Endtown thread - Beach Break Edition Mostly complete comic

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Latest strip.

>>9883573
Reason and determination are nice and all Portia until someone drags you out of your home. Just call the cops, or, with Grout in charge, it's probably better to buy a gun, or get a very large stick.

>>9884037
Yes, the chloroform says to me that the "suicides" aren't really voluntary anyway.

It's anyone's guess how the supposedly-genuine handwriting on the notes works... maybe they write the notes out and then change their minds when they see who comes to collect them?

Or maybe someone's just faking handwriting - it's probably easy enough to do with a bit of skill, especially when you don't have any specialists around to spot forgeries.

Or could it be that the one time it's been brought up and "confirmed", the person checking (Heather) was too distraught to actually check properly and just saw what she thought she should see?

Then again, maybe the chloroform was left to be found? We haven't seen anything about any signs of a struggle at any of the crime scenes, have we? Although maybe that's not necessary with a large enough anthro doing the kidnapping. But then, a large anthro would be more obvious, a witness-magnet.

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>>9885218
If it is some sort of conspiracy it is likely there is someone forging the suicide notes, but Terry was definitely trying to commit suicide one way or another which is why Heather showed up to try to talk him out of it.
Maybe Aaron's trying to push a super-natural element where when the pigs loose hope and their reason to remain human they get whisked away by some force. Maybe Terry was trying to suffocate himself with the chloroform and got taken way by the ghosts of butchers past to be ground up into bacon bits.

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>>9885524
Heather certainly thinks he was suicidal, but she's a bit loopy herself, really. All we know is that he sent some message that she wanted to talk to him about, but the note did seem to surprise her. And nobody seems to have an answering machine, so that message he "sent" was probably written, itself, and therefore possibly also faked. What if Heather was specifically set up to be the one who discovered that her friend was gone?

I've got to say, I'd see having another supernatural element as cheating. plot-wise. Just another version of "Marxdunnit", like the ending to the Milk Trial. I did wonder if it could be Eye on the phone, foreshadowed by Wally's dream ages ago, but I doubt it would also be floating around town with a paint bucket full of blood, splashing doors, or planting well-written little articles in the back of the newspaper.

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>>9885524
>>9885703
Oh, and that reminds me: Looks like Aaron has a thing for the name "Terry" at the moment.

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>>9885703
>but the note did seem to surprise her
I think that's just because it was a (supposed) suicide note from a friend.

>but I doubt it would also be floating around town with a paint bucket full of blood, splashing doors
Fair enough, but that begs the question. What are they doing with the blood and body parts. Some people speculated that Heather has been behind it the entire time resolving the leftovers in lye, but seeing as how she was being beaten with a hammer during 2 of the pig disappearances.

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>>9885745
I think Aaron likes using the name Terry in general.

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>>9886095
It took me a minute to figure it, but is this supposed to be human Holly?

>>9885995
Well yes, and the fact that she was shocked by the note says to me she wasn't expecting it. At the very least it wasn't an exact repeat of whatever the message was, or she probably would have been a lot more worried going in - "No, Terry, wait, don't do it!" instead of "Hey, want to talk about this?"

I'm still in the group that says that few if any of the pigs have actually been killed or eaten. For all we know the blood used to paint the door was stolen from Doc's transfusion supplies. They couldn't even identify it as being pig blood, for one thing, though they might have been able to if they actually went to the cops instead of destroying the crime scene.

The lye thing (here at least) from the last thread wasn't speculating that Heather was killing them at all, because that wouldn't fit with her behaviour or anything. The speculation was that it would be an accusation against her once she's caught, because she's a laundry lady.

Disposing of a body with lye needs a big cooking vessel and still leaves brown gloop to get rid of, though, so I wouldn't say it's likely even for the real culprits. There's no way to bury things in Endtown without obvious and attention-catching heavy machinery (and even if you could, why not just bury the whole body anyway?), and I really think it'd be hard to dispose of multiple pounds of caustic gunk through whatever toilet systems they have. They could dump it all in the canals, but I can't help but think that would be noticed by whatever system monitors the water quality/recycling.

