1. Kelly Welly is a massive bitch.
2. Roger is fucking pussywhipped.
3. Moss Green will likely leave them in the mountains to die.

It took forever to get here, and all we get is some hippie/cowboy thrown from a horse. Didn't she want to photograph wild animals? Don't people already know what it looks like when a person gets thrown off a horse? Shouldn't this be where the porn starts? Bah! I want answers!

In case you forgot yesterday's strip (and how could you!), there's a helpful narration box to let us know that Kelly has decided to be useful and act her gender. Yeah, put those plates away while Moss and Randy stand around...there's enough bullshit to feed a small African tribe, and we'll be here all weekend.

Speaking of Moss, why doesn't he have hips? Like...no hips. Period. It's like he's made of straw or something, so his belt ties it up all tight at the waist.

Roger, like the rest of us, wonders exactly what is so exciting about putting away the plates.

Things are most certainly not safe. Somebody, Kelly or Cherry, is on their period, which spells bad times for our merry band, as the talking bear in panel two has one thing in mind: the delicious taste of woman flesh.

I'm sure that Kelly will be spared by the bear upon discovering that she's really only half-woman. She's not much of a cook? What the fuck kind of female is that? Half of one. If you're not good in the kitchen, you don't taste good to bears.

To be honest, Kelly, it really isn't interesting in the slightest. What's more interesting is that the horse looks like one of those kids from Pinocchio that gets turned into a donkey for general douchebaggery. What's interesting is that you're a fucking nature photographer who doesn't understand animal behavior. What's interesting is that wary look in your eyes that says that Moss and Roger are getting a bit...rapey.

Roger's mustache is at full blown pornography level, so I imagine that Kelly is really ready to shoot her film or take her pictures or whatever the hell she's doing (make up your mind, woman!). God stops by to tell us how unpredictable mountain storms are, which is false, because Cherry Trail predicted the freakin' storm yesterday. I'm sure that, when God realizes He was made a fool by a woman, Lost Forest will be flooded as a punishment. Cherry, being as high as she is in the mountains (possibly in the ozone layer), will be safe, but it will be too late for Doc Davis and the animals that are very important to his work.



Cherry realizes that horses don't like storms, and we get our first close look at Moss Green: holy shit! Look at that beard! It looks like one of those Cracker Barrel toys where the guy's face is magnitized and there's a bunch of metal shavings that represent a beard. This can only mean one thing: Moss Green is a man of unspeakable evil.

Mark Trail 2-in-1

6/23/08

In High Country, you see the exact same animals as you would at Lost Forest, making the trip totally pointless. There also appears to be a storm brewing, and Moss Green, being Native American white as fuck, uses his superior guiding skills to determine that they should set up camp somewhere, ignoring the massive forest fire raging around them.

Forest fire is the only possible explaination for the white smoke. Those are not clouds. I refuse to believe that the mountain behind Lost Forest is a mountain, much less a mountain that reaches beyond clouds. Even if the "mountain" behind Lost Forest was a mountain and was a mountain that pierced the strata, I'd refuse to believe that Cherry and Kelly could climb it without dying from exhaustion/thin air, though seeing Roger and Moss Green gather around them to pay their last respects ("Ha ha! That is what you get for having a vagina on a mountain!") would be somewhat fantastic.

6/24/08

Kelly has also ignored the huge forest fire, which has now given way to black night. She also seems to have not seen The Happening, which revealed that trees are bastards, releasing neurotoxins into the air when the wind blows a little bit. The group's only chance of survival this night is to stay alert for a strong gust and then outrunning the wind.

Oh, and if there's a lot of lightning, some trees might fall. Whatever. The other reason is more interesting.

Kick a gift horse

Moss Green is about the worst name for somebody ever. He doesn't look Native American, so I'm guessing that he's just some crusty hippie Cherry found at a music festival who is going to be payed in peyote or some such hallucinogenic.

Kelly is having hormonal problems, as she flips from excited to apprehensive to horny in the span of three seconds. I don't blame her for being worried though, because if Cherry's idea of getting ready for a trip to the mountains is kicking a horse in the side, who knows what other "expertise" Mark has passed on to her?

The agreement was that Kelly could shoot a nature film of animals locked in cages at Lost Forrest, not that Kelly could drag the good Doctor Davis and Cherry Trail out into the mountains. Nevertheless, Cherry wants to prove that she too can walk on narrow trails, kick rocks to the side, and identify dangerous animals like the beaver/Jabba the Hutt hybrid in panel two.

