personalities are superficial and stereotypical. Golfing aside, it’s the kind of story that might have come from Allen, Elrod, or even Dodd.
A common complaint about Rivera’s stories is their weak plotting and absurdities. That can hardly be denied when seen in toto. I mean, lions in a house (e.g. snakes on a plane)!? It might be less so, here. For the most part, the story has followed a logical and coherent path: Mark discovers pollution from an unknown source in a favorite lake; a follow-up interview with the local forestry ranger proves uninformative; Mark learns about a new golf course and begins to think of runoff pollution; he “coincidentally” gets invited to spend time at the golf course; and discovers that Chet Chedderson is the developer. Of course, there are silly bits meant to keep the flow going and expand the storyline, such as the resort’s water park that Rusty explores, and Happy Trail being the person who invited Mark (and family) to the golf resort because he just happens to be a member of the new club. Overall, it’s a better than average storyline for Markey. But will it hold up?
We spent this week watching Mark and Happy deal with an alligator crossing the fairway while Chet and Brett whined and complained. Mark berated them about interfering with local nature habitats by building the golf course too close to the gator’s home. Then Mark helped the reptile get to its watery destination. This gator scenario will surely further convince Mark of the Cheddersons’ complicity in the lake pollution and embolden him to take more dramatic action. Or so I hope.
Alligators. Hardly a surprising subject, but as often as Rivera can, she relates the current subject to the current story or story location. The alligator literature says that gators do not normally attack humans unless provoked or reacting from a defensive posture. I’d still keep my distance. They are quite different from crocodiles, which will actively attack humans without provocation, often killing and consuming them. The Nile Crocodile (even feared in ancient Egypt) and the Freshwater Crocodile (S.E. Asia and Australia) have the highest annual body counts (in the hundreds). I never much thought about crocodiles when I was a young lad visiting Egypt and happily relaxed in low-hulled boat ferries crossing the Nile. But now? They scare the bejeebers out of me just thinking about them. You can look up “Crocodile Attack” in Wikipedia for more unsavory details.
Okay, so I used a popular click-bait title. It only works if people first see it, so I think I’m safe.
Today we get some good old-fashioned Grill-Master Mark work, as he roasts these two self-important boobies over some environmental ignorance. Nothing new, since a while ago Mark faced off against Papa Chedderson over zebra mussel infestation with his cargo ships, forcing court-ordered changes to his shipping business. So now, it’s his son taking up the reigns.
Art Dept. Sometimes I wonder if Rivera has somebody working with her, or if there is staff at the Syndicate doing post-production work. Maybe there was a printing or layout error. Who knows? But drawn lines extending from the artwork into the panel gutters is not a good look. Now, sometimes cartoonists will deliberately draw figures that overlap panel borders, but those instances are obvious and not accidental. The right side of Panel 1 shows the most obvious examples of this issue.
But runaway lines are in the other two panels, also (p2 shows Mark’s elbow extending beyond, and p3 shows the background curve running into the copyright notice). They are almost certainly not for visual appeal or invention. Cartoonists draw their own panels, so it’s difficult to account for these flubs.
If you have the urge, feel free to comment on these lines, or maybe the ever-changing faces of Mark. I count three variations today, one for each panel. Pretty sure Rivera is not doing a parody of the Tony Randall movie “The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.” Be Ware of Eve Hill might tackle the emenata.
Anyway, the gator is gone just in time for the end of the week. Is that a coincidence or what?! Maybe we’ll get back to Cherry’s story on Monday to see if it takes six days of strips to capture the peacock.
Now, I did some checking, but I can’t confirm that gators get stymied much by bushes. In some cases, they will hide in the bushes to ambush prey. Keep that in mind if you plan to stroll close to bush-lined ponds in South Carolina or Florida.
I imagine the thickness of the shrubs might be an important factor in slowing down gator movement. But didn’t Mark already move the bushes out of the way for that gator in yesterday’s strip? Why is he doing it again, unless Rivera is replaying the tape to run out the week. And panel 4 seems to imply there is a missing panel preceding that one, else what or who is Mark reacting to?
Helpful Hint: I read that the alligator can run short distances up to about 9 ½ mph! That’s when chasing prey or tourists who want to feed the gators and take selfies beside them. So, use the zoom feature of your camera for those close-up photos. And work on your sprints.
Are the Cheddersons from out of town or maybe have never played on golf courses in the southeast? Well, who can tell. And frankly, who cares, since the whole point here is to get in another scenario of humanity’s interactions with wildlife. And that awareness is part of the foundation of Mark Trail. Mark has been fighting an uphill battle for over 70 years, and it doesn’t look like he’s winning.
