I thought that the animal to the left in the first panel was a dinosaur for some reason, but, it turns out that it's just a donkey. They gave Moss the slow animal in hopes that their man-generated rock slide would kill him.

Where in the hell did they get that large, dead tree from? How'd they stick it under those rocks? Mark Trail must be some kind of rugged, virginal wizard.

Cherry and Kelly are being mauled alive. It's alright though, because they can still hear.

Moss and Roger actively plot Kelly and Cherry's death, using big sticks to dislodge the rocks furthest away from the entrance, completely ignoring the two easily movable rocks by the actual entrance. Mark Trail stumbles onto the scene, which means that now they're just gonna have to rescue these chicks and go back to Lost Forest.

Moss, FREAKED out by MARK'S intrusion, YELLS like his MOM caught him MASTURBATING.

Kelly Welly is about to be mauled by a mountain lion, making for the greatest comic strip moment ever.

Moss Green doesn't remember that mountain being there the last time he was in the mountains, and, as such, stumbles upon Kelly Welly and Cherry Trail, who are still yelling like the mountain lions trapped in the cave with them are hard of hearing.

8/15/08Clearly, Kelly and Cherry will be saved from their grisly fate if their "move back slowly and talk very loudly" strategy pays off.

8/16/08
Doc Davis is worried about his daughter, sure, but he really wants to know where the hell his horse is. They weren't to be let free from his "Imagination Station," where his "experiments" take place. He can find another woman, but without the horse, his hybrid breeding experiments are in peril.

8/18/08
Mark and Doc Davis talk like real people, and Roger just now notices that his boss and Cherry are gone. Where the hell was he this whole time?

8/19/08
Moss Green really doesn't want to check up on the women.

8/20/08
Mark Trail, surprisingly enough, is concerned about his wife.

Mark Trail of Tears

It's been two weeks since an update. Two weeks. I'm kicking myself for being lazy, but I had no internet in New York and no real desire to blog right afterward. Now I get to run through all of the Mark Trail I've missed in the last two weeks, because I'm a swell kinda guy...the kinda swell that mocks American Indians, I guess.

8/1/08

Mark was just commenting on how stupid his wife, Kelly, and all women are when, out of freakin' nowhere, a horse appears. Mark can't believe it, so he goes to investigate with his skillet of bacon, which doubles as a dandy murder weapon in case the horse is really a monster.

8/2/08

Mark is woefully in the dark about the events of the past few months, because all he's going to find at home is an angry old man drinking beer with a shotgun on his lap, sweating about the fate of his daughter.

8/4/08

A recap, then Moss Green admitting that he's not fast enough to keep up with Kelly. Big shock. Panel three is awesome though, this totally dejected look like Moss and Kelly slept together but he couldn't get the job done, so, as soon as he was asleep, she was gone.

8/5/08

The wind is getting stronger. The horse thinks that the rocks could be dangerous. Kelly's horse has been tied to a huge chain of sasuage links. This means one thing: Kelly is climbing higher.

8/6/08

The valley below the mountain is of the opinion that it is safer down there.

8/7/08

Kelly and Cherry are pretty much fucked, while the lion leads her cubs to shelter. Perhaps the two parties will join together in a bid for survival, with each learning about the other as their struggle goes on?

8/8/08

That's what she said.

8/9/08

The rock slide found Cherry and Kelly's hiding place just in time. Now all they've got to do is block them inside and seal them away from society forever!

8/11/08

There's plenty of space to crawl between, and hell, some of those rocks look easy to push out of the way. Kelly just doesn't feel like putting any effort into her rescue.

8/12/08

The mountain hopes that it didn't kill the horses. Kelly points out that they won't know unless the mountain frees them from its cave.

8/13/08
Moss Green is getting stoned rather than looking for Cherry and Kelly. I like how "Buck" Roger is pretty much an afterthought, even though he's Kelly's right hand man.

Kelly's evil plan to take a lot of pictures of wild animals eating human food is crumbling. Her vagina and ascot doesn't have the same pull that it used to, because Moss Green works for Cherry, and Cherry alone. As for Cherry? She's been pissed since Thursday, when she discovered that Kelly was feeding her bacon to a mountain lion. The fact that the lion jumped at her may also lend to her frustration with Kelly, and hell, Kelly's vag probably had no pull over Cherry to begin with...she's likely never seen one.

