Much like the Internet.

Meeting up with his pals (who I will henceforth refer to as Phil, the orange shirted one, and Stu, the hatted one, until they actually get names, if they ever get names) and a random brown dog (who is surely about to be jumped over by a quick brown fox), Bob discusses his current predicament and we find that while he's not alone in his suffering, he apparently was out of ideas for how to rectify the situation. Not so for Phil, who has decided that the best and easiest way to make some money (aside from getting a part-time job or something like that) is to go hunt some of the alligators that live in the swamp (even the dancin' gator from the last swamp story? Say it ain't so!) because there are apparently a lot of them and Phil and Stu know a guy who knows a guy who said that his cousin told him that his girlfriend said that her brother works maintenance for a company that's looking to buy some alligator meat for who knows what purpose. Hearing their plan, Bob immediately turns the offer down, but what with the state of the economy and all, how long will it be before he gives in?
Undeterred, Phil continues to make his case for going alligator hunting and Bob continues to bring up the fact that hunting those alligators would be considered poaching and poaching is illegal. (He might also want to point out that Phil needs to get his facts straight because in the previous strip he was talking about alligator meat and in this one he's talking about alligator hides, which I was always led to believe were two different things, one being food and the other being a source of handbags, cordage, wallets, and shoes.) He also brings up the fact that if they're caught, they could all go to jail and who would make the house payment and look for work then? As the three talk, a random raccoon (Secret Agent Sneaky, perhaps?) monitors them, watching for any signs of weakness from Bob, but he shouldn't fear, for with the Jack Elrod Ball on his shoulder, he won't give in to Phil and Stu (he might if the Jack Elrod Ball were to disappear, but so far that's not the case). You go, Bob! Here's a job application.

I guess it just sounds better that way.

Why are they still called record stores when the majority of sales are for CDs?

Anonymity is bliss.

Sometimes I wonder if people buy a wider variety of music online because they can do it in the privacy of their homes and can keep their selections a secret. They don't have to show them to their friends or even to the person at the register in the record store, so they don't feel like they're going to be judged by what they want to buy. I wonder if music has become something of a secret for some people who have one face they show to their friends and the general public and another that they have for themselves. I wonder how many music collections have those dirty little secrets where the person who's supposed to be so into the Indie or Metal scene has a few choice Pop albums tucked away in a dark corner. I bet there are more than you'd think, and I'd even go so far as to say that we all have at least one so-called secret album or song.

Who can you trust if you can't trust a clown?

Doing some damage control, Mr. Pops attempts to steer Tracy's suspicions away by pointing out that since clowns are created for the sole purpose of making people laugh, he couldn't possibly be in any way responsible for what happened to poor Louise or for any of those notes that are now being investigated in the lab. (Of course, had Tracy wanted the investigation to go well, he should have probably worn gloves while he examined them instead of getting his prints all over them. Hope you have an alibi there, Dick.) Tracy doesn't seem to be buying much of the clown's story (I still think it's the eyes) and proceeds with his questions, pointing out that the murderer is still on the loose and that they need to find out who it is and quick (otherwise Tracy could be trapped at the circus forever) and in order to do that, he's decided to take a few precautions. A few armed precautions.
Sure Dick, police security is all well and fine, so long as said security is able to handle their guns, but that security guard in panel one is really giving me doubts as to his ability to hit anything unless he's aiming for someone's kneecaps (and really it looks more like he's about to drop the gun and shoot himself in the foot than anything else). Satisfied with the security, or at least as satisfied as he can be with security that's been cobbled together while the rest of the force continues to track down the nefarious Waldo, Tracy turns back to Ringo and demands to know about the performers at the circus. This should be fun, or really, really tedious and might mean that the posts for the strip will disappear for a while. I can't wait to find out which.

There's someone I'd like you to meet.

