There is much to celebrate in Mark Trail. But after over seventy years of comic strip syndication, not a few bodies have been buried. Mark Trail Confidential seeks to exhume them, and other hopefully intriguing details, good, bad and often just a little bizarre.

Timeless! How Mark Trail Found Lost Forest (1946)

The short answer is Andy, the lovable St. Bernard. Women might come and go, but for Mark Trail, Andy was the true driver of so many of his adventurers.

Their story began before the narrative of the comic strip began way back in 1946. Mark’s backstory was as a veteran of World War II. As for Andy, he was originally Doctor Tom Davis’ dog. Too old to serve himself, Doc generously offered up Andy to be trained as war dog. The specifics were never spelled out, but in some fashion or another, Andy saved Mark from certain death.

After the war, Mark volunteered to return Andy to his owner. As the comic strip begins, Mark is trying to find Davis to return his dog. But his ulterior motive is to actually buy the dog, if he can. Town folk warn Mark that Davis is a little crazy, or so it seems to them, living in a wilderness retreat. But for Mark, an aspiring nature photographer, that’s just fine with him.

Arriving at the so called “Lost Forest,” Mark is startled to see a beautiful girl seemingly chased by a bear. Mark nobly steps in and bops the bear and earns a hard slap from the girl. What was he thinking, attacking her pet? They were just headed for a swim.

It soon emerges the girl is Cherry Davis, the reclusive old man’s daughter. It turns out that Doc is an amiable zoologist who created this retreat to live amongst the animals, all the better to study them. He has no interest in selling Andy, but he does confess his retreat is in dire financial shape. So Mark—who has aspirations to become an nature photographer—enters a photo contest held by Woods and Wildlife magazine to hand over the prize money to Davis.

Complications ensue but Trail wins, turns over a cool two thousand, and his place in the affections of father and daughter is secured. The only problem is that’s Cherry’s engaged to a man she doesn’t love. Mark kisses her anyway (the rogue).

Andy’s heart, of course, was won long before.

Forgotten! How Ed Dodd Really Created Mark Trail

The origins of the Mark Trail comic strip were far different but intriguing in their own way.

In 1971, cartoonist Ed Dodd told a reporter from his home town paper, the Atlanta Constitution, the story of how Mark Trail came to be.  

Born in 1902, Dodd had tried unsuccessfully to get several comic strips published, and the one he had, Back Home Again, way back in 1930, was not particularly successful. Now in his forties, Dodd was getting discouraged. It was his wife that got him on the right track, as he recalled, repeating the age old admonition to write about what you knew.

“That was my knowledge of the out-of-doors. I had hunted and fished, camped, and been associated with Dan Beard,” who in 1910 had been a central player in the successful launch of the Boy Scouts. “I had been too close to it, I guess.”

Dodd recalled basing his original conception of the character on a gentleman farmer friend who had lived next door to him named John Wayt. He drew and redrew samples of the strip, finally building the resolve to travel from Atlanta and traveled to New York City to try and sell the strip.

Additional details emerged in Dodd’s retelling of the story in 1985 at the age of 83. One senses a desire in the elderly cartoonist to tell the whole story. Once in the Big Apple, Dodd revealed, he had rented a room in a cheap and rundown men’s hotel.

 Dodd still remembered the hotel vividly.

 “It housed all sorts of strange people—broken-down acrobats, musician, dancers and old newspaper men.” The place reeked of years of stale tobacco. He might have felt he had gone to jail if not for the enthusiasm he felt for his idea.

Something fortuitous happened then.

“About this time, a young man moved into the fleabag where I was living. He looked as nearly like my idea of Mark Trail as could be imagined. He was handsome, about 6 feet 2, had coal black hair, and he was about the right age. I did some drawings of him and watched him carefully, so I could pick up his characteristics. I found out later he was a bouncer at night at the Roseland dance hall on Broadway. He was going to school by day and studying law.” (Dodd, Atlanta Constitution, 4-14-1985, p. 62)

Re-enter Robert Hall, a former sales manager for United Features, who had started up Publishers Syndicate in collaboration with the New York Post. Dodd had worked with Hall on Back Home Again, and so seemed the perfect choice to approach again. But while Hall expressed interest, he went back and forth without making a commitment for about a year. As Dodd recalls, it was only when he said he was going to take the strip elsewhere that Hall finally struck a deal. The syndicate’s salesmen signed on 46 papers in the very first week of promoting it. Dodd’s hometown paper, the  top was the first.

With Dodd having signed on with Publishers Syndicate, his comic strip first appeared on newspaper comic pages on April 15^th, 1946. Trail joined an increasingly successful group of the comic strips the syndicate offered to interested newspapers individually or in clusters. Publishers Syndicate’s stable of comic strips included Mary Worth, Kerry Drake, and Steve Roper. Definitely on the move, Publishers Syndicate soon added what would become equally popular story strips like Rex Morgan (1948), Judge Parker (1952), and Apartment 3-G (1961).

