Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 20, 2014

It’s fine? Hello, by JennerTo the tune of Hello Goodbye by Lennon & Mc Cartney You say right. I say no.You say fine, and I say whoah, whoah, whoah!Oh no!You say it’s right, and I say “Hello”Hello helloWhen you say everything’s okay, I say “Hello”Hello helloWhen you say everything’s okay, I say “Hello”We are kin. They are foe.They don’t count, so down the hatch they goOh no!You say it’s right, and I say “Hello”Hello helloYou say there’s nothing wrong at all. I say “Hello”Hello helloYou say there’s nothing wrong at all. I say “Hello”Why why why why do you say it’s fine, it’s fine? Oh noYou say it’s right, and I say “Hello”Hello hello.When you say might is in the right, I say “Hello” Hello hello.When you say might is in the right, I say “Hello”People there, long ago.Cleansing time, with arrows from our bow.Oh no!You made a shrine, and I say “Hello”Hello helloYou made a statue of a guy. I say “Hello”Hello helloYou’re eating one another’s child. I say “Hello”Hello helloWhen you say Hey, you’re doing fine. I say “Hello… HELLO!”

Lizardwoman 2: “Is it too late to say it’s my egg and Sarah was just keeping it warm for me?”

I know this is just a cartoon, but a society that subsists on its own offspring can’t survive. Even if they ate ALL their offspring it would not be nearly enough. Its literally like eating your foot, then laying a new, smaller foot because some of it got used up. Then eating it again and repeating until the foot is gone, then you have to eat your other foot. Cannibalism only works in very limited and temporary situations and only when the offspring have their own independent food source to grow on.

If they’ve got an ultrasound machine, they’ve got to have electricity to make it work.

Besides, “candling” refers to holding the egg up to a candle to see if anything’s inside.

When their one and only ultrasound machine breaks down, they’re going to have fun trying to fix it with a wooden mallet.

Beyond ethnic cleansing, our current state of medicine is leaning towards the pre-natal genetic manipulation of our young. The promise of being able to detect the potential for disease or infirmity sounds all great and altruistic. What other traits can also be erased or added, how much will we allow them to do to our potential children.What if there’s another agenda?What other “traits” will be considered undesirable as future fads and fashions may dictate?Or are we limiting genetic diversity by messing with the very essence of our being…

I had the same though regarding eating one’s eggs, but I think it’s analogous to keeping chickens, nutrition-wise. They feed the colony; they probably get something more nutritious in return. Beans?? ;-)

How many steps would it take to go from eating non-reptilian offspring (their own, how…cold blooded! heh…)to eating non-reptilian visitors to the colony? Apparently they haven’t gotten that far yet, since there was reference to “letting them go”.

Unless there nothing left of the old Sarah in her new Reptilian form, or she was cold-blooded to begin with, I don’t see how this tour is much of a sell.

“Live with us! We rob from travelers and that seems to not be working as we can only really rob the weak, but at least it’s easy. Yeah, we figured out we reptiles are the superior species and killed the lesser ones, but at least we honor them with a kind memorial. Oh, yeah they still have a chance to come back… As lunch. And that’s why we need you, you can give the old clutch a few more rations if ya stick around!”

Do they have an elite fertilization crew?

I think they check the eggs for reptilians and if they don’t have one then they eat them. It doesn’t seem like they encourage the hatching or saving of any species other than themselves. They seem to be going down the ole ‘Nazi’ superior species theory path…I do not like it! Didn’t work then , won’t work now…….

“Woman of the hour,” says Mona. So, Sarah has been expected. Does not sound like a pleasant surprise for Mona..“Mutating” cures human ills, but Mona still needs horn rimmed glasses?.I agree with Aconite above, and have been posting all along, that this nickel and dime tour has been pretty much a total disaster..I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ready to see what’s going on with Jim, Holly, Chic, and even Wally..Here’s hoping that our crew can depart Lizard land sooner, rather than later!

I’m guessing that the colony’s ability to generate electricity is limited and reserved for important functions. Thus candling has power to run their ultrasound machine but the hallways are lit with torches.Now that I think about it, where are they getting their torches? Wood may grow on trees, but I can only remember seeing one living tree in this strip and that was the object of Gustine’s quest on Hillside. While 17th century technology is more sustainable given the current situations, even a cast iron stove needs to burn something . Is this a hint that there is a more viable world on the other side of compressed dust mountain range and that the lizards are able to get stuff from there?

OK, I’m a fan or Aarons and enjoy the tales of “Endtown”… but the direction taken in this latest arc is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Lucky her. I’d be afraid what she’d have to witness if it wasn’t.

CONGRATUALTIONS!!! IT’S A LIZARD!

Another interesting point here is that the mutants must not breed true or they do, but they are changed into something else by the mutagen at some time. After all, this is a colony of reptilians and I guess they are…sharing genes with only each other; yet only yield 1 reptile per 200 offspring.

And the grand tradition of names continues: Holly Hollister, Wally Wallechinski, Piotr Pepper and now Mona Monahan.

@Coyoty

You make an interesting point in that the reptilians didn’t look too happy about their food. In keeping with the Nazi theme, many of the squads charged with simply walking into a situation and killing everyone in front of them started developing psychological problems and needed to be rotated out on a regular basis.

How would literally eating your young affect you, even if they weren’t ‘your’ young?

Also I’ve noticed the appearances of Holly and Wally have changed quite dramatically -and quickly - from their introductions. I came to this strip when Holly was already looking like a fuzzy bunny with drooping ears and a string for a tail. Now, she is certainly more adorable this way, but when I went back to check older logs and she was introduced, I could NOT recognize her except someone in the strip had mentioned her name! Her tail actually looked like a TAIL before, and her ears were mouse-like. Her new hairdo is much better, but now she really looks more like a bunny than a mouse, and the tail is sometimes hard to see; so it takes a few days for new readers to even notice it. Wally went from a typical cartoon-cat to something sweet and pitiful-looking… something you’d want to feel sorry for, now. His ears are always back now and they didn’t used to be. His new ‘look’. His is MUCH better! Both are sweeter looking, but both have changed. Sarah, as folks have mentioned, appeared to grow dramatically in size. There were two fully-mutated reptiles in Endtown who were not NEARLY so large. One was a friend of Wally’s..Perhaps Aaron keeps changing his mind about this story and hopes no one will notice. ;)

Horned rim glasses: Perhaps this was meant to interject a bit of humor back into this strip. Not that this was ever a “gag-a-day” strip, like Pearls Before Swine, but it did start out on a much lighter note than we have seen for months now..I started reading Martian Confederacy for a while, thinking it might have caught that balance between humor and the dark situation in which they find themselves. But, Fred Knott! It seems to be spinning its wheels, as well..Lots of comments, Nazi or not, about the psychological toll societies like this may have on their citizens. And the question: Would Sarah have preferred death (by cancer) over her present existence (if she had known in advance)?.Does this colony have problems with SUICIDE?

The ultrasound is crucial to their ethnic-candling programme. It probably has its own generator.

Two new auctions up. Please bid and help keep Endtown running.Flask: Mercy KillSarah Battle: Egg-sistential Dilemma

This whole strip about these horrible reptiles have upset and troubled us with it’s whole dark, sick society.kind of like our dark sick society and world are.

@Cheapskate0 – Mutation may “cure” existing ills – but it doesn’t stop folks from aging. Mona may have been given perfect vision when she first mutated, but thirty years down the line?