Mark Trail, - Comic Strip Hero, Comic Strip Fan

Jack Allen introduced a curious interlude into the Mark Trail comic strip mid-February, 2019. Mark & family had just finished up an adventure in the Yucatan Peninsula. The following week a new storyline would start in the Bahamas.

As our heroes flew off, Mark steers the conversation into an unusual topic.

The awards referred to are the Reuben Awards, given by the National Cartoonists Society It's an interesting overview of the role of comic strips have had in American society. I don't know who's up for a Reuben award in 2019, but I hope Jack Allen's on the list!

BTW - the Jungle Jim strip referred to ran from 1934-1954. It was originally drawn by Alex Raymond. So yeah, Rusty, it was so cool.

Mark Trail and the Zombie Clowns

Artist/writer James Allen has done great things to revive the Mark Trail comic strip. And normally, I'm on board with his storylines. But the odd turn in this February 2018 story arc almost lost me. 

It starts with various characters in Lost Forest (where Mark Trail lives) spotting unusual animals -- tigers, elephants, etc. It took a while for them to believe what they were seeing (could there be something in the coffee?). And even a little longer to understand why African animals were suddenly roaming free. 

Of course, most readers had already figured out that they had escaped from a nearby circus. Allen has the sheriff come by to explain things -- the circus train wrecked going around a curve near the Lost Forest. It explained where the animals came from. But then things get weird. 

Gaah! Zombie clowns! Run! "Terrified?" Those children are probably traumatized for life. And why does Mark Trail look amused in the last panel?

Oh, but there's more:

The story then gets back to rounding up the escaped animals. But what a strange aside. 

This was one bizarre sequence for sure. This is definitely not your father's Mark Trail. And that's fine with me.

The Unsinkable Mark Trail

Mark Trail's current artist/writer James Allen has not only made this vintage strip more exciting visually, he's vastly improved the quality of the story lines. And along the way, he's also having some fun with the character and the very nature of adventure strips.

Normally, adventure strips are pretty much self-contained. What happened in previous story arcs are seldom referred to in the current adventure (with the exception of a recurring villain cropping back up). Current comic strip creative teams, such as Mike Curtis/Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), and Tony DePaul/Mike Manley (The Phantom), seem more interested in world-building. Borrowing from comic books, the past shapes the present rather than having each episode take place in isolation.

Which leads us the beginning of Mark Trail's Hawaii adventure (see Mark Trail Heats Up for more about this fall 2016 storyline).

Mark Trail has been invited to check out an invasive species of ants on a small island. He checks in with his editor while going to rent a boat.

Of course, that's exactly who Mark Trail is -- a guy in a serial comic. But his editor does have a point. Trail's two previous adventures involved exploding boats.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, this. 

Fortunately, Cal found an abandoned rowboat on the beach. There was plenty of foreshadowing -- Allen shows it being by the yacht that originally landed on the island and inadvertently left the invasive fire ants back in the prolog to the story (see: Mark Trail: Suddenly in the Past).

Allen continued the subplot about Mark Trail's luck with transportation with these two sequences.

Great art, great storytelling, and a sense of fun -- that's why I keep reading Mark Trail. Plus, I want to see what he blows up next.

Mark Trail - Suddenly in the Past

James Allen continues to shake things up in the vintage comic strip Mark Trail. Note the way he ends a long-protracted (but never dull) sequence involving Mark and two friends finding their way out of a cave. I already noted what happened when they found a water passage (Mark Trail Goes with the Wind).

Mark Trail has always featured closeups of animals in their natural environment, so it's a perfect way for Allen to build some tension before showing Trail breaking the surface.

His two companions soon follow, and the story arc ends here:

Then the very next day this sequence appeared...

Meanwhile, two years before!? That's one heck of a transition.

It confounded me, but James Allen's been at the helm of this strip for me to know I can trust his narrative skills. This will all make sense. I just have to keep reading.

Mark Trail Goes with the Wind

The current artist/writer of the comic strip Mark Trail just seems to go from strength to strength. As I mentioned in an earlier post (A Marked Improvement for Mark Trail) James Allen has brought some dynamic and contemporary graphic story-telling techniques to this 50-year-old strip.