After successfully sold the feature and making a livable wage, Dodd and his wife moved to Atlanta where he’d lived before NYC. Long standing contours of his life began to take shape. Tom Hill joined him almost from the start, drawing Sunday pages. And Jack Elrod became his assistant on the daily strip in 1948. In 1950, Dodd bought a wooded retreat in Sandy Springs, 12 miles outside of Atlanta. And four years after that he was able to build his dream home “of cypress and stone designed by Archietect Heb Millkey into a rocky hillside, a combination home and studio.”

By 1971 it was a 130 acre that one reporter described it as a “wilderness preserve surrounded by subdivisions.” Not surprisingly, Dodd called it Lost Forest. 

Mark Trail’s story continued to evolve as well. The army veteran was soon established as a skilled photographer and writer, later shown winning several awards in this area. Trailworked as a freelance feature writer for Woods and Wildlife magazine which often sent him far afield to capture one story or another story regarding wildlife and conservation issues. He was portrayed as an avid swimmer, and for most of his history a formidable fighter. Dark haired and handsome, his courage, willingness to help those in need (animal or human) and earnest manner earned him the interest of many a beautiful woman through the years. Mark smoked a pipe early on and across some seventy years has been described as being 32 during most of the comic strip narrative.

Erased! Mark Trail’s Early Friends and Rivals

While consistently portrayed as a loyal and true friend, many of Mark Trail’s seemingly close associates have disappeared from his life without a bit of explanation.

Sgt. “Dub” Glenn (1946-62). His best friend from the war, Glenn shares a couple of new adventures with Mark, then is largely relegated to showing up as the law in stories based in Canada and then never showing up at all.

Ben Gray Wolf (1946-47). An older Indian who is a trusted friend who helps out both Mark and Cherry before he suffers injuries, is sent to a hospital and never seen again.

Scotty Quick Davis (1947-75). A young boy with a mysterious grandfather, Scotty becomes like a second son to Mark, and unlike his mentor something of a womanizer. He may even actually been adopted by Doc. But by the eighties, though, he is never mentioned. Not a word.

Meridy Malone (1947-48). A manipulative beauty who has a good heart beneath all the glamorous trappings. She seemed poised to be a threat to Mark and Cherry’s romance but she soon disappears from the narrative. More’s the pity.

Johnny Malotte (1948-73). The French Canadian trapper turned fisher camp guide was an endearing fellow. With a heavy accent and full of macho bluster at first, Malotte soon emerged as the closest friend Mark ever enjoyed. The running joke of the narrative was that every time Mark visited, Johnny’s wife was pregnant with another child. By 1973, Johnny had no less than nine children. No wonder he disappeared.

Cliff McQueen (1961-73). Forest ranger McQueen served as the first serious rival for Cherry Davis’ affections, the two nearly marrying in 1969 save for the intervention of a raging forest fire. Like Malotte, the Canadian will appear regularly and then not at all.

Ed Dodd seemed intent on having a rich supporting cast in the early years of his creation but Scotty and Johnny Malotte ended up having the most story potential throughout the fifties—Scotty the only character to age slowly through the years.

You can find more detailed individual entries under the character histories provided at the end of this article. You’ll note that Malotte and McQueen appear to have returned in 1984 for a few more appearances after long absences. Though as you’ll also note, these returns may not have really been returns in the way that most of us might think, but rather eerie echoes of a past their creator apparently hoped were entirely forgotten. But the time for the story behind all of that is still decades away. 

Scary! Mark Trail’s Adventures on Radio (1950)

Dodd’s comic strip quickly caught on and was developed into a radio series for the younger set in 1950.

The breathless on air introduction set the tone.

“Kellogg’s Pep, the build-up wheat cereal with a prize in every package, invites you to share another thrilling adventure with Mark Trail… battling the raging elements! Fighting the savage wilderness! Striking at the enemies of man and nature!

And so it continued until its rousing conclusion. “Guardian of the forests! Protector of wildlife! Champion of man and nature! Mark Trail!”

If there was any doubt that this was not a bland echo of the newspaper hero, the names of some of the episodes promised more fanciful adventures. The Eyeless Monster, Highway of Terror, Strange Invitation to Death, Wings of the Vampire.

Or the most horrific of all, Poisoned Turkeys!

There were no less than three voice actors that played Trail: Matt Crowley, John Larkin and Staats Cotsworth. But unfortunately for the series, it debuted during network radio’s slow decline, the medium unable to compete with the advent of television. On two different networks, Mark Trail, the radio series, only ran from January 30^th, 1950 to June 27^th, 1952.

Exposed! Mark Trail’s Mission for LBJ (1966)

Well, technically, the mission was assigned by Secretary of Commerce John T. Connor. But it was on President Johnson’s behalf. And kind of impressive, all in all.

Trail met with Connor on the comics page where the commerce secretary flattered Trail as the best figure to head up Johnson’s Discover America campaign.

