by Larry Brody
Have you read the Mark Trail comic strip lately? For that matter, have you ever read it? The strip began in 1946 and pretty much changed the same until earlier this century when some minor alterations were made.
But less than two months ago, in the second week of October, it went through a radical change from nature strip to, well, what some people might call – and in fact are calling – an “unnatural one.”
Here’s some visual evidence:
1946
2016
2020
Fans are irate, but I, who’d seen Marky Mark Trail maybe three times before in my life, have been reading (watching?) the new version by web comics veteran Jules Rivera every single day since the changeover.
What I particularly like, and I make no bones about it, is how stoned Markman looks these days. And the fact that we haven’t seen a single panel in which he does his nature guide thing since Jules’ first week.
It isn’t New Year’s yet, but I already know my resolution. I’m going to do everything in my power to make this same kind of almost magical (magical mushroom?) change occur on all those dreary old TV series that just keep droning on and on and on.
Why should we have to watch some permutation or other of this look, for example —
— When with a little luck we can have this?
Whadaya think, former TVWriter™ students who are now running the biz? Can we make this a “GO?”
See the history of Mark Trail HERE
Read an interview with Jules Rivera, the new Mark Trailer HERE