Art Dept. The wavy lines that we’ve been observing on Rusty, then Brett, and now both of the Cheddersons (panel 3) have lately been discussed in the Comments section. And here they are again, but only on the Cheddersons. Perhaps they represent the heat of the moment, i.e. some anxiety and anger.
I consulted the Lexicon of Comicana, by Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Boner’s Ark, et al.). He has a short bit on wavy lines: Wavy “heat” lines from hot drinks are called Indotherms. Wavy “hot” lines from the sun are called Solrads. Nothing about stink lines, though! I totally overlooked the Indotherm definition yesterday, by the way. Just a small note to Self to take more time.
Gee, I didn’t know that Happy actually works for Chet Chedderson, the obnoxious shipping magnate, and his man-child, Brett. Or maybe Chet just assumes Happy knows what to do. But Mark and Happy should know that the gator is not likely going to chase anybody and that the best thing to do is just play around him. A better outcome would be that Chet creates a tourist attraction out of the gator, similar to his “dangerous” water slide park. He can call the course “Gator Golf.”
Okay, this ho-hum story has to have some drama and there isn’t much of it in golf, unless you are a golfer. Hence, the alligator. Maybe things will get more exciting if Mother Cheshire’s prized peacock wanders onto the scene and becomes the gator’s afternoon snack! I’d love to see how Cherry and Honest Ernest react to that situation!
Say, did you notice that Cheshire and Chedderson (a cheese name pun) are both names for cheeses? A coincidence? Or the newest global conspiracy!?
Art Dept. Not sure what those squiggly lines symbolize in panel 1. Is Brett having a heat stroke? Is he burning up? Is his head shivering or trembling? We can rightfully claim some confusion, because Rivera used similar lines around Rusty last Friday, to show he was shivering after sliding into very cold water.
Given how this strip has lately been drawn, I have to admit that Mark’s head in panel 3 is a well-designed rugged and expressive head. A lot is due to a good application of thick and thin lines by Rivera, supported by Mark’s expression. And it’s an order of magnitude beyond the cartoony images in the other panels.
Reader Observantdonutad (the short form of his name) made the clever observation that neither Rivera nor anybody here managed to invoke the “See you later, ‘gator!” catchphrase into the script. Of course, I let him know that it was probably due to the fact that I and my other readers expect a higher level of humor (please don’t let the cat out of the bag!). Hence, my “higher level of humor” title for today’s blog. It’s sure to catch the amused eye of discriminating and highfalutin folks. It might even catch on!
Well, all of the evidence (i.e. videos) I’ve seen indicates that alligators eventually head towards and into the nearest source of water on their own, so there’s really little need for any “gator wrangling.” I couldn’t find any indication that Happy Trail (that is, “Mark Trail” before Jules Rivera) had done any gator wrangling in the past, even with electrical tape and smoothies. Comedy gold. HahHahHah…
Art Dept. Rivera continues her climb (or descent) into totally cartooning the strip. Yeah, I know there are lots of people who think she walked over that finish line a long time ago. But she’s not finished. I’m looking at Cherry in panel 1 and wondering how long much longer until she looks more like Little Lulu?
We’ve seen this circular device (panel 1) that Rivera uses to visualize objects a character is thinking or talking about. In this case, it is Cherry talking to Mark. Normally, Rivera would have the two characters looking at each other (like panel 2), even though Cherry is physically someplace else. However, sometimes Rivera gets a bit clever: She has Cherry looking at the alligator instead of Mark, based on Mark’s comment. How do I know this? It’s an educated guess, based on my many years of guessing about things.
Okay, in panel 1 Cherry’s head is a bit lower than Mark’s head (go ahead and measure it). Next, Cherry is looking across, not up. The only thing directly parallel and across from her is the gator. Ipso facto (and other Latin terms to make me seem clever), Cherry is looking at the gator. I guess,
The only thing I’ll pick on a bit is the depiction of the gator. How many of you watched that gator video I linked to? Or any other golf club gator vids? Question: Is this gator resting or walking? An alligator stands on its four legs when walking, so I’m hoping that Rivera knows this and is not suggesting the gator is moving across the grass while lying on its belly. Hah! You won’t get this kind of detailed, sharp analysis on other sites.
This is the week that was…wet. As in water parks. As in what looks like a second week with Cherry. On its own, it’s a bit unusual. But this week is not on her dime, is it? Or maybe it is. I mean, this is supposedly the story of Mark’s informal investigation of water pollution in a local swimming lake. Yet, we have had two weeks of Cherry and Rusty at the water park! (Oh, the trivia I get into. Do I even have a life?)