It wasn’t entirely puffery. At the time, Mark Trail, the comic strip, was at the peak of its popularity, running in more than 300 newspapers in the United States and 55 more in other countries. The campaign itself was a brainchild of LBJ’s to help gin up domestic and international tourism in the United States.

Promotional efforts for the storyline itself were also noteworthy. A national essay contest for high school students detailing why people should explore the wonders of the country was held before the launch of the storyline. The winners of the contest were incorporated into the comic strip narrative, joining a gaggle of fictional teenagers in a caravan of vans travelling across the scenic west.

By the end of the storyline, Trail, Scotty and the troubled mechanic Croom Hardin (so far as I can tell the reason behind his nickname was never explained) had visited the Black Hills, Yellowstone and Glacier parks, Cody, Wyoming, and the Grand Tetons.

Croom, at the beginning of the story, had a scruffy beard. In a sure sign of his ongoing redemption, Croom asks to borrow Mark’s razor.

Ecstatic, Mark exclaims he’ll gladly shave Croom himself.

Ed Dodd’s deeply held prejudice against facial hair deserves an article all of its own.

Lamented! The TV Series that Never Was (1969)

Dodd and Mark Trail appeared to be on a roll. Producer Bob Stabler, best known for his work as a producer on the television series Death Valley Days expressed interest in doing a pilot featuring the intrepid outdoorsman. Given those credentials, there was every reason for Dodd to be optimistic. The pilot was to be filmed primarily in Canada, with some footage coming from Australia, for reasons this writer was unable to discover.  

The part of Mark Trail in the pilot was played by Todd Armstrong, a strapping fellow best known for starring in the 1963 film, Jason and the Argonauts. Unfortunately for Armstrong, his movie career never took off after that. The Mark Trail pilot was probably his best shot at moving past his current one off guest shots in various television series. Call it kismet, but Armstrong was 32 years old at the time of filming, the same age the eternally vital Trail was said to be. The photo of Armstrong may actually be from the pilot. The building in the background appears rustic, perhaps the cabin at Lost Forest?

A lovely brunette actress named Susan Lloyd was cast as Cherry Davis. Lloyd’s biggest success thus far had been playing secret agent Cordelia Winfield for the British television series, The Baron. Now living in Canada, Lloyd both looked the part and was  available.

Robert Dunlap, just off a seven episode stint on the American television series Peyton Place, portrayed Scotty Davis. Gordon McDougall and Michael Pate finished off the cast as Doc Davis and Johnny Malotte respectively.

Unfortunately, Stabler and his crew found it more difficult to work with animals than they’d anticipated.

Describing one example of that challenge, Dodd told the story of how a scene in which Andy, the lovable St. Bernard, was to carry a letter to Mallote took a total of nine takes. Andy kept eating the missive!

Dodd related that vignette in 1970, still hopeful that the pilot might find a home. But the trouble with Andy may have been a harbinger. For whatever the reason, a series was never produced.

Uproar! Mark Trail Accused of Racism (1969)

If the filming of the television pilot was a bright spot for Ed Dodd, that same year an ill-advised plot turn in the comic strip story brought about some bad publicity. In the unfolding story of a wilderness fishing trip, the wealthy and entitled Brian Rainey keeps ignoring Trail’s sage advice. Brian gets a new idea which Mark unsuccessfully tries to discourage.

A July 6^th letter to the editor of the Winona Daily News in Minnesota described the writer’s alarm at those developments. “For three days now, the characters in the Mark Trail strip have been arguing about giving a drink of whiskey to their trail guides, and in Wednesday’s final picture we all discovered why. The guides are Indians…

“I must admit the cartoonist has been extremely effective in carrying on his indoctrination in racism and prejudice,” which concluded with “the two grinning faces with slanted eyes, high cheekbones, prominent noses—and outstretched cups for that one drink of whiskey which hero Mark knows will send them on a drunken rampage.” (“Mark Trail strip seen as racist,” Winona Daily News, 7-6-69, p. 7)

Said Indians don’t go on a rampage, but they do steal the wealthy man’s bag with critical medication inside of it and take off with the lone canoe to boot.

The day before, the Minneapolis Star Tribune omitted the Saturday installment of the strip and those that would follow, explaining only that they contained offensive material. Readers both complained about and lauded the action. Those that complained failed to see the offense. Others clearly did.

“It was obvious,” one reader wrote, “our children were about to receive an insidious lesson in prejudice.” Another complemented the editors on their “good taste and judgment” in not publishing the rest of the story.

The editors closed the sampling of letters with the following note: “The discontinued sequence in Mark Trail cast the guides, presented as Indians, in a degrading and untrue stereotype which would perpetuate unfair prejudice. Mark Trail will appear in the Tribune again August 6, in a new sequence.” (“Views on Mark Trail, Star Tribune, 7-10-69, p. 4)

For a man accustomed to praise for his advocacy for environmental and wildlife concerns, this visceral turn against his comic strip must have been unsettling.

