Mark Trail recycles

[Mark Trail, June 10, 2014.]

Today’s Mark Trail made me think of Bob and Ray and Mark Backstayge, Noble Wife, whose cast members would repeat a key word or phrase in a variety of tones:

“We’re going to the Dry Tortugas.”

“The Dry Tortugas!”

“The Dry Tortugas!?”

“The Dry Tortugas?”

And then the strip made me think of a Specials song: “Where did you get that — blank — blank expression on your face?”

The answer: from May 15’s strip.


[Mark Trail, May 15, 2014.]

It reassures me to see that James Allen, Mark Trail ’s new cartoonist, has preserved Jack Elrod’s practice of recycling old art. Copy, paste, tilt, make slight alterations.

 

Seeing Mark’s repeating face made me think of Cherry Trail, Cherry Trail, Cherry Trail, Cherry Trail. I had to do it:


[Mark Mark Mark Mark, June 10, 2014.]

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Orson Trail (Same face, recycled twice)

[Mark Trail? Mark Trail!? Mark Trail!]

Mark Trail makeover (2)

In the world of Mark Trail, all bad guys have facial hair. By their sideburns, mustaches, and beards ye shall know them. Back in December, I altered a Trail strip, removing facial hair and bad-guy intentions from kidnappers Juan (left) and Otto. Look:


[Mark Trail, November 21, 2012. Click for a larger view.]


[Mark Trail, modified by me. Click for a larger view.]

Now look again:


[“Come on, Juan, this is Otto, your friend! Don’t you recognize me?” Mark Trail, January 3, 2012, not modified by me. Click for a larger view.]

What happened? Trail saved Otto from death by shark, and Otto gave back the two-million-dollar ransom he once demanded. And now Otto is missing his mustache. He also appears to have treated his eyebrows to a threading. He is beginning to look a lot like Mark Trail. Many amenities on this island. And many chances for redemption.

The only other strip in which I’ve seen characters’ hair change without warning: yes, Hi and Lois.


[Otto still has his sideburns, for now.]


[January 4: Otto’s eyebrows and mustache have returned.]

On an unrelated note, I’m impressed by the hyphens in used-to-be friend.

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Mark Trail revised

[Mark Trail, May 15, 2014.]

Yes, Old Rex, “the grizzly bear that lives near Cutter’s Bluff,” has entered the scene. Rex will, I assume, save Mark Trail from the other (enraged) bear that has pursued him for many days now. Looking at the expression on Mark’s face, though, I imagine a different scene, one in which Cherry Trail has finally begun to speak frankly of her, uhh, needs.


[Mark Trail revised, May 15, 2014.]

You can read Mark Trail every day at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other fine news outlets.

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Mark Trail revised

[Mark Trail, May 2, 2014.]

Like films and television shows, Mark Trail at times has continuity problems. In yesterday’s strip, it was getting late, and dark. Darkness filled the darkening air. Today, too, it’s getting late, as Cherry Trail observes, but things are brighter, lighter. Whither the dark?


[There it is! Mark Trail revised, May 2, 2014.]

Joining yesterday’s revision to today’s would make a nice strip:


[Mark Trail revised, May 1–2, 2014.]

But the more I studied Cherry’s face, the more I could see only one thing to do:


[Cherry Cherry Cherry Cherry, May 2, 2014.]

Note: No one — no one — messes with Cherry’s hair.

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[All revisions made with the free Mac app Seashore and Preview’s Instant Alpha tool. I am beginning to understand Alpha.]

Mark Trail , recycling

[Mark Trail, revised. May 10, 2014; April 28, 2016.]

James Allen continues the practice of recycling handed down by his predecessor Jack Elrod. I remember Mark’s sweaty 2014 face only because of my revised version, which dramatized the words of a Twitter user who took issue with my sentence-style capitalization in post titles. (Really.) I couldn’t resist revising today’s panel.

But where else had I seen this desperate look? Oh, of course — in Mark Trail , in 2015.


[Mark Trail, revised, May 10, 2014. Mark Trail, May 14, 2015; April 28, 2016. Click any image for a larger view.]

Keep moving! Back to yesterday’s art!

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Mark Trail revised

Rushed by an bear, Mark Trail picks up a large branch and stuns the enraged creature. “It worked,” Mark tells himself. “The bear is stunned!” I couldn’t resist revising the aftermath.


[Mark Trail, April 24, 2014.]


[Mark Trail revised, April 24, 2014.]

Even Mark Trail deserves a break once in a while.

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[Those shoes.]