I think what we have is Jules Rivera “shaking up” her usual time allotments (2+ wks for Mark versus 1 wk for Cherry). So this week was really Cherry’s story slip-sliding into Mark’s. For those who came in late: The prize peacock belonging to Violet Cheshire’s mother (never “mom”!) escaped from the Sunny Soleil Society, leading to Cherry and Honest Ernest having to find it in time for a big-deal summer party. While Rusty was looking for more water slides, Honest Ernest phoned Cherry for help. Cherry had the day off, but since she’s been something of a nonentity the past several weeks, she relented and agreed to help Ernest, especially as she and Rusty spotted the peacock running around the resort.
Ernest arrived at the park. As the two conversed, the peacock suddenly ambushed Ernest by jumping on his head. Ernest was so upset that the peacock was able to escape once again. Meanwhile, Rusty had returned, shivering from the cold water of his latest slide. For reasons unknown to me, Cherry was getting very flustered and phoned Mark to make sure he was okay. I reckon all of the stress—from Rusty going on dodgy slides to getting herself talked into helping Ernest on her day off—was taking its toll. So she clearly needed a steady head and support.
Yet, talking to Mark, Cherry expressed the hope that her day was going better than Marks, thus contradicting the very reason she called (as far as I could tell)! In an attempt to downplay his own developing situation, Mark casually mentioned an alligator on the course interrupting play.
Such is the summary for the week. At least there was some action!
Andy finally made an appearance, if only for a brief cameo. I reckon that the cane toad is yet another case study of good intentions gone awry. Their eggs are laid in long jellied strips, housing up to 25,000 eggs. But only about 0.5% reach adulthood. I read the cane frog’s article in Wikipedia (the source of information for all of us half-baked experts!). The science backs up Mark’s warning about what happens to dogs that lick or bite cane toads. It’s yet another reason to avoid moving to Florida.
But it isn’t just animals that can get poisoned. Some humans have died, apparently thinking they were consuming a normal toad! <Bleh!> Best read the article for the other interesting tidbits. Well, go on…hop to it!
I understand gators are often seen on courses in various southern states, in part because people build golf courses on land frequented by alligators. So what do they expect!? And those gators can get quite large. YouTube has plenty of “golf course gator” videos, should you have the time and inclination. Here is a short one of a really big gator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXn1g0xtUMk. But none of the videos I saw showed golfers getting pulled into the water hazards, where they tend to hang out and breed. The alligators, that is.
I don’t understand Cherry’s logic. Yesterday, she’s practically falling apart in fear that Mark was having an even worse day than she was. But today, it’s the opposite. And Cherry seems to think that she can just snap her rhetorical fingers to get Mark to leave in the middle of a golf game.
Meanwhile, there is chaos on the links, as the Cheddersons attack an alligator in panel 1, or at least try to chase it off. None of the videos I watched showed golfers being that nuts. If we’re really lucky, maybe there will be an opportunity for the gator to snack on some “chedders”!
In spite of having the peacock in hand, or on-the-head, Honest Ernest seems to have lost it once again. Do you notice anything else? In panel 2 Ernest looks older, more self-reflective and serious. I’m not sure what the extra-heavy inking of his work suit is all about, but he certainly presents a different persona, like a real person. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Again.
Meanwhile, I don’t get Cherry. Well, I don’t get why she is turning into this less capable, more worrisome person, as if she has nothing more to do than just react to everything going on around her. As for that narration box in panel 3: It was my understanding that the phrase “having a man in your/her/my life” refers to somebody personally close, such as a boyfriend, husband, or son. How does Ernest fit into any of those categories!? Isn’t he the ineffectual opponent to Cherry and the entire Trail family? He’s made actual threats and instigated violence against several of them, in fact.
Even Rivera seems to have forgotten the “other men” in Cherry’s life, to wit: Her brother, Dirk, and her father, Doc Davis. They don’t count anymore? Well, they do spend most of their time stuck in the “Mark Trail Occasional Character” closet.
Cherry has become a worrywart, hasn’t she? Is Rusty really coming apart (emotionally or psychologically)? And what’s that panic phone call all about? If this trend is going to continue, I’d rather see Ed Dodd’s version of Cherry. At least she had spunk in the beginning!
Wait…
Rivera’s Cherry had spunk in the beginning, too! The pre-Rivera Cherry eventually became more of a stay-at-home, dutiful wife, worrying about her husband’s safety or catching rays on a beach. And it looks like Rivera’s Cherry is following a similar path. But it’s a dead-end that leads to obscurity and irrelevance. Still, there are differences: The pre-Rivera Cherry could have ceased to exist without affecting the strip very much. Mark could just as well have had Doc minding Rusty, or hired a nanny. Rivera’s Cherry, on the other hand, has mostly been a positive, dynamic part of the strip, with her own storylines and supporting cast. Maybe she just needs to get out of Mark’s shadow more often.