Dodd felt compelled to respond to the Star Tribune’s action and the readers’ concerns in a July 24^th letter of his own. He began with the rather lame defense that “while I agree that the guides in the story look like Indians, it was never once mentioned that they actually were Indians.”

Declaring that he has “the very highest regard for Indians,” Dodd recalled camping with one as a teenager and how another was “one of my best friends.”

By the end of the letter Dodd allowed that the sequence in question was “thoughtless perhaps,” but never intended as a slur.       

Dodd’s past record on portraying Native Americans had been mixed. Mark’s good friend Ben Gray Wolf was generally portrayed in a positive fashion, but his tenure in the strip was short lived. And Navaho Monte Chee, described a “well educated boy” despite being a grown man, played a greater role in solving a tribal mystery in 1957 than Trail himself. The 1956 story of Pat Hilley, who was a nurse to impoverished Indians, and her father who hated them, was more of a mixed bag. Summaries of their stories can be found in the list of character descriptions found at the end of this article. 

Dodd was hardly alone in questionable treatments of Native Americans on the comics page. Read about Big Chief Wahoo for another example of flawed treatments of Native Americans, an unusual misfire by the otherwise talented Allen Saunders. Secret Agent Corrigan and its treatment of Joe Otterfoot, a hip Mohawk government agent, during the fifties provides an example of a comic strip that got it right.

If Dodd learned his lesson, it seems clear that he soon forgot it. Or perhaps it was his assistant Jack Elrod who did. When Trail is sent to report on Eskimos dying of starvation in Alaska in 1980, an elder in the community blames the sinister Mr. Hardesty for introducing alcohol to their young men. Thereafter none of them hunted anymore leading to the present crisis. It took one white man to totally ruin their livelihood and another white man to eliminate the threat and restore the community’s wellbeing.

But there were no heartfelt protests to that storyline, or at least none that registered in newspaper letter pages. Perhaps it was a sign of the times or more likely a sign of Trail’s declining readership. 

Shocking! The Worst Year of Mark Trail’s Life? (1979)

1979, by any objective standard, appeared to be the worst year of Mark Trail’s fictional life. Let me detail the precedent breaking events that marred Trail’s more typically blessed existence.

Unable to Save a Life. When actress Mimi Warren’s private plane crashes in the mountains, along with a bevy of priceless jewels, Mark is called upon to try and rescue her. Trail, who seemingly never fails in a rescue attempt, arrives too late to prevent her from succumbing to the cold. Appreciative of his efforts, however futile, Mimi gives Mark the pair of diamond earrings she was wearing in a gesture of gratitude. It is a gesture that will give Mark considerable difficulty in the weeks that followed.

Charged with Grand Larceny. When the gems that Warren was known to be transporting were unable to be find, it isn’t looking good for Mark when the pair of diamond earrings are found on his person. Mark is charged with grand larceny and must embark on a desperate and entirely unfamiliar attempt to clear his name.

The Lost Forest Deep in Debt. No sooner is Trail exonerated of all charges than he receives the troubling news from Cherry that the Lost Forest is in terrible financial shape. A combination of inflation and property taxes doubling in the last three years has left the property in arrears to the tune of $10,000. Financial concerns had not been a concern of the Lost Forest since his arrival there years before. Though they are not yet married, Cherry strongly suggests that Mark ask for a raise to pay his fair share.

Fired from Woods and Wildlife. When Trail approaches the magazine’s long-standing editor, Bill Ellis, for that raise, Ellis apologetically says he wishes he could bu he can’t. Woods and Wildlife has been bought out by the temperamental, big game hunter Wiley Kamper. And when Kamper asks Trail to do a photo feature of him hunting and killing a grizzly bear for sport, Mark refuses. Kamper promptly fires him. Trail’s financial crisis has just gotten worse.

Attacked by the Woman He Loves. When Cherry hears of Mark’s job loss and the reason for it, she is incensed and lets Mark have it. Are his precious principles to not photograph the shooting of a bear, a bear that his boss is likely to kill in any event, really worth threatening the very existence of the Lost Forest? When Mark comments that he needs to gather himself away from the “noise,” Cherry suggests he get out of her sight as soon as possible. It was a reasonable, if less virtuous response and one Trail likely had coming for some time.

But the comic strip hadn’t totally lost its optimistic outlook. The fictional readers of Mark’s articles protest Trail’s firing after Kamper’s wife publicly reveals the circumstances of his firing. And Trail boldly requires a 40% raise and a $10,000 advance. Declaring he likes Trail’s boldness, Kamper complies.

What accounted for this uncharacteristic run of bad luck? On September 18^th, 1978, Jack Elrod began receiving credit for his work on the comic strip and took over full responsibility for penciling the daily installments. It was roughly thirty years earlier that Elrod had begun supplying the backgrounds and lettering for the comic strip, a very long apprenticeship indeed.