>>9886034
A Terry trifecta! I wonder if it's a reference?

>>9886095
>>9886228
I was wondering why someone had posted a random non-Endtown piece of KC art. Hard to tell it's her, if it is supposed to be Holly.

>>9885995
>but seeing as how she was being beaten with a hammer during 2 of the pig disappearances.
Sorry, I skipped replying to this. Which two pigs disappeared while she was being beaten? If it was a news report or something, I must have forgotten.

>>9886635
Is that new?

And where is DK, anyway? I don't even see him in the GoComics comment section any more. Is he okay?

>>9886356
>"No, Terry, wait, don't do it!" instead of "Hey, want to talk about this?"
I don't have any first hand experience (thank god) of dealing with people committing suicide but a lot of them seem to down play the fact that they are going to do it. Heather's case of checking on a friend only to make the discovery sounds pretty common.

>For all we know the blood used to paint the door was stolen from Doc's transfusion supplies.
Steeling blood transfusions from a hospital seems like it would attract a lot of attention.

>the last thread wasn't speculating that Heather was killing them at all
Oops. should have looked back at desu archive.

>Which two pigs disappeared while she was being beaten? If it was a news report or something, I must have forgotten.
I just speculated on the timeline starting here: http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2017/03/24

Walt and Portia leave Portia's apartment for Walt's. Which I'm assuming is on the night of the hammer attack. We cut to Heather being called a hater and later that night she gets hit with a hammer with her stumbling out of the alley and the next strip she's at the hospital. The next strip has Walt and Portia cleaning Walt's apartment and it's still night and I'm assuming the same night Heather got hammered. The Awwoo-ing happens and the next strip cuts to Philo telling Dottie to stop sucking up to wolves and that 2 more pigs disappeared during the Awoo-ing.
TL;DR
I'm pulling it out of my ass.

>A Terry trifecta! I wonder if it's a reference?
I wonder if they started a Terry club. No Jerrys or Larrys allowed.

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>>9886915
>I don't have any first hand experience (thank god) of dealing with people committing suicide but a lot of them seem to down play the fact that they are going to do it. Heather's case of checking on a friend only to make the discovery sounds pretty common.
Which still suggests to me that the "message" didn't have urgency to it. If we could just see both of them, it would clear a lot up, but we haven't even seen one of these notes read aloud yet. Which feels odd, honestly.

>Steeling blood transfusions from a hospital seems like it would attract a lot of attention.
Well it might if it got discovered, but that'd depend on the size of the stores and how often people go to check them/use them.

>Oops. should have looked back at desu archive.
Easy mistake to make. I wish that thread had stuck around a bit longer.

>I'm pulling it out of my ass
Not so much, I'd forgotten the bit with Philo mentioning the two more pigs (thank you). At the very least that gives Heather a partial alibi, if the story does see accusations being thrown at her. It looks like the progression is:

Daytime > Heather gets "Hater!-ed" > Night > Heather gets Hammered > Daytime > Heather stumbles out of alley and goes to hospital (how did she get there when she was terrified of her only apparent help?) > Heather is implied to be well enough to go home > Night > Awooing > Daytime > Pigs went missing in the night.

At the very least she's still concussed and probably incapable of dealing with two pigs, especially if they lived far apart.

>I wonder if they started a Terry club. No Jerrys or Larrys allowed.
But do they allow Teris or Terris? And I did a little search... the lion-esque fellow in pic related is ALSO a Terry. Aaron really does like that name.

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HOLD THE PHONE.

Jolene gets her eye pierced and is said to have lost a lot of blood, with surgery involved. Surgery in which they would have been suctioning it out of her eye-socket and into a bucket...

>>9887377
... six comics later, after enough time has passed for the lights to go out, this happens >>9885995 (forgot it had been posted already)

That could be where the blood came from. It could be someone at the hospital.

... maybe Doc really has gone totally off the rails?

>>9887302
>Terry. Aaron really does like that name.
I think I just figured it out: Terry-toons.

Every extra that's a "Terry" is part of one long, recurring Terrytoons reference.

