Is the US under imminent attack by foreign invaders?

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Mark must really be bored. However, he did just reveal the reason for his suspicions: The blue diamond shrimp can be invasive if they are released into non-native water environments. As a member of the species Neocaridina davidi, the shrimp are native to parts of South East Asia, around Taiwan, and off the coast of China. However, selling and owning these shrimp (they are bred in a variety of colors) is totally legal.

So there is no conspiracy going on and no attempt to violate international laws. Mark is just overreacting. I suspect he’ll wind up making an appearance at Rusty’s school where he’ll lecture (and bore) the students on the dangers of releasing pets into the wild. Shucks, anybody who lives near Florida probably already knows about that stuff! <Yawn!> Even for Jules Rivera, this is pretty light fare for a Mark Trail story. But the plot could go another way and make it a bit more interesting:

This is the kind of investigation that Rusty could undertake on his own and then present to class. It’s too minor a problem for Mark to bother with. He should just point Rusty in the right direction and then get out of the way. Rusty would be the protagonist of the story, not just a plot-device for Mark.

Rusty’s involvement would also help rebuild some of his lost confidence; to say nothing of putting Robbie on the defensive. Okay, that last part is not necessarily a virtue, but these are kids, after all. And Rusty can use a victory!

Mark Trail finds new ways to waste his time!

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Mark thinks an investigation is needed because Robbie owns some blue shrimp!? Jules Rivera—and by extension, Mark Trail,—seems ignorant of the fact that blue shrimp can legally be purchased by anybody, throughout the United States. Case closed, Mark.

So when the heck is Mark going to get off his lazy butt and get an actual paying assignment?

Art Dept. Do I need to point out (in panel 1) that Rivera also seems ignorant of—or indifferent to—basic perspective, since logs on either side of a doorway cannot be simultaneously seen at an angle? That is, we should only be able to see the ends of the logs on one side, only. Else, we’d have to assume the wall curves away from the door on both sides. That might be the case for a house ready to collapse in on itself.

Rusty is publically humiliated! The world crumbles around him.

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When Rusty Trail was (re)introduced by Rivera, he was portrayed as a relatively normal kid with the usual stereotypical glitches, such as shyness (around girls, anyway), a penchant for fantasy, and trying to not adopt all of his dad’s habits and hobbies (such as fishing). Rusty has lately taken on additional personality traits, such as unusual stubbornness and whining. The latter has been his go-to reaction, lately, especially when it involves Robbie Shaw.

Exactly how Robbie “beat” Rusty in show-and-tell has not yet been revealed, though Jules Rivera may give us a flashback this week. Of course, we might blame Rusty for his own downfall, based simply on his understanding of what show-and-tell is for, and for his apparent lack of preparation. We’ll have to see some evidence. After all, turquoise really is just a blue stone, so presentation is important! However, I’m also surprised that Mark “Mr. Wildlife” Trail did not seem to know about blue shrimp!

Art Dept. Panel 1 does not work as well as it should, visually speaking. Rivera has used the circular headshots quite often when showing people speaking from within a structure. This technique is often used to provide the current context for the conversation (such as inside of an airplane), where Rivera can mash two panel spaces together to create a more scenic composition. There is a lot of visual competition going on that gets in the way.

First of all, the composition has too much clutter, including the pileated woodpecker that eats up so much space! What is more important here:  The bird or the conversation? Second, the circular headshots would normally be linked into the cabin by “tails” running from the circles to the cabin, just like the dialog balloons. That insures we know where the speakers are. Third, Mark’s dialog balloon could have been more efficiently designed to display his words on only three rows instead of four. This could have resulted in more open space for the scene. Fourth: In this case, the scene could have been better composed by omitting the encircled heads and just tagging the cabin with the dialog balloon. This would more clearly put us, the readers, in the foreground with the woodpecker, while Mark and Rusty’s conversation goes on in the background. It would be like a common cinematic technique of hearing a conversation before seeing the speakers, as the camera zooms in from the distance and ultimately reveals and focuses on the actors.

Double your pleasure, double your puns

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In case you were wondering, my goofy cryptid-driven fantasizing on Monday was inspired by the books of Rick Riordan, author of the youth adventure books featuring young protagonists like Percy Jackson. Rusty has had a fascination for cryptids over a long time and has gone on a few cryptid hunts, though they always seem to be treated as page-filler for Mark’s and Cherry’s stories.