While Ed Dodd continued to be the writer of record, it seems clear that new ideas were being introduced into a comic strip that had remained remarkably the same for decades. Up until Elrod’s promotion, Mark Trail’s life was rather sweet. He always saved the day, he put away the bad guys without ever running afoul of the law, his privileged position as head writer for Woods and Wildlife magazine was sacrosanct, and Cherry Davis’ undying loyalty and forbearance was consistent despite his perpetual wanderlust. All that seemed to change in 1979. It was as if Elrod suggested Trail’s life needed to be shook up a bit. (In 1985, in response to six-year old’s suggestion, Elrod even had Trail give up his signature pipe.)

As already detailed, Scotty Davis and Johnny Malotte had disappeared from view by the mid-seventies. There was an unfilled need for characters who could prompt additional adventures. To meet that need, two new characters were introduced, again likely at Elrod’s initiation. In 1981, Mark rescues Rusty Wilson from his alcoholic uncle, one Joe Dobbs, and Cherry and Doc welcome him as a permanent member of their family. And just a few months later, Kelly Welly enters Trail’s orbit as a rival writer for Woods and Wildlife. Her impulsivity, poor judgment and perpetual delight in irritating Mark make her a constant source of vexation in our hero’s life.

In any case, 1979 seemed to be the most troubling time Mark Trail had ever experienced. But as this investigative reporter dug ever deeper into the secrets of Trail’s life I began to think, maybe not. I discovered that the trauma of Mimi Warren’s death was eerily presaged by the death of another actress named Betty Lane in 1958.

Nearly all the details of the two stories were the same, Warren and Lane carrying a fortune of jewels with them on a private plane that crashed, Mark finding her alive on the mountain but too late to save her, before her death the gesture of giving Mark her diamond earrings, Mark being accused of stealing the jewels, the arrival of a corrupt insurance investigator.

And then I discovered that Trail had been fired once before in 1956, in not quite as identical a sequence of events, but markedly similar. The new publisher who fired Mark still recants as he did in 1979 and in both instances gives the writer a big raise.

What was going on here? Without his awareness was Mark Trail leading his life at the nexus of a multiverse of alternative versions of events, only his his response to them remaining the same?

Or, for those who prefer more mundane explanations, were his creators simply having writer’s block, and recycling a few stories here and there, assuming enough time had passed that no one would notice?

As I dug deeper and still deeper, I discovered multiple similar examples of nearly identical series of events repeated years later, and not just once, but sometimes twice or three times over.

Maddening! Mark Trail’s Recycled Tales (1979-2004)

Beginning as early as 1979, but happening with some regularity in the late 1980s and into the 1990s and beyond, Mark Trail began having encounters that eerily echoed earlier adventures with only minor differences. As my efforts to chart the more interesting of Trail’s adventures by year are not as comprehensive as I might like, slowly but surely I began to experience more and more unsettling episodes of déjà vu. The following list of stories and the years in which parallel tales were told is by no means complete. But it gives a picture of a creative team led by an increasingly elderly Jack Elrod that seemingly was running out of plot ideas but still was committed to changing names and small details of the stories in redrawn sequences.

The Mystery of the Duck/Goose with a Gold Band with a Biblical Inscription Inside It. This was one of the first stories I discovered because the uniqueness of the plot was hard to miss when repeated. The first version of the story in 1957 involves a woman named Sue Allison, but her role as a rival writer hoping to scoop Mark is taken over by Kelly Welly in subsequent versions. This very involved story of a duck with a gold band marker with both a Bible verse and Ojibway symbol inside of it is further modified in minor ways with the duck becoming a goose, the Ojibway symbol deleted and the gold band maker no longer made by ranger Sgt. McHugh’s father but by ranger Sgt. McQueen’s mother (1994, 2011).

The Rival Female Writer and her Male Writer Rescuer. In 1958 there is a story about Sue Allison sabotaging a wilderness trip to make for a better story, needing to be rescued by a charging moose by fellow writer Barry Wall who is injured in the process, and Sue taking credit for his subsequent rescue. All of these elements are present in a modestly revised story in 1988 with Kelly Welly and Doug Davis taking their respective roles.

The Deadly Black Widow. A dark-haired beauty witnesses her husband having an argument and physical fight with one of Mark Trail’s friends. Sometimes it is is with Johnny Malotte and other times with a previously unmentioned friend. Said Black Widow (my name for her—she always has a different one each time) frames Mark’s friend for the subsequent murder of her husband, a murder she has arranged. Her deadly associate is sometimes a secret lover and sometimes her brother. Black widows in order: Renee Prince (1962), Toni Royal (1984), Kathy Malone (2008), and Elizabeth Chavez (2012).

Filming in the Lost Forest. A headstrong woman wants to film a nature documentary in the Lost Forest with Cherry’s help. Her impulsive actions end up endangering both women. Holly Newman (1963), Kelly Welly (1991-92), Kelly Welly again (2008).

