Endtown by Aaron Neathery for February 16, 2022

All possibilities exist in the multiverse. We got here by choices & chances. The historic trend is toward authoritarian. Swim for the fringes of liberty.

The fact that it is getting darker and darker, and they seem to be noticing, has me worried. Aaron (and I don’t mean Marx) doesn’t do ANYTHING without a reason.

Shame Marx can’t help being cryptic.

where is Marx’s cigar when he is holding his cane with both hands?

Well then…. looks like we’re going nowhere fast

The Eyes have it. Or have them. Maybe that’s what Ted means when he rants about “cleansing”. We’ll know soon enough, I hope.

… or the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

.

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And the last two lines certainly go with the previous image of the female Marx going to battle…

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OK, so where are Kirby, et al?

Terence looks like he understands all too well.

In other thoughts, I’d love to see this whole comic get made into a movie. Or series of movies. I wish I had the clout to make it happen.

The crossroads. Where souls are bought and sold. A forceful wind is blowing in; what currency do our heroes have to bargain with?

I’m sure the Free Energy incident didn’t help with the decline.

Dark. Really dark….

Terrance is losing it. He assumed the others were less informed than him, but Wally knows a lot more of what’s going on than he does. He thought he knew everything, and now he knows Nothing.

Sing with me, I’ll sing with you

And so we will sing together

So we will sing together

So we will sing together

Sing with me, I’ll sing with you

And so we will sing together

As we float along

[Chorus]

Oh, we are floating to Oblivion

Oblivion, Oblivion

Oh, we are floating to Oblivion

Oblivion, hooray!

[Verse 2]

Dance with me, I’ll dance with you

And so we will dance together

So we will dance together

So we will dance together

Dance with me, I’ll dance with you

And so we will dance together

As we float along

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]

Float with me, I’ll float with you

And so we will float together

So we will float together

So we will float together

Float with me, I’ll float with you

And so we will float together

As we float along

[Chorus]

[Verse 4] (At the Fountain)

You rise with me, I’ll rise with you

And so we will rise together

So we will rise together

So we will rise together

Rise with me, I’ll rise with you

And so we will rise together

As we rise above

.

Oh, we are rising to Oblivion

Oblivion, Oblivion

Oh, we are rising to Oblivion

Oblivion, hooray!

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Apologies to whoever wrote “Marching to Pretoria”

Sounds like the infinity of world lines was forced to meet despite being parallel.

Enter Abbot and Costello, doing their “I’m not here” gag.

Well outside in the cold distance, a wildcat did growl, two riders were approaching….and the wind began to howl. Watchtower…Bob Dylan

When I played with the bit manipulation tools, I found that the cigar is actually a lighter color than his coat. If you map the gray scale values 0 to 90 to 0 to 255 with everything over 90 in the original image to 255, you can see that the difference. This is a technique used to see small differences in brightness in X-ray images known as windowing.

Usage of the fact that black objects on a black background are practically invisible is an effect used in stage magic known as “black art”. https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php?title=Black_art I mention this here because everything with Aaron appears to be an illusion.

If this is the crossroads, who do I talk to about learning guitar?

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know that you’re in the right place?

I do so love this strip. So interesting.

Ah, so I am nowhere. That explains so much.

And this is why I hate Marx; dude can’t just EXPLAIN what’s going on, he has to get all flowery-prose about it. What does “Business” mean in regards to the nexus of all-reality? No clue. Can I speak to a Manager? Preferably one who’s NOT just an alternate reality Marx. Please?

The Bard: “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Nothing is stranger than Marx, and all, entirely all, of this is tied up with the ribbon of Wally’s dreaming.

I think it’s important to remember that Wally has already been through here: https://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2015/07/20. If it was real as Marx said, and not just a dream, then he’s been graded, sorted, etc. when he was sent through the nexus fountain.

More importantly, I think the darkness is the end result of Ted “stealing shoes.”

I just now noticed that Marx wears the official 3-strip “cartoon character” gloves, and none of the actual cartoon characters are wearing them.

“How can you be two places at once, when you’re not anywhere at all?” ~ Firesign Theatre

" Everybody’s goin’ nowhere slowly. They’re only fighting for the chance to be last. There’s nothin’ wrong with goin’ nowhere, baby. But we should be goin’ nowhere fast. " from Nowhere Fast by Fire Inc. from the soundtrack to Streets of Fire.

I don’t know where we are going either, but it will be interesting to find out. That I know for sure.

“Recycled,Recombined,Rejected,Redeemed…”

A line from a Cole Porter song? Or maybe Peter Sinfield?

gently hums Strawberry Fields

Graded and sorted? OK, I’m waiting for an explanation of this. I love it that Marx talks like we all know what’s going on.

What “cookie incident”?

Wow, this is a really cool page, visuals wise. great composition, Mr. Neathery!

Item one:

The last couple of editions have broken with the usual four panel installment.

Item two:

Marx refers to God, or at least, a god.

Most significantly, he acknowledges that he is not a/the god.

Yet Marx has a „job“ and a status that is „not finite“ (as opposed to the rest of our cast).

So, what is he? And what are they, while we’re at it?

The gathering darkness reminds me of what the universe looked like just before the Big Bang. Everything growing darker, shrinking in and then a huge flash of light and the universe blossoming all around. The multiverses are constricting down to one at the crossroads. Can the rebirth of them be far behind? I can understand Marx being there, he’s the guardian of the multiverses and his ‘imprint’ will be cast across all the universes to come so each has a guardian. But Wally and friends aren’t guardians. Will Marx send them through the last fountain so when the flash occurs they’ll be recast in the new universes? I wonder if they’ll be Homo sapiens like before or still Homo Anthros?