Mark’s salon of villains and troublemakers is relatively limited; less than a dozen over the past 5 years. Several have made multiple appearances:  Professor Bee Sharpe, Cricket Bro (and his brother, Jadsen), Senator Smalls, and Chet Chedderson come to mind. Now we can add Tess Tigress to that list with her second appearance.

With the power of a comic strip named after himself, Mark Trail ensured Bill Ellis would give him the assignment that Ellis originally wanted to assign to a female reporter. No complaint was provided from Bill Ellis, suggesting that Mark may have censored that part of the phone conversation. Or Ellis knew what was better for him and remained mum.

Mark began researching his subject: A trio of women on the lookout to kill wild pigs (or boars) destroying private property in Texas. When Mark discovered that the leader of the so-called Texas Hog Hunting Heroines was Tess Tigress—former owner of a fraudulent and abusive tiger petting zoo (also in Texas) and target of an earlier assignment of his—he was taken aback (as we used to say, before gobsmacked became fashionable).

At this point, the remainder of the week was spent with Mark moaning and explaining his reactions to Cherry. Now, she would have already known about Tess Tigress, because of Mark’s earlier assignment. But let’s give Jules Rivera some credit for using this week to review the background on Tess for the benefit of new readers (if any) and old people like me, with failing memories. Or you can call it story padding, as I earlier noted. This background could have been delivered in just a few days, rather than using the entire week. So, maybe it’s a little of both.

As is common for Sunday, Rivera picks a topic that is somehow related to the current storyline. In this case, the Chihuahuan Raven, which can be found in western Texas (as well as New Mexico and Mexico). Rivera provides the usual customized title panel, with the title nicely integrated into the tree. And, unfortunately, we have Rivera’s usual practice of dedicating the concluding panel to a weak joke, rather than giving more information on the raven. For example, the American Birding Association reports that misidentification is common between this bird and the common raven, even by birders. Go figure.

What else? It is found in western Kansas. The Kansas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks reports that they are sometimes killed by humans mistaking them for common crows. Another understandable mistake, I think.