Rusty’s Incriminating Photo. Young Rusty has taken in interest in Mark’s profession and is given a camera. Under a variety of circumstances he ends up taking a picture of two crooks—sometimes poachers, on one occasion bank robbers—which said crooks fear could be used to incriminate them. They unsuccessfully try to buy the camera from the oblivious youth. Rusty then happens upon their hideout and the crooks kidnap him. On two occasions Mark rescues him and on the other two a gun-toting Cherry does. Villains of the story: Bull and unnamed companion (1982), Hawk and unnamed companion (1995), Bank Robbers (2009), Bob Turner and Hank Johnson (2012).

The Woman in Witness Protection. Mark is called upon to protect a woman in a witness protection program until she can testify in court. The woman feels drawn to  Mark by the end of their shared adventure. Neal Moore 11/11/86-2/5/87, Kelly Welly (2002).

The Scheming Taxidermist and the Bird Woman. Mark encounters an unfriendly taxidermist and his girlfriend or wife who is portrayed as having an interest in helping wounded birds heal. The taxidermist is variously a drug smuggler (who hides said drugs—usually cocaine—in stuffed animal heads or mounted fish) or a poacher. He always clocks Mark and dumps Mark’s unconscious body in shark invested waters. On two occasions his girlfriend/wife helps him, on the third she’s oblivious to his crimes. “Sting” Ray (1990), Barracuda (2004), Marlin (2014). As an aside, if you’re going to be up to nefarious doings, I’d advise changing your nickname from Barracuda. “Sting” Ray, I gotta say, is kind of cool.

The Bogus Monster of the Hills. In both instances, a businessman named Treadway hires Mark to investigate and the monster turns out to be the device of a radical environmentalist trying to sabotage efforts at wilderness development. Monster: Rustyfinger (1975), the Hazy Mountain Monster (1994-95).

The Airport Saboteurs. Corrupt men with a financial interest in seeing a new airport built, import birds to nest near the airport and cause plane crashes, necessitating (they hope) moving the airport to a safer location. Unnamed commissioners (1982), Buzzard doing the businessmen’s dirty work (2007)

The Crooked Captain and his Cook’s Mischievous Pet. A yacht captain’s criminal plans are complicated by his cook’s pet, alternatively a monkey or a cat. On the first version of this story, the captain wounds the monkey, on the second he wounds Andy shooting at the monkey, and in the last version, he throws the cat overboard and Andy is wounded rescuing the cat from a shark. Captain Williamson and Hernandez the Monkey (1976), Captain Martin and Chico the Monkey (1996-97), Captain Simpson and Primrose the Cat (2004).

The Young Man who Wants to Write Like Mark. The son of a successful businessman wants to write nature stories rather than follow in his father’s footsteps. The father funds him for a year to try to make a living writing but then ends up sabotaging his efforts. Jeffrey Hamilton (1978), Tony Lane (1996).

The Guerilla Leader Who Kidnaps Mark for Ransom. That pretty much says it all. When Mark ends up saving the fellow’s life, the kidnapper refuses to accept the ransom and frees Mark who wishes him well.Godez (1980), Otto Chavez (2013).

The Pet Who Inherits Millions. In 1986, Henry the Dog inherits four million dollars and a plot unfolds to cheat his caretaker by replacing him with a canine double. In 2002, Samantha the Cat inherits five million dollars and a plot unfolds to cheat her caretaker with a feline double. Henry the og 8/5/86-10/28/86. Samantha the Cat 8/19/02-11/18/02.

The Ranger Who Discovers Marijuana Plants to His Misfortune. Said plants are discovered in various locales in the wilderness.In the first instance, the ranger is a romantic rival for Cherry. In the next, just a ranger. In both cases, the marijuana growers capture the ranger and tie him up and Mark has to rescue him.Dave Sanders (1989), Tom Martin (2012).

The African Guide with a Gambling Debt. When Trail travels to Africa (each time seemingly for the first time), he is invited by the romantic interest of a guide to go on a safari. A development that doesn’t sit well with said guide, as he is involved in a poaching enterprise, the first time for elephant tusks, the second time for rhino horns.Larry 8-6-97-12/2/97, Chris “Dirty” Dyer (2014).

The recycled stories begin to appear with regularity after Jack Elrod receives full credit for the strip. Even though Ed Dodd was not actively involved for several years prior to that, one wonders if he still supplied plot ideas for Elrod. Once Elrod was on his own, it appears he struggled on the plotting end of things. Or perhaps he felt revenue from the strip no longer justified the effort of consistently coming up with new storylines. Or perhaps he was losing some drive. In 1991, Elrod himself was already pushing seventy.

In the meantime, in 1986, Publishers Syndicate, by then known as News America Syndicate, had been bought out by King Features. If the new editors noticed or cared about what was going on, they gave no sign. They were already managing a very large stable of their longstanding comic strips.

Needless to say, Elrod did not get any younger over the next twenty years. I suspect by the end all of his stories were recycled, though I don’t have enough details locked down to say that with utter confidence and may never reach that point. Supplying the highlights of seventy-plus years is arduous enough as it is without me aspiring to a totally complete story index.

