Endtown by Aaron Neathery for March 13, 2012

OMG what a nightmare!!!

Color!Just like the old 1950’s horror movies.Bad memories for Wally!

Oh wow! The only bit of color I ever recall seeing in this strip. And poor Wally’s face in the last panel (and Holly’s sleepy face). ;3; I’m curious as to whether it’s some kind of flashback, or just a nightmare because of what he’s learned of Flask.

Damn! He woke up too soon! I was hoping for just a bit more info, but I think this follows right along with what I was saying yesterday. He’s tried to bury it, but it’s gonna keep coming back like yesterday’s chilli until he brings it out and deals with it in the light of day.

Reminiscent of Sparkplug’s apartment…

Now THAT color was unexpected! Reminds me a little bit of Matt Wagner’s “Grendel: Black, White and Red.”Jarring. Jarring. And makes you do a complete double-take.

There is nobody visible No body visible Bullets of old-style design Red-riddled horror Bed-riddled horror Preying upon Wally’s mind These gunpowder weapons Grim slaughter weapons Predate the end of their world It’s only six years Such lonely sick years For zero guns to be unfurled It’s clear that our boy Is getting no joy From dreaming of enemies hurt But I grinned instead To see him in bed Poor Wally’s still wearing his shirt =|====/ Level Head Vote for Endtown 2.0 And for Doc Rat, too The Endtown Forum And don’t forget to nominate both For Ursa Major awards!

Yes Waco Texas comes to mind just say no leave them alone and they will come out when they are good and ready.funny they did not treat Scientology like that.

I say nightmare. First off, there hasn’t been a hint of either Flask knowing Wally or vice versa since the mutagens struck. But the Flask that’s seen here is an already mutated Flask (see yesterdays’ strip – that’s clearly a cat face inside that helmet). While certainly weird things can happen here, and often do, there’s nearly always a clear sign that they’re happening – Aaron’s not that unfair. Surprises, yes. Turn the whole world upside down, not so much.

Ok, I was wrong; I’m with farren here: it’s a simple nightmare. I’m guessing Holly will calm him down in a minute or so now.

GatoCat: Sleeping with their clothes on – they were very, VERY tired. Sleep was the only thing on their minds. Holly was even asleep before she got there. A gentleman like Wally is not going to undress her while she’s unconscious, no matter how pure his motives.Still, I hope Holly gets a chance to launder her waitress uniform before she goes back to serving customers.

I’ll say it again. Aaron Neathery is a creative genius.Everybody, try to make sure he achieves the success and recognition he deserves. These comics don’t just spring out of thin air. They’re crafted by a single, vulnerable human being, who is trying to make a living. If you really want to see briilant stuff like this for years to come, join the legion and become an Endtown ally. Get as many people following it as you can, in whichever way you can best achieve with your skills and resources.

Wally has had a dreadful past (viz. missing tooth and twitch of the left eye) and this dream is a memory of past traumas. Of course, it’s not to be taken literally, in that he was not serving under Captain Flask at any time. But I am sure he saw a lot of blood and took his own share in spilling it. We are seeing his own “camberwell” – a repressed secret, too destructive to let out into the open.

Right when I clicked the link on my firefox and saw the door and the blood it all froze… for five minutes so I had a wild picture of bodies… should have known Aaron wouldn’t let us know the entire thing. Perhaps Wally were a topsider, sure as hell he isn’t a kid and might have suffered the same fate as Flask.

dirtyoldlady1, I received your box today.. Thank you so much! Please email me: aaronneathery@gmail.com

Wally’s suspicious subconscious recognizes Flask as his superior at Apex. If Petey was in the same unit, maybe Wally will recognize him also, or vice-versa.

Bad, bad, memories. At least he’s got Holly there to help him.

A nightmare doesn’t have to be a literal recollection of the past. It could be the way his dreams interpret the recent events where Flask misled him to do a task that was intended to kill all the humans. He feels that he has blood on his hands.

Whether it’s a literal flashback or just a bad dream, one thing is certain. Wally has a very violent past that he is trying to get over.

Sorry, Farren. Double checked panel one. You can’t see any bit of face in the helmet. I believe this strip explains a lot of back story about Wally and Flask.

effective.

yesterday strip would been a better as a friday strip !(just read the last 2)

we wouldve gone crazy during the weekend if it was last friday strip!

that must been his worst nightmare not only he kills in it ….he did it under flask orders!!

I’m thinking that Flask’s face was plastered on, but the uniforms, the raid, and the blood? Those might be from Wally’s memory. We might have FINALLY got a tiny glimpse of Wally’s past!