>>9887418
>... maybe Doc really has gone totally off the rails?
That's a terrifying thought.

>>9888714
Amazing.

Is GoComics down for anyone else?

>>9887418
>>9891649
>Doc hates Marx because of what he did to/about Holly
>Freeman the rat-boss hates Marx because he upset the applecart, got a bunch of Freeman's men killed, and put an asshole in charge of Endtown
>Freeman and Doc meet
>Freeman tells Doc about Marx's involvement in the Milk Trial
>Together, Doc and Freeman compare notes and work out that Marx is behind a lot of things
>Ask the oracle
>Oracle tells them the truth, that Marx created Endtown, has been doing so over and over for thousands of subjective years and they've been repeatedly reincarnated in an endless Marx-controlled cycle of pain and anguish
>Doc and Freeman resolve to end the cycle by breaking Endtown and denying Marx another victory
>Develop idea to bring down Endtown society wholesale via wolf/pig (later predator/prey) split, rendering Endtown nonfunctional for Marx's plans
>Doc provides medical knowledge
>Freeman provides security knowledge
>Freeman starts harassing pigs using phone tap system only the Rats knew about
>Freeman also slips "official" information to Dottie via same system, giving her false info of food shortage to go into little newspaper articles
>Doc starts monitoring pig behavior, giving Freeman feedback on how his harassment is going
>Pigs that consent are taken in the night by a squad of rats armed, in case of last minute changes-of-mind, with a chloroform-like substance concocted by Doc (he wasn't making a guess at all)
>They are not killed because despite Freeman's focus on his rats and Doc's growing misanthropy, neither Freeman nor Doc want to be murderers
>The pigs are imprisoned somewhere far off in the caverns
>Rats, demoted from security and now mingling with the Endtown population yet still a bonded group of comrades, are instructed by Freeman to agitate wolves regarding pigs whenever possible
>Doc even starts providing props to the pig-harassment operations, such as the small bucket of pig blood used on Portia's door, freshly taken from Jolene

>>9892278
If Portia and Walt get an eye in the mail or left on Walt's doorstep, we'll know something is up at the hospital.

>>9887418
>>9892278
There are no signs of forced entry, and all Doc would have to do is knock on the door and tell them he was there, and they'd let him in.
It's kind of weird how well all this works.

>>9893030
The one person in town *everyone* would let into their homes.

>>9892278
>>9893030
It does make for a fantastic twist. A throwaway line about Doc acting oddly or offscript in that vignette between the Ship arc and this arc would be rocketed into importance and a great bit of foreshadowing.

Though it does make me wonder: if Endtown residents have access to the Oracle pool why hadn't the cops used it to solve crimes like this already?

>>9893470
Because the Oracle pool gets all Schrodinger-y any time it's not useful for the plot. It just kind of... stops existing, or at least everyone seems to forget that they have an all-knowing, open-access pool that freely answers questions with 100% omniscient accuracy.

>>9893470

Oracle and Marx are two Deus Ex Machinas of the setting. They provide some kind of a mediator between the world and 4th wall. It's bad though cause Oracle is used for a scene or two and then put into limbo while Marx is downright obnoxious.

>>9892278
>>9887377
Why would Doc care about what sort of fight Jolene and Heather were involved in?

Because if it involved a wolf, it's confirmation that his plans are working.

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This idea is making what Doc says here read in a very different manner... almost a self-satisfied tone.

And why would he discuss what the pigs had (or hadn't) said to him about the matter? Usually that would fall under doctor-patient confidentiality, right?

Because he's trying to discourage Walt from asking around or pressing the pigs. He's very carefully guiding Walt's thinking on the issue, here.

He didn't know at this point that Walt and Portia would hook up. After they did, the focus of harassment has probably switched to making Portia and Walt leave Endtown, since I would guess Doc still respects Walt... hence the particularly strongly-targeted bucket of blood thing and the threats directly in Walt's ear...

>>9886730
Nope, it's from an old trade we had. DK's been pretty quiet all around, he is/has done art for rpganon's new project, though I haven't seen it.