It was only as I was nearing completion of this history that I happened upon an online article entitled “Mark Trail: 1979 versus 2010” in which Donald Saxman first exposed this practice in 2011 for his website, These Strange Worlds. He does a wonderful job of comparing the artwork for stories in 2010 to ones in 1979, revealing a pattern of cutting and pasting artwork. It is an article well worth checking out to see how later stories were recycled. But even Donald Saxman could not have imagined that the 1979 stories were themselves recycled stories from far earlier, albeit with entirely new artwork. By 1979 the art style had changed too much not to require them to be entirely redrawn.

The final recycled story occurs early in James Allen’s tenure on the comic strip. But his retread guide, Chris “Dirty” Dyer would soon be groomed for the role of Trail’s arch enemy, a destiny he never quite managed to achieve.

More on that shortly. But first, how a devoted group of people began to gather around the unlikely figure of the stalwart and increasingly stodgy Trail.

Inevitable? A Cult of Trailheads Emerges! (1991)

The Mark Trail comic strip was unmistakably in decline.

In 1991, in what seemed to be a reasonable decision, the Washington Post decided to drop the feature.

A remarkable protest soon followed. Over 14,000 phone calls were received, and an amazing 1500 letters of complaint. Yet executive editor Ben Bradlee was still startled when he looked out of his window to see a protester outside with a large sign. “Bring Back Mark Trail” it demanded.

Bradlee quickly scrawled “Okay.”

Unsatisfied, the protester scrawled back “When?”

“Soon,” Bradlee promised. 

Something was in the air.

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, a new program debuted that same year on the public radio station KFAI entitled Mark Trail Radio Theatre. As described by the website Radio Theater on the Web, writer/producer Babs Economon “takes the previous week’s Mark Trail newspaper comic strip (and) rewrites it into a hilarious take-off on the story.” The end result was a clever and very funny spoof that proved to have remarkable staying power. Over two hundred weekly episodes were aired on Friday nights at 11PM between 1991 and 2002.

Faithful followers of the comic strip began calling themselves Trailheads, fueled by equal measure of nostalgia and gentle mockery.

Largely unaware of the massive degree of recycled stories, for many readers the old fashioned narratives and artwork held a certain charm.

The protests that happened in Washington, however, proved the exception, not the rule. Cult following notwithstanding, nothing stemmed the slow but steady decline of newspapers that carried Mark Trail.

Unnerving! How MT Got a Six-Pack and Lost his Mojo (2014)

The story of how James Allen came to be the prime creator of the comic strip is for from scandalous but isn’t widely known. In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post Allen responded to criticism of Mark Trail and an earlier suggestion in a letter to the editor that the paper should drop the strip.

Allen noted how as a kid good at drawing in Gainesville, Georgia he found inspiration from Dodd and Elrod’s efforts, both of whom were born there. Allen described how elements from Dodd’s studio were “set up in an old fire station near the center of town. I would pedal my bike across town just to see and touch Dodd’s drawing table.”

In 1987, Allen had enjoyed a phone conversation with Elrod. But it wasn’t until 2004 that he actually met Elrod, who began to groom him as an assistant. In 2010 he began drawing the Sunday pages, and in 2013 he took over the art chores of the daily strip. On March 20^th, 2014, the day after Elrod’s 90^th birthday, Allen took over the enterprise.

Naturally Allen had some ideas of how to revitalize the comic strip while remaining true to the central tenets of the narrative. The ideas themselves had considerable merit, it was only in the execution that Allen’s efforts sometimes suffered.

Mark and Cherry are Suddenly Sexy. After nearly seventy years, Mark Trail’s rendering had become stiff, almost hidebound. Even worse, Cherry had been rather dowdy for some time. But both were rigorous outdoors folk and presumably would have been in good shape. Mark was shown sans shirt with increasing regularity and Cherry was even seen in a bikini or lounging in a cheesecake pose. Still, it was hard for longtime readers to get used to seeing Trail with abs.

Mark is Suddenly Clumsy, Loses Fist Fights and Wrecks a Lot of Stuff. Allen also clearly wanted to humanize his heroes. Mark is now seen tripping or stumbling down a hill, incidents often resulting in injury. Not only that, but in Dodd and Elrod’s version readers could always count on Trail dispatching a bad guy with a single sock to the jaw at the end of a harrowing encounter. Now he was losing as many fist fights as he won.

In an apparent effort at injecting some humor into the narrative, Allen introduced the trope that whatever vehicle he was using, whether jeep or boat, usually ended up getting blown up in an explosion somewhere along the line. References to insurance claims were playfully interjected.

Mark’s Adventures Widen in Scope and Action. Allen also was wise to expand the scope and action of the story. For nearly sixty years, Mark’s adventures pretty much happened near the Lost Forest, in the snowy territory of Northwest Canada and Alaska, or in the swamps of Florida. Now, each adventure took Mark to a new exotic locale, including East Africa, Mexico, Hawaii and even Kathmandu.

