Endtown by Aaron Neathery for June 10, 2016

Definitely the end of the world as we know it.

I take it his name is Simon…?

“Get off the street” implies a safe® location… Time to head “downstairs” maybe? ;-)

Hmmm. So while they were home in their walled community, Holly and Doc didn’t see any National news? Or have things escalated so quickly?

Wow, a friendly fox offering advice! They better hurry or that truck that just pulled up will get them!

And it’s International! So not just a limited outbreak. Wonder what that will mean for everyone.

Seems like that blood would start wearing off Holly’s hands and feet pretty soon.

League of Nations? Did their WWII not do in their League of Nations?

That picture on the right side of the front page looks like it was taken on a campaign whistle-stop tour… kinda looks like Hoover.

League of Nations? Uh, does this mean that WW2 didn’t happen? Or maybe even WW1? How… uh…. something-ie.

Ambassador Trentino is from The Marx Bros. “Duck Soup”, plated by Louis Calhern, circa 1933.

They’ve already talked about the final destruction being WWIII, so WWII happened, it apparently didn’t result in the establishment of the UN, however. Thanks glynis37 for giving us the background of Ambassador Trentino.

Then it’s war with Freedonia, then…

Does anybody know how widespread the distruction is? Is the whole world covered in powder with anthro mutants hiding from monsters and topsiders? Is there a normal civilization elsewhere, maybe everywhere but the hillside area?If technically advanced societies exist elsewhere, it could explain how the Topsiders get all that fancy equipment.

The paper says that it’s Friday, January 25th, 2###. The last three numbers are blurred, and truth to tell the first number of the year could be a 2 or a 3, but not a 1, as in 19##. And the paper is the Hillside, Republic of Neitherland issue. Definitely and alternate reality with different physics than our reality. The fox is a bit loopy, what with the ‘Simon says’ quip, but he’s right. Time to make themselves scarce.

I love the “Republic of Neatherland” – a cross between Neathery (in honor of its creator) and Neverland?

I kind of thought the picture in the paper looked like Walt Disney, which would be appropriate in view of humans turning into cartoonish characters.

I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen fox-guy before, which implies that he might not have survived.

Time would have passed from last strip til now, due to it being dark. Would probably have seen them hiding if it would have been days, so have to assume it is same day. But I´m still interested in how much Doc knows prior to this when he was so calm about the transformation.

Is the fox, or whatever, yet another Aaron Marx? Remember Young Marx, and Erin Marx? Now look at the bowtie and long coat, and peculiar sense of communicating? Didn’t Marx use the “Simon Says” gambit before? Or was that Mallard?

Ooh, that newspaper is full of interesting details—-would that we could see it better. Some samples: (1) Thirty-five cents, ten pages—-pretty expensive. (2) Weather forecast for Hillside, Drakeville, and some four-letter town I can’t quite make out. (I can’t make out the actual forecast, either.) (3) That picture on the left is Louis Calhern—-the one on the right isn’t, but might be Herbert Hoover.

The League of Nations raises questions for me, as well, especially given the 20** date. While the USA started the negotiations for the League of Nations , but Congress blocked the USA from becoming members. SouthWest Africa was still operating under a League mandate in the middle 1980s, and even had a militia called the South West African Peoples’ Alliance, or SWAPO I still get the indication that Neitherland and Hillside are in the USA, but I could be wrong. It could be an alternative timeline in the USA where League of Nations succeeded, and the USA put their resources in things that did not involve a massive transfer of power to the Miltitary-Industrial and Political Complex (now with Media!). Hence allowing the development and implementation of flying cars, personal robot servants and other technological advances, albeit distributed into specific sectors.

Both Hillside and Drakesville are towns in Neathery’s past creations. Drakesville particularly is the small town setting for his radio series Electromatic Radio. (Google it and listen to it on line.) I think I remember Kirbee lived in Drakesville.

Apex’s prosperity suggests that the military/industrial/political complex is doing quite well.

Nederland(NEE duhr lund) is also a small city in East Texas, about an hour and a half east of Houston. They used to have the scariest bridge in Texas, a two lane wide (no divider) high, long, and rickety bridge. When I was little my parents drove over that bridge a few times with the kids in the car. They added an adjacent bridge, so now the old Rainbow Bridge is strictly one way. It is still high and shaky, but at least one isn’t driving 65mph on a shaky bridge with oncoming traffic also doing 65mph toward each other, again with no divider.

Let us hope that the fox is an Endtown ambassador/scout and will be able to escort them to safety, at least safety as it is right now.

And that’s how the departments of Disease Control and Animal Control were combined.

I’m guessing our friendly fox got all “Simon sez” after seeing that NDDC truck and knowing they would be shining their spotlight down the alley he was hiding in.