Prospective Mates

Ed Dodd/Tom Hill — Mark Trail — May 27, 1973

Enemies Only Inches Away

Mark Trail had no superheroes, no continuity, no comic punchlines. What it had was really nice graphics and interesting nature factoids.

Ed Dodd/Tom Hill — Mark Trail — May 13, 1973

The Fuzzy Likable Bumble Bee

Ed Dodd/Tom Hill — Mark Trail —May 5, 1974

Peace

Wishing peace and contentment

to all you cyber bunnies around the world.

I hope you can relax in the safety of your dens,

play tag with a neighbor

or nibble on a clover leaf.

Ed Dodd/Tom Hill — Mark Trail —May 26, 1974

Kit Fox

Ed Dodd/Tom Hill — 1977

Nature Factoids

Mark Trail was created in 1946 by Ed Dodd, as an adventure strip, but by the time I was collecting it, it had become an encyclopedia of nature factoids. Not very exciting, but the graphics were colorful and compelling. I've saved a lot of them, even to this day.

Comic Clips

In the deep winter of '62 (and it was deep, dark and cold—a sort of mini-mini-ice age), I was in a new home, a new school, and an alien environment. Two days after we set up housekeeping, after leaving Ohio, my father left us again. I don't know if that was the plan, or not, but no one told me much of anything. My brother, six years older than me, was in high school, while I was still in elementary. My dad was gone, my mom went off to a secretarial job all day. I was a latch-key kid and was used to entertaining myself. 

One Saturday I saw my brother clipping something from the paper, and I saw it was a Peanuts comic strip. I looked closer at the comics page after that, and liked what I saw. I hadn't realized before what a lot of talent was being delivered every day right to our door. I started clipping strips that I liked, and I liked most of them. Peanuts was my favorite to start with. But later Pogo was an obsession to clip and organize. The Sunday Prince Valiant was a treasure and I was also stuck on Steve Canyon. I clipped them all.

For years I saved them all, plus more. I had boxes and boxes of em. And then oh, about 20 years later, I thought this is crazy, I can't keep saving all these, and I tossed most of them out. But I kept a sampling of many, and most of the Pogos. I was still obsessed with Pogo—the strips, the books, the comic books—anything I could find with Walt Kelly art. And I still had some very cool Walt Kelly comic books that I had saved from the flood.

But, clipping the comic strips was such a relaxing hobby while it lasted. Wasted time, perhaps, but no more so than shootin' pool or building model cars or most other pastimes. Like I say, I still have a nice sampling of what I used to have (other than the Peanuts strips—why did I decide that every last one of those could go? Sometimes I wonder who the heck I am).

Good Ol' Charlie Brown by Charles Schulz

Pogo by Walt Kelly—my first saved Pogo clipping of a long run

Li'l Abner by Al Capp

Ferd'nand by Mik

Mark Trail by Ed Dodd