That leaves Roger. Sweet, duffle bag hefting Roger, who loves animals. He is working for Kelly, and for money, so he very likely has no choice in the matter. Kelly wants to take lots of pictures goddamn it, and Roger is going to be forced into staying untill the bitter end - likely at the jaws of one of the creatures Kelly is shooting.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

According to Moss, all animals are old. However, the lion's advanced age seems to have given it the ability to speak and think rationally, because its plan is working.

That thing from yesterday is, apparently, a moose. Rocky isn't around to confirm, so I'm going to have to assume that Jack Elrod is on crack. Tomorrow, Kelly will throw firecrackers at the moose, which will somehow start a wildebeast stampede that'll kill MufasaMoss Green, but she'll drop her camera and it'll be all for naught. Part of me wishes that this were winter so that Kelly's bold declaration of "LOOK, A MOOSE!" was met with something more than disaproving looks...namely a 100 ton torrent of white, crushing snow. Take pictures of that, you awful bitch.

Kelly unsucessfully attempts to bribe the now clean shaven Moss Green with the promise of a "big bonus," which is, no doubt, her vagina. Moss, who is now sober enough to shave, realizes that without beer goggles, Kelly looks like the sort of chick who was tied up in a burlap bag and thrown to the mountain lions.

Speaking of mountain lions, why are they the only animal Kelly wants to get a picture of? Are they the only animal? I understand wanting a picture of a horse bucking a bum off its back, but really, you've seen one Ranger Rick mountain lion cover, you've seen them all. Kelly is missing out on so many other great animals, that camel/bear hybrid in the lake for example, that I'm beginning to doubt her skills as a photographer or a person with eyesight.

7/5/08


What looked like an awful, boring strip on Saturday is secretly an awful, boring strip...with foreshadowing!

7/7/08


Moss Green needs a bit more liquid courage before he's willing to take pictures of the regal mountain lion, a beast so mysterious and strange that Kelly Welly is excited to hear of its existance on a mountain.

I suspect that it will be Kelly Welly receiving the Right Fist 'O Justice by the end of this arc. Between her awful grammar and threats and unruly eyebrows, she's just begging for a beatdown. Methinks that the line in the sand will be drawn when Kelly shoots Moss Green's horse out from under him, pours a bottle of vodka down his throat, and takes pictures of Moss the drunken Caucasian American Indian.

Everybody is about to be crushed by that huge...uhh...thing, so I highly doubt that the horses fracture matters, Moss.

Kelly's filming in panel two leads me to believe that Roger is standing somewhere off-panel with a boombox playing some slow 70's grooves. Moss is more into the hooch than whatever pie Cherry might be serving, so it's a no go on the porn front.

I bet that Kelly blames Moss Green's fall on firewater. He certainly looks like a drunk. It'll go like this:

Kelly Welly: Have you been having a drinkie, my little Native American guidesman?

Roger: Tee-hee!

Cherry Trail: What an awful sterotype!

(Cherry goes back to fixing dinner.)

Moss Green: Fuck you. Fuck the three of you. I'm white! I didn't ask to be called Moss, it just happened, you know? It's no better or worse than "Cherry" or "Roger without a last name" or "Kelly Welly."

Kelly Welly: I like my name!

(A shot of a big horned elk)

Big Horned Elk: Your name is fucking stupid.

(Kelly begins to cry like a woman, which suits her character because she's a woman.)

Moss Green: I'm out of here. You people don't pay me enough to put up with this shit.

(Cherry looks up from her dinner.)

Cherry Trail: Hmm? What will you do?

Moss Green: Buy me a handle of hooch and hope that you assholes die. Have a great one.

(Cherry goes back to making dinner.)

Kelly Welly: Can I help with that?

Cherry Trail: Sure, then we can both have Roger's baby.

Then would follow a month long storyline about the merits of adultery. Cherry is a woman and Roger is a man and Mark is way out in the forest somewhere and what with all those eggs going to waste, it just seems proper, you know?

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.

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.