I thought the object was to catch and hold on to the peacock, not push it away. Excuse my ignorance, but what is the tree branch for? Does Cherry think the bird will suddenly jump on it, like a squirrel!? My other question is, where is the cage or sack that Honest Ernest should have had with him after capturing the peafowl? And what is Honest Ernest supposed to do while Cherry goes off in search of that tree branch? It’s not as if she can just lean down and pick one up; she’s at a golf resort, for goodness sake!
As for Rusty, looks like he took the scaredy-cat slide that goes directly into the water, rather than the other slide, reserved for those carrying catastrophic health insurance. I reckon Rusty now knows why it is a Penguin Pool.
Art Dept. Panel 1 is actually a well-designed layout in terms of the figures and the use of available panel space. A strong diagonal alignment reinforces the panicky actions of both figures. The peacock, itself, is rather striking, even while lacking very much definition. But not bad for the size of a comic strip panel.
As several of you know (or suspect), I try to get into the strip from various ways. I don’t want to simply or exclusively point out the bloopers. I want to shine light on the interesting, inventive, and positive aspects of the strip, as well. Sure, sometimes the weight falls on the former more than the latter. Well, maybe a lot more often than that.
With the peacock’s sudden appearance, will Honest Ernest grab it and thus, bring Cherry’s little side-story to a quick conclusion? It could happen! It could also be her shortest story on record.
Art Dept. The visual juxtaposition between high and low levels becomes an interesting problem when designing panel layouts. In panel 1, the ground appears to have been “tilted” to a degree to show Cherry and Honest Ernest looking up at Rusty. And we have Rivera’s stereotypical silhouettes in the background to suggest other attendees. The space between them and the adjacent downside view in panel 1 get muddied. And the angular alteration of the ground doesn’t work very well because the high and low spatial relationships are also ambiguous. Is Rusty looking down or across? Are Cherry and Ernest really below or more likely just standing on a slightly lower embankment off to the side?
The layout in panel 2 is much more credible. It’s actually done well, as Rusty clearly looks down to a more spatially coherent lower ground. Cherry and Ernest are clearly looking up. If there is any complaint, it would be Rivera’s tendency to use a profile when interacting with people positioned “behind.” I discussed this quirk on 7/30/25 and 7/31/25.
I could quibble about the drawing of Rusty’s and Cherry’s faces, as well, including curiously ambiguous facial anatomy and Cherry’s non-ending dripping from her pool incursion. But I’ll leave that to your own analysis.
Finally, we have the peacock landing on Honest Ernest’s head. On TV or the big screen, this avian assault would get plenty of chuckles. Or perhaps, shock, as we see Cherry’s reaction. Peacocks may, in fact, jump on you if they feel threatened by you. And I suppose the mere presence of Honest Ernest is threatening enough to just about anybody or any animal.
But the main issue here is the smaller size of the peacock. Perhaps that was done to fit on the head and within the panel better than drawing a more realistically-sized peacock. I don’t know. It just looks odd.
When I used to go wading and body surfing on the shores of the Atlantic in Virginia Beach, the worst that sometimes happened to me (other than sunburn) was getting stung by jellyfish. But they really sting! Reader Downpuppy left a comment referring to a post by Jules Rivera about her own unfortunate encounter with a stingray, which may have inspired the stingray pond.
That Penguin slide we see has to be some 25-30 feet above the pool (which we cannot even see)! That’s about the height of Olympic diving platforms, making this water slide beyond the normal skillset and safety margins of most families. Maybe Rivera really was inspired by the New Jersey Action Park.
I was amused by Honest Ernest’s panic attack in panel 1, as it brings a look of wide-eyed shock to Cherry; or maybe she reacts to how he refers to Violet as “Miss Violet.” That’s certainly an old-fashioned phrase that Cherry, herself, used from time to time in the early days of the strip when talking to Violet Cheshire (see the strips for 8/23/21 and 3/28/23). Yet, Ernest is only talking about Violet. Why refer to her that way, when Cherry knows her almost as well as he does. Don’t worry; I’m not going to deconstruct it. It probably means nothing.