>>9886730
He never was in the GoComics section... was he?

>>9896939
Oh, that's neat. Hope he enjoys the project.

>>9898979
Not the same guy as Darwinskeeper?

If he isn't, my mistake (though that still means yet another old-timer is missing from the comments section since Holly was removed).

Here's a new thought... what if Grout's in on the conspiracy?

Giving Heather the smallest officer to protect her... sending cops in only after the protest had already started to become a riot... not starting a big search for Heather the moment she turned up missing... he always manages to do exactly the thing that'll make things worse, despite having an apparent understanding of how people work.

To fit into the Doc/Freeman thing, Marx did arrange things to make him look like a fool and cut him and his men out of their purpose within the town. You might think he'd be angry at the rats, but if he understood that they were just pawns of Marx, too, he might set his eyes on a higher target.

>>9894642
>The pigs aren't quiet of their own accord (as it makes no sense for that to be 100% the case)
>They're quiet because they came to Doc for weight tests, he "found out about their problems" (ie: he moved the conversation in that direction each time until they told him) and then he told them to keep it secret so that people don't think they're crazy
>He's just deflecting Walt here and Walt accepts it because he's a dumbass
>We'll begin to discover the truth when Portia lets slip casually that it was Doc Chase that suggested she keep it quiet

>>9901133
We're wearing our tinfoil hat a bit too tight now.

>>9901286
Perhaps, but this is a very intriguing line of thought.

Odds on the pig lawyer being in on it, though? She seems to have been a strong candidate around these parts as one of the conspirators even before this new idea about Doc and the rats.

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Walt being the reasonable one. I guess without Dottie he has to do it himself (but contrast this with the start of the arc...)

And some more humour in the middle of a deeply unfunny sequence. Not sure it works for me, but YMMV.

Anyone think Grout wants him to help with Heather? Or help find Heather?

>>9900809
>Darwinskeeper

what made you think that was DK?

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>>9901757
The fact that he was part of the Endtown fandom and his name initialized to "DK"...

Like I said, my bad if they weren't the same person.

>>9901799
Whoops, blanked my message but didn't blank my upload.

Anyway, I was going to say this is the same sight gag Aaron used with Gustine at the start of the comic.

>>9892278
And if the oracle is too much on Marx's side to tell Doc/Freeman anything, then perhaps it was the oracle's keeper, that rat-looking person who was beginning to think they didn't much like the Greater Good at the end of the Milk Trial story. They always seem to be there when things get discussed, they must have overheard a lot.

>>9901619
You know, you'd think after eight years of dealing with size issues, people in Endtown wouldn't make mistakes like this any more...

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>>9901619
Grout was used as comic relief after the riots and after Algood was lynched. Looking back now Grout was never supposed to be a serious cop. He's just there to be bumbling and oblivious while other people go along with it because of his badge.
>Anyone think Grout wants him to help with Heather? Or help find Heather?
Maybe there's a mob of wolves attacking Heather. Walt's really good at crowd control.

>>9902819
That's discrimination against the volume impaired.

>>9903098
I think Aaron's problem there is that lately he immerses the comic relief in the misery too much, so that it just all becomes part of the same morass. Without breathing space to chuckle, it just gets overwhelmed by the tone of everything else and merges into the darkness.

The current strip is slightly better on that front, as there's more "room" around the joke.

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>>9887377
>>9887418
The true villain revealed!

>>9903800
Brilliant!

Love the background...

>>9902819
There are more small mutants than big ones. Can't please everybody.

>>9903800
Unhand her, Doc! And also fix my sides.

>>9904551
>There are more small mutants than big ones. Can't please everybody.
True, but you'd think the big mutants would have more of a sense of their own size and weight after almost a decade...

So I guess either we're not getting the monthly emails posted here any more, or there hasn't been one in ages?

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>>9903800
> patient asks for some painkillers
> give a lethal dose of morphine instead

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>>9903800
Finally a Professor Moriarty for detective Dottie.

>>9913287
Not like you fuckers deserve it.

