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Rivera managed to work in a reference to bears and we wind up talking about Chinese painting

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Wow, Cherry’s exclamation in panel 4 was really unexpected, right!?  I mean, who would expect that after all of this nature talk, something ironic would occur? 

One might be given to thinking that, after so many years being married and living in Lost Forest (even ignoring the pre-Rivera years), Mark and Cherry would have long run out of platitudes and affirmations about nature by now. However, one high note is that we can hope Mark admonishes Cherry for her destruction of a spider’s (temporary) domicile and meal factory. Mark can’t play favorites, can he?

Art Dept. I’m glad to see, at long last, a bit more variety in panel layouts. We get a bird’s eye view in panel 1 (complete with the required bird) and a worm’s eye view in panel 2 (minus the worm, because it must have been consumed by the cardinal). 

But there is more to this than just adding different viewpoints! 

The first two panels visually emphasize Mark and Cherry as figures within nature, as they rhapsodize over its many splendors. This reminds me of classic Chinese landscape painting, where nature predominates and people are just very small travelers and nature lovers. 

The last two panels zoom in on Mark and Cherry to deliver the unneeded joke. The focus shifts to Cherry’s personal interaction with, and reaction to, the spider web. So, the position of Nature moves from the macro to the micro. And very importantly, it is in the service of reinforcing the dialog. Now, that is good design!

Nerdy Art History Note: Am I saying that Rivera was influenced by Chinese art or philosophy? I have no idea. It is a rather grandiose comparison, after all. It may be nothing more than the commonality of ideas that transcend time, place, and ethnicity. If you are not familiar with Chinese landscape painting, do an online search for “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams” by Fan Kuan, a painter of the Northern Song dynasty. Find some good images. You’ll likely need to view separate detailed images to find the travelers.

And just like that, we’re back in Lost Forest!

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It’s nice to see that Rivera wants to make sure (panel 1) that we know that the person welcoming Mark and Rusty inside that “Lincoln Log” cabin is Cherry, though one could be forgiven for thinking they might have stepped into the wrong cabin, seeing as how it is much smaller and different than other illustrations.

In fact, here is what the cabin looked like when Rivera started, back in October 2020. The resolution here is a bit poor, due to this being a copy of a copy of a digital copy. If you look through the strips since Rivera started, you will see that the Trail home changed several times to handle whatever the visual need was at that time.

According to the official history, the cabin actually belongs to Doc Davis (and maybe Cherry), not Mark. Mark just married into it. Did Doc sell his share in the home to Mark? I don’t know. But over time, Mark has managed to become Master of the Cabin, sidelining Doc Davis to his bedroom and occasional screen time.

Rusty exuberantly reacting like a real kid in panel 3 instead of like his socially deprived presentation in the pre-Rivera strips adds the only bit of reality and humor to this otherwise traditional hokey homecoming (which is closer to the pre-Rivera spirit).

Art Dept. My Lincoln Log joke is unfortunately reinforced by the really cartoony landscape, where Rivera didn’t even try to provide any semblance of reality. No wonder the cabin looks different: Maybe this is just a symbolic representation, like a dream or a kid’s play set. Well, at least Lost Forest escaped the hurricanes and floods.

Come to think of it, that would make a great storyline for the strip, where the characters have to deal with the dangers and after-effects of a large-scale natural disaster. It would be a great time to finally show a serious side of the strip, dealing with real physical, emotional, and social problems. How about it, Rivera?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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It seems we reached the end of another unfulfilling story. We had a few weeks of strips showing Mark prowling through a mansion filled with indolent, senile lions in search of clues, followed by Mark and Sammy Spotter prowling around a nearby stream to locate a cave where they believed director what’s-his-full-name might be trapped. But first they retrieved Rusty, to give him something to do and brag about back home.

This past week we saw our Gang of Three paddling kayaks into the cave, where they survived a freak wave designed to create some faux drama. At this point, Rusty finally earned his stripes. In this remarkably well-lit cave, Rusty spotted an opening in a cave wall. Using his vaunted tree-climbing expertise, Rusty looked over the cave wall and spotted a man lying in the next chamber. Lo and behold, it was missing movie director, what’s-his-full-name! Somehow, they got him out of the cave and onto dry land where an EMT squad appeared and prepared him for the hospital. Exactly how he was trapped or whether he had any kind of physical injury was never mentioned. Finally, a real mystery!

Mark told director what’s-his-full-name that he was not the only one getting rescued today. Mark condemned his harmful lion exploitation, so he was taking control of the animals. Mark will turn them over to animal rescue services, much to the consternation of director what’s-his-full-name. Still, I’m sad to discover that Sammy Spotter was not a criminal mastermind after all.

Looking ahead, I reckon 24 hours must be up by now, so we’ll soon find out what Cherry and Violet have done with the kittens before Mother Cheshire returns! Until then, lean back and enjoy some nature.

Mark invokes his inner “Batman” in this Rivera Revisit of bats. It seems Jules just can’t get enough of them. Was today’s strip inspired by Mark’s recent Catalina Island foray into a cave, or a homage to his earlier cave adventure under the pen of James Allen? Hard to say, but there’s a whole lot of other animals, plant life, and environmental issues out there to cover. There shouldn’t be any need to recycle Sunday topics at this point, given Rivera’s short turn at bat (did you catch my Rivera-inspired pun?).

NEAR Lost Forest! How Sad…‏

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Mark will have to come home every night and endure Doc’s insipid face,  Rusty’s whining about “going fishing,” and Cherry’s  “advances…”

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Yes, or he cheats…  probably keeps freeze-dried fish in his waders that can be re-animated with a little water…