Anyway, the Tuesday strip shows that I was somewhere in the ballpark about Robbie being involved in Rusty’s show-and-tell. And Robbie’s blue diamond shrimp might be a clue for what is coming this Sunday. If so, Mark may inform Robbie that the recommended minimum water capacity for this type of pet shrimp is a five-gallon tank. Frankly, I’m not even sure what Robbie is holding, as it seems to be only about ½ inch deep. Show-and-Tell might be a little odd for middle school students, but perhaps it is a science class.

As is usual, Jules Rivera cannot resist ruining whatever mood the strip is building by inserting one of her “let’s keep it cute and funny” puns in panel 4. It does not end here.

Robbie may be underhanded, deceitful, a bully, and a liar (the apple doesn’t fall far, I think), but he does have confidence. Unfortunately, Rusty does not exhibit much confidence, and Robbie knows how to exploit that weakness. It may be justified, but Rusty certainly loses his cool around Ranger Shaw’s untrustworthy son.

At the same time, Rusty will have a tough time making his small bit of turquoise stone look as interesting to the class as living blue shrimp! Now, if Rusty (for example) had some legitimate Navajo jewelry to illustrate how turquoise can be employed and shown off, he could make a big splash with the class.

It was predicted in the ancient scrolls!

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It’s a new week in the Trailverse and time for new adventures! I know what you’re thinking: How on earth will Jules Rivera top the action and suspense of Cherry’s Bats in the Belfry story or Mark’s Caving with the Kooks adventure? I don’t know about you, but I’m glad we had last week to recover, so I’m ready for the next blockbuster drama! Watch out, Flash Gordon!

Apparently, Rivera has adopted a common “misdirection” approach to suspense, presenting a seemingly mundane activity, one undertaken by the Trails and other families during the school year, just to present a false sense of calm before the storm.

Yet, even now, we see some hint of suspense beginning to take root: Rusty has a stone of turquoise, something I’m sure that few people outside of Nevada have ever seen, much less heard of. No doubt, it’s a magical stone once used in secret ceremonies by an ancient indigenous people, now gone extinct. I’m thinking that a student in class (perhaps Robbie) will accidentally rub the stone in a way that causes it to vibrate furiously, glow brighter and brighter, then suddenly expel a ferocious cryptid, bent on eating everyone in the room!

Hold on, I need to catch my breath.

Okay, I’m better. On second thought, maybe Rusty’s fellow students will simply laugh at his boring blue stone, sending him running back into the woods to reclaim his King of Raccoons throne.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This was the week following the conclusion of the cave rescue adventure and its epilogue. Mark spent most of the time talking to Diana Daggers over a video chat. She was catching Mark up on her own post-rescue events. Seems she found gold in Cricket Bro’s disaster by posting her video of CB’s reckless behavior and its consequences.

Diana’s video went viral and earned her enough money to open her own video studio where she is now making videos on how to safely explore caves, using Cricket Bro as the bad example. The week closed out with Cherry making an appearance, yanking Mark outside for their usual “welcome home nature walk.” Cherry’s bat cave adventure appears to have ended the previous week, so it’s likely we’ll have some Lost Forest time for both Mark and Cherry for a few days

Sometimes Jules Rivera’s custom title panels are average but more often, above average. But they are always customized for the current topic. This isn’t unique in comic strips but it is still commendable for Rivera to make the extra effort. I just wish she would make the same effort to avoid making Mark sound like some morning-time TV host mouthing cutsy, glib puns, which are sometimes vague and often just plain bad.

“I’ll have a banana split with a cherry on top”

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Here comes Cherry with her bedroll … I mean, day pack. Time for another opportunity to enjoy nature the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed: In secret, behind a lot of bushes, and with a bottle of wine. With the size of their log house, privacy has to be at a premium for Mark and Cherry Trail. Otherwise, we need hardly speculate that it could be embarrassing if this was the moment when Doc Davis decided to return from the Zombie Zone of Irrelevance, enter the house, and call out “What’s all that racket going on in there? Is everybody okay?”

Mark is rightfully confused … and wrong!

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No, Cricket Bro did not “accidentally” do the right thing! He did the wrong thing and knew he was doing wrong. Diana Daggers found inspiration to make safety videos based on Cricket Bro’s mistakes. Sorry, Mark; you got it wrong, as did Diana.