And, beginning with this sequence from May 28-30, 2016, Allen also seems to have raised the heat. In this story arc, Mark and two friends are trapped in a cave by coyotes (not the animals -- the immigrant smugglers) and are forced to find a new exit. (Another sign that Allen's pulled this strip out of the 1950's)

Carina slips and tumbles into an underground pool. Mark Trail dives in after her. And then...

Is it getting hot in this cave or is that just me?

It's a great sequence, and any steaminess attached to a basic first-aid technique is part of James Allen's artistry. Not the positioning of Mark and Carina in the second panel of the middle strip.  Look familiar? It should.

The male figure looking down on the female he's holding is often tied to romance and passion. See the poster at right.

While Trail squelches any such ideas immediately, it's still something that -- however briefly -- entered the strip. And I suspect not for the last time.

Lio on the Trail

In his Lio strip of February 23, 2016, Mark Tatulli pays tribute to Jack Elrod, the second artist of Mark Trail. Creator Ed Dodd wrote and drew the strip from 1946 to 1978 before handing it over the Elrod. Elrod continued with Mark Trail until he retired in 2014.

Tatulli's tribute is uniquely Lio-esque, as it breaks the barriers between comic strips. It's a recurring theme with Tatulli and one that works quite well here.

Of course, Mark Trail now has a new artist -- James Allen -- who I think has done a great deal to revitalize the strip. Perhaps Mark Trail would have a different reaction to mice, now.

Marked Improvement for Mark Trail

For quite a while, the comic strip Mark Trail was frozen in time -- and not in a good way. As you can see from the example below, this strip which began in 1946 still had an odd 1950's vibe about it in the late 1990's. (click on image to enlarge)

The art was more than static -- it was almost perfunctory. Mark's face in the third panel has appeared in hundreds of daily sequences unchanged. Sometimes Mark was expressing surprise, sometimes anger, sometimes just talking. The vague expression made it useful for reuse.

Then something happened. In 2010, Jack Allen, the assistant on the strip, took over. The stories became more dynamic -- as did the art. Wildlife was still drawn accurately (a must for this strip), but rather than looking posed (almost like taxidermy), Allen imbued it with a sense of motion.

At first, the changes were subtle. Human anatomy got better. Perspective got better. Viewing angles were more dynamic. And in time, a new Mark Trail emerged -- one I'm actually reading.

Note Allen's use of the single panel in the example below. He fills the space without cluttering it up. And there's no question that the eel is in motion. The diver's pose, plus the diving motor going off to the right, indicate that the diver's falling backwards, ambushed by the eel.

Here's another single-panel action sequence from the same story. Bad guys on Sea-Doos with machine guns might be common in action movies, but for Mark Trail, this is real innovation in story-telling!

One final example: look at that last panel. That is one dynamic panel -- and because the perspective is accurate, it really makes the machine gun look like it's coming right out of the page.

Actually, Allen does a little visual trick. Note that the machine gun is in front of the sound effect, partially obscuring it. We assume that sound effects -- not being part of the scene, are floating on the surface of the fourth wall. By placing the gun in front, it appears to be breaking through that fourth wall.

Reply All Mark Trail

Two of the many newspaper comic strips I read daily are about as far apart stylistically as possible. Mark Trail has been running continually since 1946, and until fairly recently the artwork seemed stuck in the 1950's (kudos for current artist James Allen for making the artwork more dynamic and contemporary-looking).

Donna Lewis started Reply All in 2011, and uses Photoshop to create collage-like artwork.

Mark Trail is about the outdoor adventures of a globe-trotting wildlife photographer. Reply All is about the personal insecurities of a young woman in the working world.

And yet...

Here's Ken, the marine biologist that brings Mark Trail into an undersea adventure in August, 2015.

Here's Drew, the boyfriend of Lizzie, the heroine of Reply All.

Seeing them both on the same page, I was struck by the resemblance. Are they brothers? Does Drew lead a secret life of adventure?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

But still...