Somewhat less successful was the increase in action. Explosions multiplied like rabbits, and rockslides, avalanches and erupting volcanos became the norm. Random animal attacks having little to do with any particular story theme happened with alarming regularity. The narrative, perhaps intentionally, began to resemble the Perils of Pauline, or to a use a more contemporary model, Indiana Jones.

In short, Allen hoped to increase the level of threat, bolster the physical appeal of his two central characters, make Trail more human and thus accessible, and broaden the geographic scope of the comic strip. He and his writing partner Brice Vorderbrug succeeded in all of this. Unfortunately he was far less successful in keeping up the wider pace of the overall plot. In one sequence he kept Trail and his companions in a cave for several months. Indeed it was this storyline that prompted the letter of complaint in the Washington Post.

Unexpected. James Allen’s Sudden Exit (2020)

In the summer of 2020, Mark Trail learns his story is to be made into a movie and he meets the rather full of himself fellow who is to play him on screen. Said actor is no fan of nature, of course, and…

And nothing. The story stops midstream, to be replaced the following day by an old story of an abandoned kitten. Suffering from whiplash in the sudden change, readers were left to wonder what happened without a word of explanation.

In a brief statement, James Allen stated that the decision for him to leave the comic strip that was a lifelong dream was a mutual decision. What truth there was in that statement was likely a complicated one. The abrupt dropping of Allen’s current storyline suggests something additional at play.

The informed speculation was that Allen had been fired for online comments made in response to a June 9^th Instagram post by Sean Hannity. Hannity posted a picture of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez appearing to be in lecture mode with two fingers raised several inches apart from one another.

Allen responded with a caption to accompany the photo he presumably thought was funny. In it AOC (in Allen’s words) is commenting on the dimensions of a body part involved in a sexual act. The post was signed by him @TheRealMarkTrail. Speculation on the web was that King Features Syndicate wasn’t pleased.

Whatever the exact details, by July 27^th, Allen was gone. 

Different! Enter Jules Rivera (2020)

King Features Syndicate needed a new artist/writer for the comic strip and found one in the person of Jules Rivera. Best known for her webcomic Love Joolz, Rivera was the first new cartoonist to be assigned to the feature who hadn’t previously worked as an assistant. Also the first woman. As such, Rivera brought a light-hearted modernity to the narrative that little resembled the previous tone well-established over seventy years. Mark is the one who talks to animals now and helps out with Cherry’s gardening business in addition to attending to his faltering career. And Kelly Welly’s back, with a social media platform no less.  And there’s a secret in the nature photographer’s past he seems very worried will get out.

Whether Rivera’s pleasing art and gender sensitive storytelling will be successful is yet to be determined. The difference in tone may well be a bridge too far for many readers. At the same time, it may well bring in new ones. But whatever your response to the new version of the strip, Mark Trail Confidential and its sister post bring a healthy dose of over seventy years of stories and unlikely characters back to light. Maybe Rivera will even discover a few to bring back!

For a year-by-year timeline of developments in the Mark Trail comic strip, followed by character descriptions, relevant brief story summaries, and the dates that those characters appeared in, click on the related Mark Trail History, Timeline and Characters post. Then, if readers wish, they can subscribe to newspapers.com or other newspaper archive sites, enter Mark Trail and the relevant month and year into the site search engine and read these stories for themselves. For the last two decades stories are more readily accessible in the archives of Comics Kingdom.

Though many readers will already be aware of these websites, humorous commentary on Mark Trail and most other comic strips can be found at The Comics Curmudgeon. And quarterly summaries of comic strips can be found at Another Blog, Meanwhile. If you’re looking for daily commentary on the comic strip look no further than the aptly titled The Daily Trail.

Thanks so much reading and feel free to comment. These comic strip histories are a labor of love, but a singular and time-consuming one. Reader response fuels future efforts!

Mark Carlson-Ghost

This article or portions of it should not be reproduced without the express permission of the author.   

   

References

Allen, James. “Some people don’t appreciate ‘Mark Trail.’ Making it is a childhood dream come true.” Letters to the editor, Washington Post, 6-4-2016.

Dodd, Ed. “Creator reveals the surprising origin of Mark Trail.” Atlanta Constitution, 4-14-1985, p. 62.

“First and (for now) Last—Mark Trail,” The Daily Cartoonist, @www.dailycartoonist.com, 8-15-2020.

Lackman, Ron. Comic Strip & Comic Books of Radio’s Golden Age. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media, 2004.

Pennington, John. “Ed Dodd’s World at Lost Forest.” Atlanta Constitution, 4-18-1971, pp. 215-217, 228, 230.
“Radio Theater on the Web” @ www.mninter.net/-jstearns/Radiodrama.html.

Vardeman, Johnny. “Drawn into history: Gainesville cartoonist to continue legacy of Mark Trail comic” @gainesvilletimes.com/johnny, updated 3-9-2014.