I have personal experience in a related situation, as well. As a graduate student many decades ago, I was in a seminar and had to write a series of essays based on a particular style of textual analysis known as L’explication de texte. While I thought I was doing it correctly, my professor said that I had completely misunderstood the nature of this format and that my essays were, therefore, wrong. This is different from Cricket Bro, who knew he was in the wrong. Anyway, to twist the knife more, my professor asked me if she could use some of my essays for other students as examples of how to not write a L’explication de texte. Because I was pro-education, I consented (I also hoped it would influence my seminar grade!).

Cricket Bro knew he was doing a wrong thing, while I thought I was doing the right thing, but was still wrong. Diana Daggers used Cricket Bro’s mistakes to make videos showing the right things to do. My professor used my failures to instruct other students on what to not do. Is there a moral to this? I have no idea.

Mark has second thoughts about saving Cricket Bro!

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What if fools do imitate Cricket Bro!? Maybe Mark never heard of the Darwin Awards. So, Mark certainly looks agitated (panel 2) over Diana Daggers’ remarks about Cricket Bro’s actions and influence. But Mark can feel free to carry some of the guilt, himself, for whatever hell he is imagining. After all, he helped rescue the person who tried to kill him in the past, notwithstanding other actions Cricket Bro has taken against him. And Mark could have pressed Ranger Shaw to seek Cricket Bro’s arrest for whatever rules he broke entering the cave … wait, my fault for considering Ranger Shaw to do anything positive.

Techno remixes seem so retro. I would expect to see quality AI parodies these days. In any event, there are two more days of this excitement to get through. But wait (once again): There is a second week to deal with. ¡Ay, caramba! Perhaps Cherry will spend most of next week filling Mark in on her own batty adventure.

Maybe I’m being too critical, too conservative. After all, we are learning more about how Mark fills his days when he is not off on an assignment or helping somebody. But maybe he could spend a few frames chatting with his father-in-law, his sisters-in-law, or some of his friends (if he has any) at the local bar. Who knows what could come out of these get-togethers?

Dianna made money. All Mark got was a swim in the river.

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Dianna Daggers’ new studio is either within the building in panel 4, or its sole occupant. Either way, she must have struck gold. The building sign seems to say Busy Bird Studio. There is, in fact, a real Busybird Studio in Amsterdam, doing commercial screen-printing. There is also a Busy Bird Studio art marketing profile on Pinterest. Just thought you’d be interested. Why would Jules Rivera select a name that is already used by real businesses?

However, it looks like Daggers has found her calling and given up her Bad Girl shtick. Too bad; I still thought she had potential as either an ongoing rival to Mark or a really good sidekick. Well, there are three more days to fill out the week. I wonder if Mark will write up his cave rescue and try to sell it to Bill Ellis or some other publisher.

Sometimes Pointlessness is the point!

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And why should Mark care one whit about what the Boob Bros are doing?

Well, silly question. Mark has a forgiving and naive heart. Otherwise, we’re back to stretching out the week with the usual blarney, for what purpose I’m not sure. This mindless twaddle might merge into a new story. It’s also possible that this week is progressing on a level beyond my simpleminded understanding. Or, the week will simply end with no purpose, as Mark goes off on a completely different assignment next week.

A Conversation that would offend George Washington?

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Ol’ George “Cannot tell a lie” Washington lived in a time when conversing on an equal footing with persons of a different color, much less a woman, would almost never happen. And Washington certainly would not ask her “How was that for you?” But he’s dead and gone, so we can just move on.

Now, isn’t that’s a nice Monarch butterfly?! Also noteworthy: Jules Rivera managed to include the Green House in the back yard once again. What next, an interactive conversation with Ralph the Rat Snake? On the other hand, Mark is talking about a rescue disaster as if it was an amusement park ride or a hot date (panel 1).

However, Diana Daggers has a point: Why is Mark calling her weeks after the event? Surely they had time to a postmortem or victory dinner by now. What is Mark up to, besides not soliciting work from Bill Ellis?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Is this The End? That is, is this the end of Cherry’s latest (miss)adventure? This past week saw Honest Ernest watching Cherry get into her truck to drive home after a full day’s labor. As he walked towards the music hall building—pesticide tank on his back—Ernet continued to fantasize about his illicit love for the married Violet Cheshire, supported by his knight errant’s pursuit of virtue. In this case, gassing a bunch of bats.

