Endtown by Aaron Neathery for October 05, 2023

Will they see the light at the end of the tunnel?

There’s steely resolve on one face, worry on another, and wonder, or maybe concentration on yet another -

Please let them all make it….

I doubt I’ll be the only one, but does anybody else notice the faint outline of something that looks kind of like an eye on the ceiling in the last panel? Ominous…

They seem to be running into darkness?

Maybe this is going to be like that scene in Star Wars where it turns out that they’re inside a giant slug.

Hey, remember how Wally’s new family seemed to have some plot importance only to be flat out ignored and their existence barely acknowledged anymore?

As we move on in Aaron’s comic with his surviving cartoon characters hopefully escaping from the sharp angled, imminent collapse of a universe of hallways with fake doors, up into a rough (dirt-lined?) tunnel hopefully leading to a better universe (at least not one ruled by toothbrushes), I so love these wordless drawings and graphics!

Notice how the positions of the kids change from panel to panel. That’s good work by Neathery.

Terrence is interesting. Having been denied the opportunity to die with his Top-sider colleagues, he could have stopped, accepting a quick ending like that of Alan. But he is still running now.

Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man!

Faces of determination! … and concern!

things look like natural rock instead of perfectly smooth walls, things are looking up

Aaron’s art is (as always) superb…we’ve moved from gripping suspense as Alan saved the kids, to horror as Duffy screwed up Alan’s rescue by Terrence, to pathos as Alan sacrificed himself, to terror once again as the survivors run for their lives into a darkening tunnel. Oy!

I’m very concerned with what looks like an eye overhead Wally.

Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’

And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive

Its always darkest before the dawn.

Step one complete. Remember the mess outside though. There may be no SNAP! But it looked like plenty of KA-BOOM! is waiting for them.

I note in the last panel, the walls are rounded and rough, unlike the walls snapping behind them.

That’s some funky architecture fitting for “we built the stairs in a hurry to get to the rest of the place” buildings. Too bad we’ll never see them again.

This is getting pretty deep, and got dark really fast…

…hopefully, they don’t run into the forth wall…

…though they feel they are in a play…

…they are anyway…

…they may be just cartoons…

…but luckily they aren’t Hanna-Barbera cartoons …

…running through the same scenery over and over and over again…

…and that does look like an eye…

Is that an eye on the ceiling in the cave in the last frame?

Before or near the merger of Wally and Cracked Cat, Marx did say that Wally had not fought the big fight yet. So yeah, that might be the Eye. No dittos to subvert Wally’s will now, though. Maybe some stiffening of his will due to Cracked Cat.

If this passageway gets smaller, it may be that Alan would not have been able to pass — and that certainly would be as bad or worse than what happened to him.

I think that is Eye, focused on Wally/Cracky in the fourth panel. Translucent, since you can see the tunnel wall striations through it, but definitely there.

Maybe we’re in for a showdown with Eye, hopefully once and for all. The Wally/Cracky blended individual may have the combined strength to outwit/defeat it. Wally/Cracky isn’t running in a panic; that is a look of firm determination on his face. He’s going to be ready for a fight if Eye wants to give him one.

Please tell me that isn’t the Eye.

Fortunately cats can see in the dark

Prob will ditch Terrance. /8 (

Return to Endtown? Reality or wishful thinking on our part?

Getting more abstract as they go.