And so the next storyline gets underway and we're introduced to Mary and Bob Jackson (and a blonde girl we can only assume is their daughter). Just when we thought we were through with the swamp stories, here's another one! Maybe this is how Rabbit will reappear and finally have some sort of resolution to his part in that raccoon fighting ring. (Probably not. This probably isn't even the same swamp, but it could be. It could be.) Ripping a story straight from the headlines, he find that Bob and Mary aren't doing well with the state of the economy and that their unemployment insurance is running out (I'm assuming that they've both already tried to get part-time jobs), and things are starting to look pretty grim. To further hint at the seriousness of the situation, panel two shows us that not only are Bob and Mary worried about the future, but so is that random blue heron and their home. (Maybe that's the answer. Hey Bob, you could charge people to come to your talking home. It could at least help to put food on the table so long as your home doesn't have a foul mouth. Then you could be looking at a lawsuit.) To reaffirm the home's statement, Bob even throws his two cents in, reassuring Mary that everything will be all right, or that they'll at least survive. I hope Mary knows how to weave cloth from what she can find in the swamp and that Bob is a good hunter. (The little blonde girl has yet to be named or show any real talent, leaving her contribution up in the air.) Oh how will they ever survive? This looks like a job for the common sense thinking of Mark Trail. Oh wait, he's gone fishing. I guess it's a job for someone else then.

It rained yesterday.

I was reading a book about a flood. It made me look out of the window a couple of times, but since I don't live in a valley and there isn't a nearby lake/reservoir being held back by an old dam, I felt safe to go on with my life.

Surf's up!

Apparently, a good way to bring more people to a website or blog is to mention revenge, Segways, or Point Break.

What a world.

I really need to keep up with this.

The problem is, I keep running out of things to say or I just forget what I was going to say.

Oh well.

(On a more positive note, the violets are still alive and I'm hoping that being outside is helping the ivy.)

That's it? Really?

After his near death experience, Joey decides that it might be time to change his ways. (After all, he didn't much like the looks of that light he was being pulled towards and thinks that maybe if he does better from now on, he'll head towards the white one instead of the red.) And what better way to change your life than to pledge to bring those who dumped the hazardous materials in Lost Forest, and then tried to kill him, to justice? I mean, sure, exposing them might put Joey in more danger and make it more likely that he perishes in some sort of accident, but at least he'll go with a clear conscience, and that's all that matters, right? (Well, that and if he doesn't, Sarah might fire him because family or not, bad business is bad for business.)
After making sure that everything has been wrapped up at the hospital, Mark heads back to the cabin, where he finds that everyone has already eaten dinner and all that's left is something cold on a plate in the refrigerator. Oh well, better luck next time. At least the animals are safe now, and by the time he gets back, the government has already leapt into action and has started the clean up (which seems a little fast for the government, if you ask me. Shouldn't they be arguing about this in the House and Senate for a couple of months, allowing the hazardous chemicals to seep into the ground a little farther?), and those shadowy figures responsible for dumping the barrels are going to be prosecuted, which means that Mark doesn't get to dole out any Lost Forest justice this time (oh well, you win some, you lose some), but at least the animals are going to be okay.
So that's it? That's the end of the story? We don't even get to learn who those shadowy figures are? We don't get to see Mark enter the seedy underworld of illegal hazardous materials dumping? We don't get to find out who Svelmer was working for and who wanted Joey dead? We don't get to see any courtroom drama? We don't even get to see anyone being arrested? We're just going to leave things right here? We're just going to let the sheriff and the government handle things from now on? We're just going to go fishing? Really? Okay. I guess I can live with that even if Rusty is kind of freaking me out a little in that second panel. I guess it's time to move on to another story, one that features a long haired Cherry clone, a blonde little girl who probably doesn't own a pet raccoon, and a man named Bob who has a penchant for blue shirts and is apparently looking for a job (boy, I know how that goes).

The lies of a clown.

