Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 24, 2016

Holly! Our Holly!

In the Belly of the Beast…

It’s a trap. Notice the artwork has that fever dream characteristic. Is that really Holly, or a trap by dittoLyn to try to assimilate Wally by creating a image of Holly to get Wally to go into dittoLyn’s maw.Did this dream begin when Wally took a tumble in the Ella Fitzgerald, and the bump on his head caused him to hallucinate that Kirbee had a magical tongue? Or some other time? But this is sort of evocative of a scene from an Austin Powers film. FB: [to Mini Me] I’m bigger than you and higher up the food chain. Get in my belly.

Panel 1:What is the plural of uvula? Uvulae? Uvulas?

Has she been in there the whole time?!?

“Wally, I’m late, I’m late! Oh, my fur and whiskers, I’m late!”

Well, at least Lynn doesn’t have a frog in his throats.

Dr. I have a waitress in my throat….

It is at least the start of a joke.

Not sure where this is going … But go on.

When I said we were down a rabbit hole, this is NOT what I meant! Oh well, on to Friday…. ;-)

What is she hanging on to? Is there someone else in there too?

Who else is in there? Maybe Chic and Kirbee?

The Dittos haven’t finished yet.

Oh good, maybe the plot can return to moving forward with Holly back.

But I thought she had gotten safely to End Town. OK, they stopped being in the past and are now back in the present, on topside, and the Lyn monster has got them both.Makes me wonder if he has eaten Kirby and Chic and Irving before.Wasn’t much Wally could do to stay in the underworld.

Holly must be holding onto Lyn monster’s mouth edge. It must be quite firm being stretched that much. Wally isn’t wearing a hat, it’s his ear.I agree it is still a fever-dream, like Just sayin said. The artwork is still that different style.This whole thing since they got on the Edmond Fitzgerald has been more odd than usual. It’s good to know Holly’s back story, but then there was, just before the child Marx talking about shoes or soles, and the other odd thing with the Marx Woman leading the bloody battle.Neitherland is enormous and complex, and I would love to see a diagram or map of what we know so far. Maybe the big patrons know a lot more about the entire layout. I’m thinking about sketching what I do know. End town, the topside, Unity, , the 2 little vignettes of the Marxes, just to figure out reference.I miss the early days when there were funny bits, like things with the rats and such.This is so amazing and Arron N. must have been figuring out his world here. So creative, so involved, so amazing to be able to watch the genius show this to us.May Aaron N. live long and be healthy.

Does look like Holly’s had enough, too…

Down into the rabbit….er….mouse hole!Holly, you got to let go of Lyn and the fish baby!

Perspective is everything. At first it looked like Holly’s right hand was grasping the stem of a big fuzzy musical note or an odd leg of some other creature mostly out of frame. Then my eyes refocused and I realized that her right hand is not visible and we are looking past the side of Wally’s face. Duh. Like one of those “What do you see, a vase or two faces” pictures. Once you see, it the V-8 moment kicks in. ;-)

It’s hard to figure what the dittos are. It seems that they can make decisions and are somewhat sentient. They respond to speech, and the “free-range” group encountered by Al and Gustine seemed to be working to misguide those two. Now I wonder if they were trying to keep Al & Gustine away from town, and if they were doing it because the dittos wanted to keep torturing Sparkplug. One thing I didn’t consider during Holly’s story was that the dittos were also possibly witnesses to the End, and they filled in details that Holly wouldn’t have seen. Have they been torturing Holly all this time? Are they playing with Wally’s mind, and this is just an illusion of Holly? This looks like an angry being saying “fine, I’ve had enough, too. Here’s your ruined Holly.” I’ve always thought the dittos were an interesting character, and were more than just a plot device to give backstory. But I’ve guessed wrong before.

This is Holly trying to escape from wallowing in her guilt and grief over what happened: I think she’s feeling responsible for everything since she and Lyn “sold out” to Apex, after they saw what happened to the cop.

Now this is and interesting twist.

I AM TOO SCARED TO COMMENT RATIONALLY!!!Aaron, I’ve got a bad heart.Have mercy!

this reminds me of a poem by Robert Browning…..Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Camehttp://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/browning/section8.rhtmlExcept:For mark! No sooner was I fairly foundPledged to the plain, after a pace or two,Than, pausing to throw backwards a last viewO’er the safe road, ’twas gone; grey plain all round;Nothing but plain to the horizon’s bound.I might go on, naught else remained to do.

X.So on I went. I think I never sawSuch starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:For flowers – as well expect a cedar grove!But cockle, spurge, according to their lawMight propagate their kind with none to awe,You’d think; a burr had been a treasure trove.

And an old English folktale, Childe Roland in which our hero must slay all he meets to save his sister and two brothers. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft22.htm

I wonder if the tower of Lynn has produced Holly or the illusion of Holly in response to Wally’s “I’ve had enough!” to see if they can keep him in the game.

Wally, you’re saying you’ve had enough.Well, think about Holly. Do you think she’s had enough?

He’s being metaphored to death.

In panel 2, Wally looks all tied up, not to mention out on a limb.

Talk about being literally trapped in your nightmares!

And now for something completely different: Does anyone else think the Lyn tower has become very Seussian?

“I do not like that Apex manI do not like him Sam I am”

On the bridge in Endtown, Holly tore up the photo Wally was keeping of himself and told him to let go of the past. This could be her turn to tear up her past and move on.

It looks like thee monster/pixwls, heard him when he said “Ive had enough” and is letting him go, one tongue at a time and that may be what Holly is shouting about, she thinks he may fall hundreds of feet.Or maybe she is crying out to Wally for help getting away from Lyn-monster.I have also noticed the vases/faces type feeling in the artwork. in that it looks like she is holding on to—Wally’s face?? then the "oh Wally’s face, and we can’t see what she is reaching out to.