Godspeed.

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Absolutely nothing goes on in today's strip, other than another subtle jab at women. "Oh! Packing bags and preparing food sounds like a bucket of fun!" I hope Kelly is appeased with Cherry's offering: A bowl of ice.

There is a rather amusing visual gag in panel two: A bison, a billy goat, and a polar bear walk into a bar. The bison and the billy goat slip a mickey into the bear's drink, and a few months later, out pops the monstrosity above.

Rape: It's only funny in the animal kingdom.

Cursed Welly!

Turns out that Dr. Davis really does fancy himself an old, puckered Victor Von Doom. Kelly, not being a female, puckered Reed Richards, fails to see that the old man is clearly sending her off to die in the mountains like a deformed Spartan child, because she thinks that it's a FANTASTIC idea. Meanwhile, we see that deer and moose go together much like ebony and ivory, living in perfect harmony, like the keys on my piano. This is heartwarming, but after three strips of Kelly in the mountains, she'll wind up pissing off a moose or something and Mark will have to show up and give it a right fist to save her ass, and then we'll be off to a different, more exciting, less pornographic storyline.

Some Action Shots

Doc Davis hasn't been paying attention for the last week, so he has absolutely no clue what Kelly Welly is up to. He thought she just didn't like the arrangement of his living room, but now she's got a video camera and Roger is naked and...oh sweet Lord! She's taken the does (the deer, the female deer) out of their pen for "action shots!"

Doctor Davis also appears to be a Doctor in much the same sense that Doctor Doom is, keeping animals that should rightfully be running wind around Lost Forrest hoping to be panel two's featured animal in easily escapable situations (those deer could have easily jumped the fence) until he's ready to preform sinister experiments on them. Kelly Welly, as their liberator, has just signed her death warrant in animal blood. I fully expect Doc Davis to don a metal mask, clench his fists, and scream "CURSED WELLY!" by the end of this storyline.

What reputation is that?

Cherry continues to talk to Roger over her massive bowl of ice. Roger's 'stache continues to flesh itself out to full evil henchman/70's pornstar consistancy, and a turtle appears to clue us in as to the pace of this storyline (tomorrow: a glacier).

Even though Kelly is right in the next room, probably harrassing Doc Davis about his lifestyle, Roger and Cherry talk loudly (it's all exclaimation point-y) about how much Kelly sucks in comparison to Mark, who is the best there is at nature photo journalism and socking assholes on the jaw. Kelly can't hope to compete with that fairly, because she's a woman, so she's just jealous of Mark, which is natural, because women are known to be jealous of men just because they've got a penis and more money.

The last panel aludes to Kelly Welly being a whore, sleeping around with things to get more publicity. She does, after all, have a reputation.

Protip: Swordfish have lasers on top of their heads.

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Porn ready?

From now until three weeks from now, we'll be subject to Kelly Welly's sinister feng shui home decorum stylings, which is scary to Doc Davis because he can't pronounce "feng shui" and nearly lost an eye to the man in black pajamas back in 'Nam, so he hates the Asians and how they arrange their furniture.

Cherry reminds her dad that they're powerless to Kelly's tyrannic whims because she's paying, so the mattress chair thing is auf'd to Doc Davis's disdain. Powerless to a woman?!? That kind of humiliation isn't worth all the money in the world.

Cherry's despair is lessened a bit, maybe, by Roger. I think his name is Roger. He has a pencil thin mustache, so he's not quite porn-ready, but Cherry's Jew-fro wasn't exactly made for the screen, either. Cherry whips up a delicious batch of ice for the film crew and reminds us that Mark already told her how stupid Cherry was for inviting Kelly into their home. Mark, by virtue of having a penis, is automatically correct.

Friday the 13th

It looks like some kind of unspeakable, evil horror has been visited upon Doc Davis since yesterday, when really, all that is happening is Kelly Welly suggesting that Lost Forrest be spruced up to look more modern. It's essential that pornography look modern, because otherwise it'd be impossible to buy the rugged, ancient veterinarian bringing his "lovely" assistant home and showing her a good time unless it were happening in a modern setting, like a cabin in the middle of a lost forest that has some plush couches, maybe a bear skin rug, and a lava lamp.