As Tracy shivers in the drafty circus tent, he continues to talk about the newest note, all the while wondering when that blanket they promised him is going to get there. He explains that this note wasn't made from your ordinary run of the mill newspapers, but from the very playbill of the circus itself, suggesting that this is indeed an inside job (or at least a job done by someone who has the same available font or works wherever the playbills are printed). But before Tracy can come to any conclusions, the focus shifts to Washington (D.C., that is), where the FBI was apparently working an angle concerning the circus. Now, usually, I'd be pretty interested in this sort of thing, but after the last government debacle in which the CIA man did little more than talk on the phone and then not much of anything else besides talk about some Internet felon, I'm not holding my breath that anything is actually going to happen. (Who knows, these random government shots might just be filler that appear every now and then when a case of writer's block appears.) Still, I am intrigued and a little confused because I'm not sure if the two panels are set in the same part of Washington or if one is at the FBI and the other is at the headquarters of whatever fiend is behind all of this since the men in question might or might not have changed clothes in between frames. Oh well, enough pondering because suddenly the strip snaps back to the circus, where Mr. Pops continues to further incriminate himself. I can't wait to see where this one goes (if it goes anywhere at all).

Code blue.

Through the magic of editing (and the fact that having a week's worth of strips where it's nothing but Mark trudging through the forest with Svelmer) Mark has delivered his attacker, and shooter of Joey Williams, to the hospital, where he just happens to run into the sheriff. (He was probably there to donate some blood, or maybe he was working on the Joey Williams case. Whatever the reason, it's good to see him again.) And so, in case you missed the previous strips, Mark graciously recaps all of the excitement (leaving out the fact that Andy somehow learned to fly because well, then the feds would get involved and probably take the lovable St. Bernard away and we certainly can't have that, can we? No. No we can't.).
Uh oh. Looks like Mark might not make it to dinner after all. After learning that a guard has been posted for both Joey and Svelmer (just one? Won't the guy get tired running back and forth between the rooms? I mean, they can't put the two in the same room or even next door to each other since who knows who could come during visiting hours), the sheriff goes on to inform Mark that he has indeed gotten the feds involved and the fine folks from Homeland Security are going to investigate the barrels. (Myself, I would have contacted the EPA, but I guess the two are connected.) Luckily, the chipmunk with super sensitive hearing catches everything that's being said so the animals can cover up any of their own activities that if found would only raise questions about just what kind of animals live in Lost Forest. Let's hope that the Avians choose to keep a low profile too. They don't want to get the government involved in this Mark Trail/world domination business and neither do I. Too much red tape and bickering.

At last we have come to the end of our journey.

After finishing book seven, it's going to be nice to read something that requires no further commitment past the last page.

Could you lend me a sweater?

Using his keen crime fighting abilities, Tracy quickly comes to the conclusion that the murderer of poor Louise Trapeze is a member of the circus, which means that we then had to endure a listing of many of the performer's names, each more punny than the last until they come to Mr. Pops (who bares a slight resemblance to known Tracy villain Flattop, but that could just be in my mind because I believe him to be guilty. It's the eyes, I tell ya! The eyes!), who can't seem to fathom that Tracy would even think that he'd be capable of committing a murder, even though his act appeared to have something to do with shooting a gun, and Louise was killed by one. I can't imagine why Tracy might suspect him, can you? (Of course, knowing this comic, I'm probably wrong.)
As Ringo continues to refuse to believe that one of his performers could be a murderer, Tracy continues on his train of thought, making a very valid explanation that that second note arrived pretty soon after he took on the case. Things aren't looking too good. Looks like Ringo didn't do a good enough background check on the people he hired for his circus. Hope he's got a good lawyer or the circus might be shut down for good (not that Tracy would see that as a bad thing, but think of the children).

Maybe I should start calling him Sven.

Searching the chaos in the aftermath of the barrel avalanche, Mark finds Elmer and things are not looking good for the would-be assassin. It looks like he's been hurt pretty badly by all of those barrels and he's probably lying in a pool of hazardous waste since the disaster probably opened up the seals on more than few of them. Still, without his gun, he's just a man and Mark and the Jack Elrod Ball rush to his aid. (We can only assume that Andy has taken the initiative to seek help elsewhere, and is either flying towards the closest medical facility or is at this very moment instructing the forest animals with thumbs on how to construct a stretcher.) Wanting to keep the heat off of the Jack Elrod Ball that has been so helpful in the past, Mark explains that the sound of the shot gun blast was what brought the barrels down on the hapless hunter. (Yeah, I guess that could be right, but my money is still on the Jack Elrod Ball. After all, Elmer went after Andy, so he really gave it no choice but to take drastic measures.) His injuries being tended to, Elmer explains that he was just doing what he was told. My friend, there are easier ways. Take for instance, the silence that resulted in the Dick Tracy Universe when Ringo received the threatening note crafted from cut up news papers. He didn't need to be shot at. He just needed the shooting to be threatened. (Yes, you could argue that poor Louise Trapeze paid the price for that silence, but still, you can't deny that the note wasn't effective.)