How to improve writing (no. 46)

[Mark Trail, October 17, 2013. Click for a larger view.]

Given the tools available to me, I can’t do much to improve Mark Trail’s “cell phone,” which looks more like the battery from my old Sony Vaio. But I can improve writing. The last panel is the problem:


[Mark Trail, original.]

As Dusty Rhodes asks, what are you getting at, Mark? What’s on that phone of yours? The problem is the misplaced modifier “except us.” Garner’s Modern American Usage explains:

When modifying words are separated from the words they modify, readers have a hard time processing the information. Indeed, there likely to attach the modified language first to a nearby word or phrase.

Garner offers a grimly comic example: “Both died in an apartment Dr. Kevorkian was leasing after inhaling carbon monoxide,” a sentence suggesting that Kervorkian inhaled before he leased. Here’s what Mark Trail should have said:


[Mark Trail, revised.]

Between today’s strip and tomorrow’s, Dusty will probably figure things out.

This post marks the second time I’ve improved writing in a Mark Trail strip. Here’s the first. I rely on the free Mac app Seashore when I make such improvements.

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[This post is no. 46 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

I see Mark Trail’s face before me

[Mark Trail , May 28, 2016.]

It’s atilt and wetter, but it’s the same face. Or at least the same nose and mouth.


[Mark Trail, revised, May 10, 2014. Mark Trail, May 14, 2015; April 28, 2016. Click any image for a larger view.]
Mark Trail, Gabe, and Carina (“Carina!?”) have been stuck in a cave since, oh, February. But in real time, it would seem that several hours, at most, have passed. The technical term for this comic-strip imbalance: the sheer-boredom effect . “Mary Worth!?”

More about the face in this post.

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[Post title with apologies to Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz.]

Mark Trail , all too doppelgänger-y

Mark Trail meanders along its bewildering way. Mark turned up in the Rio Grande on June 22 after a long journey through caverns measureless to man. And then the strip went back in time: “Two years ago, not far from Hawaii.” An insipid couple, whom we have come to know as Darling (he) and Honey (she) are sailing to New Zealand. “We’ll be in New Zealand soon!” says Darling. (Good luck with that.) Long story short: Darling and Honey take a break to sleep away the night on a tiny island, “not far from Hawaii.” While carrying firewood from the boat to shore, Darling is bitten by what will turn out to be a red imported fire ant. I’m guessing, but a later strip shows something that looks like an ant, and it’s bright red.

  
[Mark Trail , June 28, July 1, July 2, 2016. Click for larger views.]

Back in the present, Mark is planning a vacation with Cherry, just the two of them, to Hawaii. Today, however, we’re back on the tiny island. But look: that’s not Honey in a green hat and bikini, two years back in time. It’s Abbey Powell, a real person at the USDA who appeared in a Trail story in 2015. She’s back. Follow that bird!


[Mark Trail , July 13, 2016. Click for a larger view.]

James Allen has given considerable attention to the female form of late, first with Honey and now with Abbey Powell. (Browse for yourself.) It’s a pity that Allen’s artistic imagination allows only one color for bikinis and hats: that makes things unnecessarily confusing. At least Honey and Ms. Powell have been granted different hat bands. But still: it’s all too doppelgänger-y.

Allen has assured his readers in a comment on today’s strip that Abbey is going to tell us what happened to Darling and Honey. I assume that they got in big trouble with the red imported fire ant, aka RIFA, either by bringing ashore the firewood that introduced the invasive species to the tiny island or by being bitten to death, or both.

It’s enough to make someone say “uunngghh.” Cough. Cough.

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A Mark Trail revision

[Mark Trail, May 11, 2018.]

Mark, are you reading cue cards? Or are you just a big hunk of clip art? Look at Cherry when you speak to her.


[Mark Trail revised, May 11, 2018.]

That’s better.

Mark and Cherry are vacationing at the Hotel Azyoulik, an “eco-resort” in Tulum, Mexico. “Finally, a legitimate vacation!” Mark exclaimed on April 28. In real life, Tulum’s Azulik Resort is an adults-only, clothing-optional resort. Is the Trails’ chosen vacation spot also adults-only and clothing-optional? Is that why Mark’s eyes are wandering?


[Mark Trail, May 11, 2018.]

Can’t be, because their son Rusty is with them, right there in panel three. And there’s nothing I can do to fix his hand.

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[I flipped Mark and his words with the free Mac app Seashore.]

Mark Trail, from a distance

[Mark Trail, April 16, 2014.]