Rivera shifted the story’s focus this week from the golf course to the water park. As Mark and Happy walked off with the Cheddersons for a round of golf, Cherry and Rusty went to the water park where Rusty tried out the “stingray spinner” water slide (what we used to call a snake slide in my youth). Turns out the pool (or pond) contained actual stingrays put there (according to the staff) to make the experience more exciting. But for whom? The concept of using actual stingrays in a pool designed for family entertainment sounds just a tad reckless, wouldn’t you say? Earlier this week, some readers discussed a now-defunct amusement park in New Jersey that bragged about its dangerous rides. So, reckless? Sure. More importantly, does it make any sense to include this “stingray” diversion in the story, or was it just thrown in to be weird? Or is it meant to reveal something of the character of Chet Chedderson?
Cherry yanked Rusty out of the water and berated one of the teenaged pool staff, to little avail. But right then, Cherry got a phone call from Honest Ernest whining about her not helping find the lost peacock. Cherry reminded Ernest that she had the day off, so it was now his job.
Rivera is not one to waste an opportunity for a traditional “but just then…!” opportunity, so as she ended the call, the missing peacock suddenly appeared near the pool. Will Cherry call Ernest back and tell him to come get it, or will she and Rusty go chasing after the peafowl all over the resort? Well, gang, maybe we’ll have some real suspense, at last!
And you thought getting stung by jelly fish was bad (Well, I sure do)! Looks like reader comments on stingrays discussed on Friday were not enough to replace the Sunday topic, so Rivera still had her say. But today’s topic is not really so much about the rays as the consequences of human interaction with them. And it looks to be no fun at all. I read that sometimes the blade of a stinger gets embedded in a person unlucky enough to get stabbed, requiring surgery to remove it. Ugh! Maybe wading in the surf with sandals is a better option.
Being Saturday, it appears that Jules Rivera is trying to tie up several loose ends before Monday. Does that mean we will flip back to the the golf game or do we continue this convoluted sideline?
Cherry can complain all she wants, but nobody forced her to answer the phone. Meanwhile, Rusty has been restricted to a kid-safe pool, though he is having a good time, anyway.
Looks like the timelines of Mark’s and Cherry’s adventures are, indeed, synchronous after all. This had been an earlier concern of mine when Happy showed up at the cabin (July 14) and started this golf trip subplot. Do you recall the peacock we saw on the golf course in the July 26 strip? With his appearance again today, it suggests that the golfing resort is, as surmised, close to the Sunny Soleil Society HQ. “So what,” you ask? Well, that is one question that stymies most media critics when put to them about their writing. But I have an answer for today, at least: “So I was right!”
But where does Rivera go from here? Cherry has the day off, so it’s doubtful she will dump Rusty off on Mark and head back to the Society. She could just call Honest Ernest back, report the peacock sighting, and let him deal with it. That would give her more time to complain to the pool staff.
Well, it’s not much of a confrontation; just some desultory venting. What happened to you, Cherry?
And sorry, car fans, but no vintage Corvette Stingrays are sporting about in the Stingray pond, as reader observantdonutad36129846 commiserated in a recent comment. And reader Triteon reminded us that stingrays can kill a human without using its venom, if you are unlucky enough to get struck in the right (or wrong) place on your body. Looks like we got the Sunday Nature Chat out of the way for the week!
Art Dept. When Cherry gets mad, she certainly transforms, and I don’t just mean emotionally. As many of you might recall, Dr. Bruce Banner, when under great stress, would transmorph into The Incredible Hulk®. But when Cherry gets stressed out, it looks like she turns into Jules Rivera; or maybe her sister. For Mark’s sake, let’s hope that he’s not the one calling.
I am faced with the visual evidence that this water park pond has actual stingrays in it. Going along with the story, one has to wonder why anybody would open such a water park and think it will attact anybody but lawsuit chasers. Are the Cheddersons that out of touch with reality or are they playing a prank? These could be fake stingrays, as I suggested earlier, to add a bit of spice to a humdrum experience. I suppose these could be real stingrays that have had their venom removed, though that sounds rather expensive and dubious for a mere water park. In addition, what will Mark do when he finds out how stingrays are being potentially misused and possibly harmed, all for “a good time”!? I’m assuming this will all get back to Mark.
I reckon we’ll learn more soon, but wackiness is almost always on the Mark Trail menu of plot devices.
Art Dept. Rivera normally uses her standard “pendant symmetry” in a single panel, but today she spread it across panels 2 and 3 to frame the action. This is an exception to the issue I brought up yesterday, of characters not facing the people they are talking to or talking about. Instead, this is actually a clever composition: In panel 2, Cherry’s profile in the foreground confronts Rusty questioning her, from the background. In panel 3, Rivera reverses the sequence, so that Rusty is in profile in the foreground, as Cherry stands in the background and replies to his question. Taken together, we also see Cherry and Rusty “facing each other,” as if they are both communicating in the same foreground. Like I said, a clever composition!
The Daily Trail 