Mark, if you want Elmer to survive, I suggest that you get some help quick. I've seen an injury like that in another universe and unless you've got yourself a medical planet to send the injured to, he isn't going to make it. (Sure, you could argue that a robeast and an evil witch are completely different from a pile of toxic barrels and therefore shouldn't be compared, much like you shouldn't compare a re-edited series with the original, but the resulting injuries appear to be pretty similar. So, so there!) Looks like none of the questions of the previous post are going to be answered. Oh well. Better luck next time.

The bears have returned,

And they're getting ready for school.

What once was lost has now been found.

Thanks to Tina, and magic of the Internet, I no longer have to go without knowing the words to the cricket song I wrote about many entries back. I even know now that it came from the "Mouse Soup" episode of Long Ago And Far Away, which would have probably made looking for it a lot easier and far more successful since just looking up Long Ago And Far Away amounted to a whole bunch of nothing (though it did remind me of several other stories that I had forgotten about like "The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship" and "Janko Raven"). Oh well. Still, I must say that I remembered quite a few more words than I thought I had considering the amount of time that had passed since I last saw it. So now, without any further ado, and just in case you were curious, here's the song I wasn't sure that I'd ever hear (or see) again:

Perhaps you should consider spending a little more time at the shooting range.

Elmer, deciding to turn down Mark's offer to guide him out of Lost Forest, decides to instead shoot the intrepid woodsman (and his meddling dog, too). Bad idea, my friend. Maybe you should have taken a moment to think about how successful your previous shots have been. Did you ever manage to really hit what you aimed at? (FYI, Joey doesn't count since he's still alive.) As Elmer prepares to take his shot, the Jack Elrod Ball sneaks up behind him and navigates its way through the pile of barrels. Then, blinded by rage that Elmer would dare to shoot at Andy, the bestest dog in the whole wide world, it sends the pile toppling down upon the hapless huntsman, knowing that at least it would survive, being a ball and all that can just bounce out of the way. All of this leaves us asking many questions. Will Elmer survive? Will the Jack Elrod Ball be charged with murder or attempted murder? Was some other force at work behind the barrel avalanche (a graboid, perhaps)? Are Andy and Mark okay? Does this mean that Mark won't get to punch or tackle Elmer? Can Mark get enough bars for his cell phone to work, or will he have to carry Elmer to safety? Does Mark even own a cell phone? We'll just have to wait and see.

If you can't handle the refolding process

Please don't take the clothes from the folding tables.

He reached the end

Only to find another beginning.

About that whole trying to shoot you thing...my bad.

Hot on the trail of Joey's would-be assassin (and now his, for that matter), Mark follows Elmer through the forest, noting that the hapless hunter is going around in circles. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a little worried about Mark. Sure, he's all macho and saying that he wasn't hit, but come on, that first panel looks like he might have been shot in the shoulder, or maybe the back. Hey, we don't know what kind of gun Elmer has there. It could be full of shot. It could be full of killer bees. It could even be full of poison darts. The fact is, we just don't know. (Well, I guess we do, and unless Mark changed his shirt between panels one and three, I guess he wasn't shot after all. Maybe Andy set up a force field around him that diverted the bullets. That and the tree. That poor, poor tree.) Seeing the drums, Elmer finally realizes his mistake and figures out that for all of that walking he hasn't really left the scene of the crime. (This means, as he says, that he's been walking in a circle. That, or he's in some kind of looping universe and there's something that he's supposed to do there and won't be able to leave until he does it. This could take a while.) To further confuse things, Mark calls out to his attacker, offering to help him find his way out of the forest. I wouldn't be so quick to take the offer, Elmer. After all, he didn't say where he'd take you after that. Maybe he'll let you go, or maybe he'll take you to jail. You just can't be sure, and you can't very well come right out and ask Mark what his intentions are because he might be an upstanding citizen, but he's also the same man that you tried to shoot out of a tree, so he might be hankering for a little bit of revenge, Lost Forest style. (I have no idea what that means, but it might mean that you get punched or tackled.)