But as he prepared to lance his foes, a bright spotlight manned by a shadowy figure caught him unawares. Turns out it was Cherry’s brother, Dirk the Huge, who was there at Cherry’s request to intercept Honest Ernest. Assisted by his own trusty wild hogs, Dirk did not have to bellow, overtly threaten, or physically assault the cowed Ernest. Like Don Corleone, Dirk gave Ernest an offer he couldn’t refuse, which put “CANCELED!” to his chivalric ambitions.

This is the point in the story where it collapsed into Alice’s Wonderland of confusion, with Honest Ernest too confused or fearful to move and the bats heading out for their nightly dinner call. So, it sure looks like the ending of the story, or at least, of the main plot of the story. But we would normally return to Mark’s ongoing story, except that it appeared that the cave rescue adventure also ended. That means we might see a week of Mark and Cherry going on another one of their expurgated “nature” walks as they share their experiences and await a call from Bill Ellis. And it will be high time that Mark started earning money for the family once again!


Anymore “cave shrimp” jokes? Okay, then. What’s in a name? Or names? Why don’t we just keep it simple and refer to this insect as “Rhaphidophoridae.” Then we won’t be confused by all of its cute, if vague, aliases. The general consensus is that Rhaphidophoridae are not endangered; don’t make good pets for your kids; have little, if any, value outside of being occasional food for bats, spiders, and mice; and are mostly considered pests if they wind up in your house. Getting rid of them can be problematic on your own.

Another 2-Fer Post: The Return of Dirk!

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I’m down in Virginia visiting Dad again, which means I get out of synch with things, such as time differentials and remembering to hit the Publish button. Therefore, today’s post includes yesterday’s and today’s strips.

Well, on one hand, I’m surprised again to see that Jules Rivera pulled a big rabbit out of her hat in the form of brother Dirk, the “Hoss” of this here Trailverse. I’m also surprised that Rivera didn’t use the obvious cliché line, “Say hello to my little friends.” Perhaps there is hope? Maybe not, because even without the movie quote, Rivera still can’t resist turning drama into dramedy.

Panel 1: Is this self-parody, having Dirk’s search light make a “BEAM!” sound? Also odd, because yesterday, the sound effect was “FLASH!” like a light that comes on for only an instant.
Panel 1: Why spoil the surprise by putting a wild hog in the panel?
Panel 3: Dirk continues to have the worst beard in the comic strips. It’s worse than the fake beards in “Oh Brother, Where Art Though?” And I stand corrected: That hat looks more like a canvas hat than a fedora.

Note: I think yesterday’s episode was something of a cheat. The profiled silhouette was not sporting any kind of beard. And the hat looks different. But let’s press on to the current strip of this story:

Today’s installment qualifies for a first-class cop-out trophy for its sudden and nonsensical ending. “Hold on!”, I can hear some of you protest. Okay, pretend there are some readers who protest my short, swift denunciation. I could see this story’s apparently swift conclusion as a homage to the non-sequitur style of humor that Monty Python often indulged in (“And now, for something completely different…”). And I could be totally wrong in thinking this is the conclusion to the story, rather than just the end of a chapter.

OTH, perhaps Jules Rivera just got tired of the story and decided to cut it off here. Or maybe she is trying to wrap up this story at the same time as Mark’s current cave rescue adventure appears to be concluding.

At the same time, it’s always interesting when Dirk shows up; even if his contribution is mainly limited to scaring people into submission or retreat. Say, isn’t it curious that Dirk seems to only show up when Mark is busy elsewhere? It’s as if their concurrent appearances would destabilize the immediate vicinity in a cataclysm.

Do you disagree with anything I wrote? Catch something I missed or come up with a new insight? Let us know in the Comments section!

The Shadow knows…?

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Well, it looks like Jules Rivera set up Honest Ernest to go with the second option: Exterminate the bats. However, this timely, dramatic interruption sets up a nice mystery. Indeed, who is that person in the 40’s style hat? Did somebody call in the Fish & Wildlife Service to stake out the music hall? Or did Violet Cheshire’s husband get wind of the situation and stood in wait for Ernest to show up? Or maybe somebody completely different, like a newspaper reporter! I’m thinking more along that line, given the flash camera shot and the fedora hat, stereotypical components of newspaper reports in the old days. Maybe he even wears a trench coat. Yet that sounds like a silly idea.