>>9915424

Hello there Aaron apologist anon, still angry at everyone in the thread?

>>9916316
I'm the one you called apologist the last time. You're both idiots.

>>>/co/93219666
>>>/co/93219775
>>>/co/93219812
>>>/co/93219851
>>>/co/93219905
>>>/co/93224535
>>>/co/93225435
Wew.

>>9917372

>Muh Aaron divorce

If there's anyone who can't get over the divorce is that anon.

>>9917665
>implying it's only one
Aaron is never going to live it down.

>>9920029
>Aaron is never going to live it down.
Getting a divorce?
Are you his ex?

>>9921084
Letting his divorce affect the comic so much.

>>9923430
You know, I've always gone with "Irving is a mutant" just because all actual animals seem to be gone, like the plants post-Endtown-2.0.

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>>9923725
I've always kind of thought that too. That being said with mutants life spans being adjusted for the species that they mutated into Irving must have been born after the bombs fell or shortly before.

>>9924283
Possibly he's a fellow unwanted child... a blobby little larva might not look that different from a yolk during candling, and he'd probably hatch quickly, before they could cook the egg (why do I feel like larva-Irving would look adorable?)

It's only difficult to tell what classification he falls into, really, because we have yet to see much of the way real animals are depicted apart from those pre-Endtown-2.0 rhinos in Gustine's dream. If we see a flashback with animals and they still don't have people-eyes and the bugs aren't cartoonishly big, then I'd say both of those point to Irving being a mutant, or possibly something like the rats.

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>>9924704
>possibly something like the rats.
I never really thought of that. I always thought he was a mutant,and if not, some sort of animal side kicks that possessed above average intelligence that we don't really question because he's cute. If that's the case, the rats were created before the WWIII I wonder if Irving in his present state, was around before the bombs or with people mutating he gained some sort of sentience.

>>9924950
Something that bugs me more than a little is how there's no questioning by the mutants of things like the rats or the magical oracle.

It feels like, for them, it's been answered already so there's no curiosity, but for us the information is just missing.

Even something in-comic saying that people have already questioned the oracle and it stays quiet and that the rats have a cover story of being mutated civil servants or something would help. Without it it just feels like it's never been addressed because it'd be inconvenient to the plot.

>>9913287
This thread rarely gets more than 2 dozen posters, none of whom are Patreon supporters

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>>9925075
I figured after turning into a cartoon character I figured everyone just stopped questioning things.
A while back,someone claimed Aaron told them that Wally and co were going to encounter dragons and other fantasy based elements later on. I'm hoping at least the Oracle is explained during this. As for the rats I assumed Marx either created them or brought them from another dimension.

>>9925511
The rats seemed completely surprised by Marx, though. In fact, I'm sure I recall Aaron saying nobody in Endtown had met Marx before Wally and Holly encountered him.

If he created them or brought them in, he did so long before anyone currently living in Endtown was alive - and that may include the Oracle.

And I figure some people would still have been questioning things, especially someone like Wally who came in from outside. You don't stay alive in a wasteland full of eatbeasts that like to bury themselves in sand by ignoring incongruous things.

I don't know, it all still feels wrong, to me. I feel like the rats would still need some public explanation for why they largely keep to themselves, appear to be universally male, and don't crossbreed (though that may be a retcon - I could swear Albert alluded to one of the rats having a family down in Endtown, and we saw one of them working for Maurice as a flavour additive...)

I remember a joke in the comic about the "here be dragons" line on a map referring to actual dragons, but I could have sworn someone around here said that was just humour. I know Aaron has alluded to the Great Green being somewhat mythical in nature - whether he meant that as in "has mythical beasts and qualities" or as in "has been mythologised and it's just going to turn out to be un-nuked wilderness" remains to be seen.

>>9925319
Pardon me, but that bit about none of the people here being Patreon supporters seems like a bit of an assumption - unless you know for sure yourself that there's been emails sent out in the time between the last posted one and now?

>>9931824
I've never seen this one before.

>>9920029
And neither are the anons who keep bringing it up/doxing him. Seriously, doxing him just cause you didn't like how a chapter ended is a new low, even for 4chan's standards.