What do you mean you're out of circus peanuts?

The investigation continues, and now things are getting serious. The performers have refused to perform, expressing their concern and outright fear of meeting the same fate as Louise. Now, Tracy might not think that's such a bad idea, but only because he's not much of a circus person and his livelihood doesn't come from a circus. Still, he finds his resolve to solve the case strengthening (but possibly only because if there is no circus, that might mean that some of the circus people might move in next door, and he already has a mad scientist, so he doesn't really need anyone else to make his life more interesting). Then, just after making a pun (or at least I think it's a pun because it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense), a mysterious note arrives for Ringo, and just when things are getting good, the strip ends, leaving us all to ponder just what that note could be. An invitation to a birthday party? A notice that Ringo's subscription to Modern Circus is about to expire? The $2.00 rebate from buying sixty cases of clown makeup? A note from the mother of one of the performers, excusing Wendell from capering about because he has a tummy ache? We may never know.

Now is not the time for chin-ups.

Elmer sees his shot and takes it as Mark climbs back down to the the ground, but unfortunately for him (and fortunately for Mark), his aim is off (again), and the only one injured is a tree that might or might not be dead. Mark meanwhile, scrambles back down to the safety of the poison ivy surrounding the tree, deciding not to tempt fate any longer. Now, the fact that Mark was forced to cling to the tree for dear life instead of falling was a given. The fact that Andy appeared to have developed powers of levitation somewhere along the line is not. Of course, you do realize what this means, don't you? Andy is a super dog and not the Superdog that came from a society based on crystal/Lego architecture, which collapsed like a Lego airplane accidentally crashed into a wall (I speak of that from experience). Think of all of the good Andy will be able to do because he can fly. The Avians may have thought that they held air supremacy, but this proves that they were wrong (and won't Andy look cute wearing aviator goggles? I think so.).

I have ventured back into The Forest of Retail.

Wish me luck.

I remember watching the series.

But I don't remember any of the episodes.

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

After wandering around the forest for a few minutes and realizing that if he finds the shooter he'll be able to get back home in time for supper, Mark decides that the only logical thing to do is climb a tree and see what he can see. This might be a good idea, or it might not. I'm not sure how thick Lost Forest is and how helpful climbing a tree will be if said tree puts you above the canopy. Seems to me like it might make finding the shooter more difficult, unless, of course, he has also decided to climb a tree. Then Mark will have to shimmy around the trunk to make sure that he's not hit when Elmer gets a clear shot in all of that fresh air. Looking at the tree he decided to climb, however, I think that Mark should also be prepared to bail out when it falls down because it's clearly dead or quickly heading that way. (You know, there was a tree fairly similar to that one in Space Quest II, and it fell over just a soon as Roger Wilco climbed it, and unless Mark needs to climb down a ravine/gorge, I think he might want to find a healthier specimen.) There are also the crows to deal with, and I think we can all be fairly certain that those buggers are not on Mark's side (and that Andy can't climb trees because he's a dog).

As Mark climbs up the dying tree, Elmer continues to wander about Lost Forest, now lost, tired, cranky, and wishing that he'd paid more attention at those Boy Scout meetings he attended when he was a lad. Just as he's about to give up hope, Elmer notices the crows, and at first thinks he scared them, but then sees Mark in the tree and changes his mind. (He also apparently changes perspective and distance too, since panel two gives the impression that he's just about standing under the tree while panel three seems to put quite a distance between the two. Oh well. Maybe time and distance are funny here. Perhaps the world has moved on and things aren't quite right.) He also seems to have decided that Mark is just too tempting a target to pass up. I hope Mark is wearing his bullet proof khaki, or that Elmer is out of bullets, otherwise this is going to turn into "Mark Trail's Adventures In Emergency Medicine," and informative as that might be, it won't do anything about those barrels that we can only assume are still leaking their hazardous contents onto the floor of Lost Forest.