I’m actually a bit excited to see what happens next. Glad to see Rivera engaging in some drama and mystery, rather than continue her too-frequent attempts at being humorous. There are already plenty of gag-a-day strips and way, too few adventure strips.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of

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Poor ol’ southern boy Honest Ernest. Who knew he had any awareness of classical music? Well, I suppose he might pick up something here and there, under the spell of Miss Violet. Falling for a married woman (as Violet Cheshire is supposed to be) can be really tough. And it would explain at least some of Honest Ernest’s egregious behavior.

But Ernest is doomed to play the loser, but not one of the lovable losers, because he has few redeeming qualities, as all regular readers know. Speaking of which, where is this husband of Violet’s, anyway? Has anybody ever seen him? Is he even aware that Violet and Honest Ernest shared a few intimate moments in the past (when Ernest was still married, as well)? Clearly, Jules Rivera doesn’t think Violet’s husband could contribute anything to this strip. However, he could fill the occasional visiting character role of showing up to find Ernest and knock his head in. We could have the occasional day of V’s husband chasing Honest Ernest around the village and into the forest. Kind of a running joke, I think.

Well, it’s the middle of the week. What will Honest Ernest do? Will he wind up getting attacked once again? Will he annihilate the bat population as he pledged? Or will he discover the bats finally took off on their own?

Honest Ernest earnestly deals with unsolicited criticism

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I’m a bit confused here … okay, maybe a bit more than that. Is Honest Ernest responding to Jules Rivera’s narration box in panel 1!? I mean, he’s look at us, not the narration box over his head. But of course, in the comic strip world, the narration box just represents the narrator’s voice, rather than a physical sign, as we see it. However, characters do not normally respond directly to narration boxes. Also, I’m reminded of the Western parody film short available on Youtube: “The Gunfighter”, narrated by Nick Offerman, in which the characters and storyline in the film are definitely affected by the narration and respond to it.

Next, what is this “Leave the Fourth Wall alone” business in panel 2? Clearly, we now have Rivera talking back to Honest Ernest! Okay, at one level, I can appreciate this kind of off-beat, surrealistic humor. It’s like George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, or Pearls Before Swine, when Stephan Pastis puts himself into the strip and interacts with his creations. There are some interactions between characters and narration boxes in other comic strips, but I just couldn’t find an example in time to include here.

Art Dept. I return to one of my earlier hypotheses that Rivera must have been influenced at some part by theater set design, because her trees (as in panel 1) have all the reality and flatness of painted cardboard or plywood. I reckon that if Rivera wanted to carry her surrealistic concept even further, she could have the strip’s characters occasionally acknowledge the fakeness of the trees and other props; even to the extent of moving them so the reader can see the scene better. Okay, I might be taking this way too seriously. But give me credit for not spending time on the rest of the drawing.

“Permits!? I don’t need no stinkin’ permit!”

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Looks like the rain storm that hit Mark and the cave missed Cherry and her section of Lost Forest. That’s interesting for a rain storm that caused such flooding, too! Also, it’s unusual to see an accent slipping out of Cherry, along with some old-school patois. It got me curious.

I know the phrase “my dogs are barking” but not where it originated, so I did some searching and was happy to see that it appears to have originated with the early 20th century cartoonist, Thomas “Tad” Dorgan. Tad was a master at coining (and popularizing) catchy phrases, some of which are still used today, including dogs (for shoes), dumbbell (used as an insult), “for cryin’ out loud”, 23-skidoo, the cat’s pajamas (Tad just popularized it), drugstore cowboy, and cheaters (for eyeglasses). Okay, that’s our history lesson for today.

Well, the last time we saw Cherry (September 12), she was fighting with Honest Ernest about protecting mother and baby bats in the town’s music hall. Ernest had just been knocked off his ladder by the bats. Cherry advised him to go get checked for rabies. Not sure if he did that. But he’s back to try again, looking no worse for wear (and that’s a phrase going back several hundred years!).

Unlike the earlier versions of Mark and Cherry Trail, Jules Rivera’s two rebooted protagonists don’t seem very determined to send their lawbreaking antagonists to jail or to the Hereafter. Instead, they tolerate, if commiserate over, these troublemakers every time they return. But that’s about as far as it goes. No doubt, the fault isn’t Mark’s or Cherry’s, but the economics and time involved in creating and developing new troublemakers in this strip. Well, that’s my hypothesis.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Collapsing floors, rushing rivers, floundering swimmers, dramatic rescues, and sitcom dialog! This strip has none of that! Oh, wait. My mistake. I was looking at Hi and Lois. As far as Mark Trail is concerned, it was definitely jam-packed.