I still think I’m right- a nightmare about Wally’s past, but with some inaccuracies.

Those in Black and white dream in color

I am thinking “not Flask”. While some focus on the face, I was noticing the backside. Look at yesterday and today. That is not Flask’s backside: No tail nub and no curve

@Jenner: Thanks for explaining what Camberwell meant. I was a little confused about that earlier.

is normal to have dreams where past and present mix

flask may remind him of someone else he met before

he must have a good reason to be so opposed to killing

Dream Logic, people. Dreams squish together things, sometimes of recent events if those events carry enough of an impact. And the last day definitely qualifies.

I was thinking at first he had done… questionable things, but it’s more likely that this is his fears manifesting, that he still fears he will be ordered to kill against his will, and the most recent authority figure to plug in that suit is cat-flask.

He better spill it to Holly, because she’s the one who can best help him deal with the past, as she has let him deal with the present.

CALLED IT … a nightmare. Anyways, I just think Wally is having a crisis of conscience. He’s subconsciously or consciously remembering and lamenting all those mutts/human brains he had to kill while trying to install Flask’s chip.

I doubt that pajamas were furnishedat this time.Blessed Be.

Didn’t expect the blood. I wonder, if this is the future, why bullets? Weapons more powerful are being used by the TS. Was the Endtown stuck with just guns? Why?I hope that we will find out the crux of this by Friday? Blessed Be.

First color I’ve ever seen in the comic, and it brings to mind a level of horror (thankfully, without actually showing it) that is just haunting.And Holly’s half-asleep look is perfectly done, kudos.

They didn’t have time to pack for the rescue.

Hay they should be wearing nothing LOL

I’m glad it was only a nightmare. But in context, it means something bad to him. I was suprized to see the rad! must have been a blood bath.

Already too much interpretation of this dream. I will not weigh in, I will wait and see…

On September 5, Flask mentioned that Wally had killed 3 other Topsiders that Wally didn’t think anyone else knew about.

Endtown is in the top 40 TopWebComics!!

Wally has been a cat since the initial mutagen outbreak six yrs ago (June 28, 2011) Flask was a TS rocket scientist for some period of time sufficient to get the satellite program at least well underway. Everything we have seen of Flask in actual combat proves she hasn’t got a military bone in her body. She’s a sadistic control freak who’s a real bad ass as long as she’s facing unarmed opposition with a zero gun in her hand. Otherwise she’s just a bad tempered bag of hot air capable of being flattened by a mouse with a good right cross. She decided on Wally based on Ally’s after-action report where she credited him (for whatever reason) with all the kills the team recorded. She never laid eyes on him before their meeting at the mission brief. Everyone is trying to read too much into this. It’s a dream. If it says anything about anyone’s past it’s Wally’s because it’s his nightmare. Remember the array of speculations that came out when we though they were all dead? The real answer was a straightforward Endtown one: dittos. I rejected it at the time, because I thought it was too simple, but as things turned out, it fit pretty well. Aaron hasn’t used dreams very often, but when he has it has been to say something about the person dreaming. (Gustine and the rhinos, Wally buried alive, and now this)Aaron is the storyteller here and it’s his imagination, not ours, that will dictate what happens, and that’s a good thing because he hasn’t disappointed us yet. Hang on tight, it’s still only Tuesday.

The red was quite suprizing. He does have the look of terror, can almost hear him panting from his racing heart. it’s got to have come from something similar that happened. With a dream like that, he was probably ready to put the feet to the floor and run to get away from what he just dreamed.

August 23 makes sense either way. As for Sept 5, I had honestly assumed that Flask just had her facts wrong.I’m sticking with the “they didn’t know each other before” theory.

I have a feeling Aaron Neathery has been in a constant laughing fit the past two days…

well, I have a feeling we’re at least going to get an explanation soon. maybe next week.

A little bit of speculation: Wally has a very logical mind, along with good survival skills. His engineering approach to launching the fire hydrant makes him look a bit like MacGyver. But his ability to hit what he’s aiming at with a ray gun while in the middle of a fight does indicate some kind of paramilitary training. Maybe he was a S.W.A.T. member before The End. As the number of random mutations was increasing, he may have been enlisted to root out the more deadly ones. It may also have been the prelude to Topsider thinking, where certain extremists were bellowing “the only good mutant is a dead mutant”. On one such mission, the team broke into the wrong apartment and slaughtered an unmutated family. That may have been the beginning of his hatred of Topsiders, along with his distaste for killing in general. The question is: was Wally an engineer that later entered S.W.A.T., or was he a S.W.A.T. member that later picked up an engineering textbook and studied on the side?