That's not how that works.

With the investigation underway and the miraculous appearance of Lt. Teevo (yes, he was there, but not much else was happening, so if you want to see him, you'll have to find that strip yourself), Tracy continues his questioning of Ringo, complete with a flashback to poor Louise's gun powder and gravity induced end. Luckily, Ringo seems have been able to overcome his constant repetition of "It happened!", so this case might actually start going somewhere. Plus, Mr. Pops has shown back up on the scene, and it would seem, at least for the moment, that he might not have anything to do with this (even though that fancy gun certainly doesn't help his case, and if he were smart, he'd have handed it over for testing, but only if he's completely sure that he's innocent). Still, I can't help but read his lines without falling into that cold, unfeeling serial killer voice, so I'm not about to clear him completely just yet (I think it's the eyes).
The questioning continues, and Tracy doesn't seem too happy that Ringo didn't tell the police about the threatening phone calls. You see, Ringo, they take their death threats seriously in Tracyville, so you just remember that the next time you receive a strange phone call (even though, considering that it is a circus, they might get weird phone calls all of the time). As he continues to gather information, Ringo provides him with actual evidence: the threatening note that warned him of a possible death. Now wait just a minute here. Ringo, if you got a phone call, then why are you showing him a note? Which is it man? The two are not interchangeable, they're just...oh, just forget it. Okay, so now there's a threatening note composed of newspaper clippings (or a font that creates the impression of newspaper clippings). Looks like there's more police work to be done and newspapers to find. To the library!

Good thing he's part Cartwright.

Deep in the woods, Mark finally starts putting the pieces together, quickly coming to the conclusion that the burned out car is not the work of rowdy teens, but instead belongs to Elmer. Using that knowledge he is able to locate the trail of the would-be assassin. Now it's only a matter of following the tracks (which look like they'll be pretty easy to follow since it would seem that Elmer is wearing a lead vest, making each and every step sink down into the ground, leaving semi-permanent evidence of his presence in Lost Forest), and so, while Mark heads off deeper into the forest, hoping now more than ever that he'll have this all wrapped up in time for dinner, we turn our attention to the hospital and the seemingly miraculous survival of Joey Williams. (Or perhaps the not so miraculous survival, as you will soon see.)

But first, let me take you to the long ago time of history back, when the Williams family was briefly untied with the Cartwrights of the Ponderosa by way of Virginia City. It was a union doomed from the start, but before the young woman who had caught the eye of one of the brothers died, there was a child and from that child came the line of the Williams family from which Sarah and Joey are descended, and while this means all sorts of misunderstandings about all sorts of things, it also assures them that no matter how much danger they're in, if it involves gunfire, one can be almost assured of surviving with only a wound to the shoulder. That, my friends, is why Joey is still alive and not lying face down on the forest floor. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle (or so I've heard).

While Joey spills his guts to Sarah about the details of his dealings with the mysterious shadows who have yet to appear in decent light (save for Elmer, of course), we see that the animals continue to prepare for whatever is to come. (I'm going to ignore the fact that the squirrel on the left appears to have a talking rear, so don't go expecting anything about that.) The squirrels are assembling their command posts in the trees and acquiring the necessary munitions they'll need for defense should the dumpers return. This does bring up a bit of a touchy subject though, for if the Plant Kingdom has joined with the forest animals, I'm not sure how happy they're going to be about those squirrels taking the acorns (which you could say are not but baby trees) for who knows what purpose. I hope that whoever is handling the diplomatic relations between the two groups knows of this development and has already discussed it with the leader of the plants.

(And in other news, it looks like the plants, or at least the acorns aren't above a little betrayal either, as one of them seems to be giving a very Joey Williams-like reaction in response to the abduction of its kin.)