Mark Trail has a new artist: Jack Elrod has passed the ball to longtime assistant James Allen. And Mark is back home after catching a poacher. Mark has been driving about in a jeep, taking in the sights and sounds of Lost Forest. He has been driving since Saturday. In the panel above, he is talking to his wife Cherry.

As any Mark Trail reader knows, Mark’s relationship with Cherry is non-existent. The strip’s pattern: Mark heads out on an adventure, comes home, sits at the table with his family, and heads out again. It’s like the Odyssey without book 23. But the dialogue in the panel above marks a new intimacy between the Trails. What better way to show affection than to call as you drive alone and aimlessly, avoiding your partner’s company?

Is James Allen having fun with his own strip? I think it’s too early to tell.

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[Jack Elrod’s final daily strip ran on April 10. A Sunday strip appeared on April 13. In Odyssey 23, Odysseus and Penelope tell each other stories and make love.]

Mark Trail revised

One more time.


[Mark Trail, May 3, 2014.]


[Mark Trail revised, May 3, 2014.]

Much better this way. The context is here. Look out where yr going, Mrs. Trail.

*

9:08 p.m.: There’s no end to it.


[Mark Trail revised again, May 3, 2014.]

Chet Baker was an influence here.

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How to improve writing (no. 44)

[Mark Trail, May 8, 2013.]

When Mark Trail and Wes Thompson went off in a plane to “look at sheep,” leaving “the girls” (Mark’s wife Cherry, Wes’s wife Shelley) alone at camp, trouble was sure to follow. Trouble, one might say, was in the air : the plane crashed, and Mark and Wes have been stuck in the mountains for many days’ worth of comics.

Trouble is also in this panel’s dialogue, in the form of the clunky however that begins Wes’s sentence. In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White offer good advice: “Avoid starting a sentence with however when the meaning is ‘nevertheless.’ The word usually serves better when not in first position.” That sounds like a matter of style. But Strunk and White then confuse matters by seeming to suggest a prohibition: “When however comes first, it means ‘in whatever way’ or ‘to whatever extent.’”

Bryan Garner’s Garner’s Modern American Usage takes up however with greater clarity:

It seems everyone has heard that sentences should not begin with this word — not, that is, when a contrast is intended. But doing so isn't a grammatical error; it’s merely a stylistic lapse, the word But or Yet ordinarily being much preferable. . . . The reason is that However — three syllables followed by a comma — is a ponderous way of introducing a contrast, and it leads to unemphatic sentences.

And re: today’s Mark Trail, I’d add that no one talks like that, especially not with a broken foot. I have revised the panel to eliminate the ponderous however and add a bit more drama:


[Mark Trail revised, May 8, 2013.]

How I wish I could travel back to student days and remove howevers from the beginnings of my sentences. But it’s what I was taught as an element of intelligent writing: independent clause – semicolon – conjunctive adverb, any conjunctive adverb – comma – independent clause. O ponderousness!

“Let’s go,” by the way, is an instance of the hortatory subjunctive.

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[This post is no. 44 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose. Cherry made tea this past Monday.]

Mitt/Mark and the big trees

[Mark Trail, April 21, 2012.]

Too weird. Today’s Mark Trail sheds new light on what Mitt/Mark may have meant when he averred that the trees in Michigan are “the right height.” The right height for what, Governor Trail? What are you and they hiding?

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[Yes, Mitt Romney and Mark Trail are the same (two-dimensional) person. “Tom” would appear to be Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who endorsed Romney earlier this week.]

Mark Trail recycles

[Mark Trail, July 22 and 23, 2013.]

Frankie is a valued member of the poaching team at Big Mike Morrison’s hunting lodge. He’s steady, that Frankie, day after day. Guy’s consistent. Once in a while he puts down his magazine and shifts his eyes. And then different words materialize in his speech balloon.

Mark Trail offered a grand display of recycling in May with Wes Thompson, Wes Thompson.

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[Frankie looks a lot like a Mark Trail with sideburns and a silly hat. Perhaps there’s deeper recycling at work here.]

Mark Trail interjections

[“Whooa!” Mark Trail, November 11, 2014.]


[“Whoa!” Mark Trail, November 21, 2014.]

I do not yet understand the grammar of Mark Trail’s interjections. Is whooa reserved for interior monologue? For underwater use? For moments when one’s own life is in danger, and not some bear’s? For use when one is at least partly clothed? Clearly, more study is needed. Whooa!

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[I think it unlikely that whooa is what Van Dyke Parks calls a misprink.]