As Cricket Bro was finally freed from the hole in the cave floor, the predicted flooding began in earnest. Despite rescue ropes, Cricket Bro was to panicked to cooperate. But then, all of the flooding caused a bigger floor collapse, sending both Mark and Cricket Bro into an underground river. Cricket Bro provided comic relief as he bobbed up and down moaning he will die. Alas. Meanwhile Mark told Cricket Bro to suck it up (not meaning the water) and just swim towards the opening in the wall just ahead. Mark was surprisingly quite upbeat and positive during this unscheduled underground swim, which seemed curious, but I suppose he was trying to keep a positive attitude for Cricket Bro. But why?

Given that Cricket Bro and his ne’er-do-well brother, Crypto Bro (Jadsen!)—the Bro Brothers—have made it their obsession to humiliate, ruin, or even kill Mark Trail at virtually every opportunity, it does seem odd that Mark will put all of that aside so easily.

Anyway, where did we leave these two…? Oh, yeah. Well, rather than pass over a waterfall or into raging rapids as they swam out of the cave, Mark and Cricket Bro simply got dumped into a river, like waste water from a local refinery or golf course. Totally unexciting and anticlimactic. But that’s standard for Jules Rivera’s stories. Still, Cricket Bro was totally panicked as he bobbed up and down in the river while floating ten feet from the shore. He began making extravagant promises to Mark that he will certainly forget immediately when he gets rescued by the motorboat that conveniently just pulled up, led by the doubtable rescuer, Ranger Shaw, along with CB’s brother, Crypto Bro. The week ended with The Bro Brothers relishing their livestreamed catastrophe. They were anxious to do this again, provoking Mark to get upset about them ignoring his sage advice. But as we see, Mark doesn’t seem to learn, either.

It looks like the crawfish I spotted swimming sideways in the cave last Tuesday turns out to be an enlarged cave shrimp swimming sideways. Since they live exclusively in pools and ground waters in caves, I am curious where the one we saw last Tuesday came from, since the floodwaters just came in. Perhaps there were some small pools of water along the edges of the cave.

There are only nine known species of cave shrimp, several of them restricted to single caves or cave systems, mostly in Southern states, but some known in Hawaii! Very interesting. Too bad Jules Rivera just missed out on the fact that cave shrimp were the “2025 Cave Animal of the Year” for the National Speleological Society!

All’s wet that ends wet!

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The answer to Yesterday’s Question:  Well, I’m sure you all must have seen it! It’s a small detail, but a recurring, if not consistent, feature in Mark Trail panels prior to the takeover by Jules Rivera! In fact, it was the butt of recurring jokes, as well for Trailheads! And it was something that Rivera seems to have deliberately avoided doing in her strip and still avoids it in most cases! Mark the Contrarian Commenter was close: The answer is related to the dialog! Got it, yet? It’s the exclamation point at the end of every bit of dialog! If you go back in pre-Rivera strips, you’ll see that practically all dialog that was not a question ends with an exclamation point. Perhaps it became a running joke for Allen, as well. I don’t know. But in yesterday’s panels, all of the dialog ends in exclamation points. Of course, in this case, the dialog was based on surviving a crisis, whereas in the old Mark Trail strips, that was not often the case. Okay, that’s all. On to today’s installment.

The element of time is often fluid or, at least, ambiguous in comic strips. How long were Mark and Cricket Bro floating in the water, alongside the shore, until the rescue boat conveniently showed up? Seems that the boys had time and opportunity enough to go the extra ten feet to get out of the water. But, the story requires some kind of closure, right? Part of that closure is the required reunion of most of the central characters. On the other hand, we also have the apparent fadeout once again of Diana Daggers. She seems to always get the short end of the stick. Maybe this is a new inside gag that Rivera is pushing.

Perhaps Rivera has been doing a long-term piling on of marginalization and lack of respect in Diana Daggers until she ultimately can’t take it any longer and becomes a new version of Chris “Dirty” Dyer. Or, maybe it’s just my imagination, running away from me. But this strip needs an actually dangerous opponent, rather than just the standard bench of goofballs!