So...should I start calling it Thunderclap?

According to last night's news broadcast, North Korea is one of the darkest and most mysterious countries in the world.

I had no idea. Did you?

Should I be watching for Mother Brain or Dr. Wily?

The blade arm on my ceiling fan looks like it's either a Metroid or Mega Man's helmet.

What do you think?

Should I be worried?

Ruminations on rats and religions.

Not too long ago I noticed that the ads for Filtrete and American Family Fitness use the same music. Now I associate rats and impurities in the air with working out. I don't think that's what I'm supposed to think, but I can't help it. It's like when that old Kelly Clarkson song that sounds like another song would be played at the store and I'd start singing the words to the wrong song. The same thing used to happen when they'd play that Jessica Simpson song instead of "Jack & Diane" too.

Moving along...

I always think the Scientology ad, that I've now seen several times, is about the environment instead of Scientology. I keep expecting to be told to save the rain forest, to preserve the habitat of the giant panda, or how I can help keep the Earth beautiful and maybe get a free t-shirt. I have yet to even think about looking at the website at the end of the ad because the last part starts to creep me out and I feel more than a little betrayed. It does make me want to help the Earth, though.

Continuing on...

Even though I'll never go to it, I think that the ad for the Creation Museum is really pretty, though it does remind me of some of the United Airlines ads that I like to watch since they both employ that cut paper style of animation. Every time I see the ad, I forget what it's for until the very end because I think that it feels more like a short film than an ad and I always have to be reminded that it's for the Creation Museum and not just some random short film that got thrown into the broadcast mix by accident.

But what does it all mean?

These ads are not working. They might make me remember what's being advertised, but if the message either gets jumbled up with another, or makes me think of something else entirely, then I wouldn't say that they're successful, would you?

On the trail with Mark.

With Andy on the case, Mark Trail cannot fail. (Hey, that rhymes. Neat!) Using the precision instrument that is the nose of a St. Bernard, Mark steps back to let Andy take over. (I just hope that both of them remembered to wear their bullet proof vests in case they run into any more trouble.) Meanwhile, Elmer continues to wander aimlessly through the forest. At least, I'm pretty sure that he's been wandering, but who knows. The proximity of panel two to panel three kind of makes me think that he's only a few feet away from where Andy is looking around, meaning that this mystery is about to be solved so that he can go back to whatever it is that he was doing before being called to Mark's side. Of course, there is an equally likely possibility that Elmer shrank himself and is actually on the other side of the rock that Andy is currently sniffing around. (I'm not saying that Mark or anyone else has a shrink ray, but I'm not saying they don't either.)

Apparently, there's no shrink ray (but there could be and Andy could have just missed Elmer because he's so small). It is also apparent that the smell of a burning car with all of the rubber, oil, and whatnot blends seamlessly with the smells of nature so that you don't realize what you're smelling until you stumble upon it. (Somehow I don't believe that, but maybe there's a very stiff wind blowing the smell away.) With the discovery of the car, another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Now Mark knows the shooter is still in the forest, which means that he has to keep looking and that this search for a shooter could also turn into a rescue mission (and some sort of fist fight, of course).

You might want to stop talking now.

Well, poor Louise Trapeze was really, really hurt. So much so that the combination of being shot and falling made calling an ambulance a worthless endeavor (and just so we all know that she's really dead, there's a good amount of blood on the ground, unless she happened to land on a juice box but that doesn't seem likely at this point). While the body is still warm and the blood still liquid, Tracy gets right to work, turning his attention to Ringo, who continues to say that he knew this was going to happen. Ringo, Ringo, Ringo. You are not helping your case at all since by saying that you knew it was going to happen, you're doing a pretty good job of incriminating yourself and fixing Tracy's suspicious, super-sleuthing eyes on you when he should be turning them on the clown with the gun seeing as how Louise was shot with a gun. (Try to pull yourself together man. You've dug quite a hole for yourself as it is. I mean, even the elephant is trying to get away by pretending to carry that drum out of the ring as if to say, "I don't know that guy. I just work here.") And speaking of Mr. Pops, where did he go?