Sitting in the backyard of my Intown/Midtown home Thursday afternoon, reading, I was startled by four large figures suddenly jumping the fence and wandering near my chair.

Four deer majestically appeared grazing on the flowers and grass.

"Over the last 40 years, I’ve seen scraggly wildlife in this urban zip code but never creatures of this size - in robust heal

"Over the last 40 years, I’ve seen scraggly wildlife in this urban zip code but never creatures of this size - in robust health."

Credit: Courtesy of Jeff Hullinger

Over the last 40 years, I’ve seen scraggly wildlife in this urban zip code, but never creatures of this size - in robust health. 

I posted the photo on my Facebook page, and the big city wildlife received a spirited response.

One follower wrote: “Jeff, you’ve become a modern Mark Trail.”

Such a great, obscure Georgia and metro Atlanta reference.

Ed Dodd took his love of conservation and ecology and created the strip via his alter ego in Lost Forest; modeled on Sandy Sp

Ed Dodd took his love of conservation and ecology and created the strip via his alter ego in Lost Forest; modeled on Sandy Springs. 

The brilliant Ed Dodd, creator of the Mark Trail comic strip, was a Sandy Springs resident whose work is still read in 150 newspapers and digital outlets across the country.

At its peak in the 1960s, it enjoyed distribution to about 500 newspapers through North America and spun off numerous publications about camping and wildlife.

Forgotten the name? 

Dodd took his love of conservation and ecology and created the strip via his alter ego in Lost Forest; modeled on Sandy Springs. 

Mark Trail was launched in 1946 and turned over to Jack Elrod of Gainesville in 1978.

The main character is a photojournalist and outdoor magazine writer whose assignments lead him into danger and adventure.

The comic strip concept became a successful radio show a few years later. 

The Mark Trail studio was on the second floor of Dodd’s home in Sandy Springs. 

His 130-acre Lost Forest is now residential neighborhoods, with streets named Mark Trail.

In 1996, the Dodd house burned down. 

Ed Dodd once told a reporter he had quit Georgia Tech's architecture program because of failing grades in math and chemistry. 

“In my case, finishing college would have been a mistake," he said. "I'd probably have become a mediocre architect and starved to death." 

Dodd began to draw in the 1920s, serving as a camp counselor for Dan Beard, the founder of the Boy Scouts. His first successful commercial venture was entitled “Back Home Again.” It was the amusing saga of a very rural Georgia family. 

With his pipe tobacco always burning, Dodd was ahead of his time on ecology and as the purveyor of an evergreen work.

Two of the most celebrated Georgia Tech names of the first half of the 20th century were both Dodds - but not related. Ed Dodd and football immortal Bobby Dodd. 

Dodd, the writer, died in Gainesville May 27, 1991. He is buried in Arlington Memorial Park, Sandy Springs. 

So when someone labels me "The Next Mark Trail" in 2024, it’s a reference I get and love. An honorable conservationist almost 80 years in the making, shaped by the Georgia outdoors. 

Mark Trail was launched in 1946; in which the main character is a photojournalist whose assignments lead him into danger.

Mark Trail was launched in 1946; in which the main character is a photojournalist whose assignments lead him into danger.