The thought of coming out of the 1950's is terrifying for the Davis crew. Cherry, I must say, is doing a spectacular job of handing things by herself, in that she's silent and off to the side while Kelly conducts business with the man of the house.

Talking trees

I don't like where this is going. I'm all for a little bit of filmed girl on girl, even if it's essentialy GILF porn, and I'm not opposed to Cherry's dad getting in on the action, even if it's incestuous and turns the movie into BPILF porn (that's Biblical Person I'd Like to Fuck. Dibs on the Whore of Babylon). What irks me is that Kelly Welly has next to zero creativity about all this.

A scientist porn? Really? So Doc Davis (who is a vet, which, while called "science," doesn't count) will be looking at a beaker when Cherry comes in and starts going down on him? They'd better buck the trend usually established by the science porn and shout things of a sciency nature. "Oh yeah, Cherry. Suck my string theory." That line would work, because a fameous person once said that sex when old is like shooting pool with a rope, and a rope is like a bunch of strings (only not), and one of the two women is loose enough to fit a pool ball in her vagina (I'm guessing Kelly).

The only thing that can save this flick is if the Ent with multiple personality disorder gets a crack.

Brace Yourself

Based on Rusty's inability to call Mark Trail "Dad," I'm guessing that their love isn't so much father/son as it is ancient-rich-Grecian/his-youthful-charge, only Mark doesn't have anything particularly knowledgeable to impart, so they're both pretty much in it for the sex. Rusty used to be an addict, so that kind of thing never mattered to him.

Still, Mark wishes that Cherry would have come along with them, because they need a camp cook, and because his dog Andy won't have somebody to keep him warm at night.

Back at Lost Forrest, Kelly Welly has just driven up, causing Cherry to make a face that's straight out Hitchcock. There's nothing particularly scary about Kelly Welly though, so it's either female hysteria or cocaine.

I suppose that Cherry Trail is considered by both husband and father to be the ditzy, stupid type who shouldn't even be trusted to just sit around and shoot the shit with a fellow nature lover.

I see Mark and Cherry's dad's point though: Kelly Welly is a free, liberated woman, and inviting one of those into the house will cause a sort of domino effect. First, Cherry's innocence will be stolen, then her sense of decency, then her virginity, and the next thing you know, she'll want to have sex with Mark, which will likely be the end of the relationship.

Kelly Welly is thusly some sort of Crimson Menace, not unlike the menstrual cycle, which is obvious from Cherry's bitchy demeanor whenever she is brought up. Still though, while we were looking at a picture of pretty deer, Cherry's dad must have talkedsmacked some sense into his daughter. By panel three, she's back where she belongs: In the kitchen, cooking.

The Terror of Kelly Welly

For those of you not up on your Mark Trail, the current storyline involves Mark taking his youthful charge Rusty out on a camping trip, but complications appear to be rising, as Mark's wife Cherry has invited free wheelin' 'tang Kelly Welly along to take pictures, which creeps mark out, because her name is really Kelly Welly and he would rather punch the hell out of dog nappers than have sex with anybody, wife included.

It would also appear that Kelly talked Cherry into some explicit filmed action outside the parameters of taking pictures of the animals. Perhaps tasteful adult postcards. For no reason at all, we switch to an outside view where two birds appear to be carrying on Mark and Cherry's conversation (I really like the name "Cherry Trail"), where Cherry demands to take care of the situation herself.

Cherry would, in summation, like be molested on film by her rival for Mark's affections (or something like that), so that Mark can "have fun" with his adopted son.

The name "Rusty Trail" is just gross.

Protip: Bears can smell menstruation.

The creators of Mark Trail don't believe that Alaska is part of North America despite it being connected to Canada. Alaska's Grizzlies outnumber ours by at least 28,000 due to hoarding, but that isn't very important in the context of the rest of the strip.

Brown bears are much more common in the real world, and it is a few of these that Mark encounters on the trail. Recognizing that he is encroaching on their natural habitat, Mark runs, which, as we all know, is the smartest possible thing to do in the event that you see a fucking bear.

With a running start, he leaps into a tree, but onto a branch that the bear could easily reach. It is suggested that we sing, talk loudly, or wear a bell to advertise our presance, but Mark has done a good enough job of that by just being silent. Seriously...why do I want a bear to know where I am?

Mark Trail is, thusly, one of three things: A free meal, less one hat, or about to knock that bear out with a single blow.