>>9932948
That particular genie is not going back in the bottle, no matter how fervently you might wish it would.

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>>9932328
I've had it for a while.
I've never seen >>9930890 but DK made so much good Endtown art that it's kinda hard to keep track of.

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>>9932948
It was a fucking Google search away and the reason it's relevant all the time is because Aaron made it so. This isn't mere celebrity gossip, people wouldn't give a shit about his love life if Aaron hadn't let it affect the story so much.

Do you know Lauren Faust? She had a miscarriage but people only bring it up when speculating about what made her quit the show she was working on when it happenned because she didn't start making all her future work have something to do with losing children.

This Hell is of Aaron's own making and you'd easily see that if you'd stop sucking his dick and trying to blame someone else.

I need pictures. Pictures of Jim.

>>9936443
I wonder how DK would feel about Heather, seeing that he really digged the idea of a seamstress in Endtown.

Probably disappointed, due to most or all of Heather's character taking a backseat to all the shit happening to her.

Strip's up.

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Do they even know that she killed someone? And if not, why not? There was even a witness, possibly two... you'd think one of them would have called it in. Well, maybe Grout just isn't giving Walt all the info. And either way, he's about to get a nasty shock when he gets up there.

Aaron seems to have a thing for unhappy people in that outfit threatening to jump off things.

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>>9938682
Grout's shear lack of fucks made me laugh harder than it should.

>>9936290
Man, Suule really went all out on this pic.

>>9938682
>>9938766
>Well, maybe Grout just isn't giving Walt all the info
He just gave him the info he needs first, that's all. He might say more in the next strips.

>people in that outfit threatening to jump off
It was just Holly before (unless I'm forgetting someone) and it's not weird for women to be wearing dresses or aprons, which aren't even the same color/design. I get what you mean and it is kinda funny but at the same time the big exaggeration was rustling my autism.

>Suule really went all out on this pic
Heh.

>>9938829
I hope he says more, otherwise he's sending Walt in on unaware. But at the same time, this is Grout we're talking about - has he done a single thing right yet, this arc?

And no, it was just Holly. Just struck me as strange, all of a sudden, that we've got two female focus characters, one right after the other, who wear very similar outfits and are both depicted as going through a period of instability. Almost feels like another reference or a common inspiration from one of Aaron's old movies.

>>9938927
>all of a sudden
It's been a bit over 5 months since Heather was introduced, years since Holly jumped and they both have good reasons to be wearing similar clothes. I think it's just a coincidence but you should ask Aaron since he is the only one who could tell us for sure.

>>9938992
No, I meant that the feeling that it was strange struck me all of a sudden.

>>9938682

Oh boy, the rape thing was one thing but this is reaching new lows.

>>9939112
>new lows
We already had Holly trying to pull this off. Maybe twice. With worse motivations.

And as people have said before, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often in Endtown.

>>9939112
I agree about the rape thing but I can't say this is out of character for what we've seen of Heather. "Hysteria Horse", after all.

>>9939164
Heck, it's not even the first time someone has tried to off themselves after having violent intent towards someone else. Remember Cliff and how he tried to drown himself?

People trying to commit suicide and being saved from it... If Walt succeeds in talking Heather down, then it's a three-fer and definitely a favoured trope of Aaron's.

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>>9939238
>If Walt succeeds in talking Heather down, then it's a three-fer and definitely a favored trope of Aaron's.
Maybe he'll buck this trend by having Walt talking Heather back from the ledge and then having Grout bust onto the roof to try to arrest her for the "murder" of hat wolf and she jumps or accidentally knocking her off.

>>9938682
I can imagine how he tried to talk her back from the ledge before.
>Heather Hoss! This is Grout from Endtown PD! If you jump I will have no other recourse to arrest you for unlawful suicide and littering! Just think of the poor people that will have to clean up the mess!

>>9938682
For once the GoComics people have a point: I hope those two dots are cops and not Dottie and her duck co-worker. Apart from anything else, that would be pure idiocy on Grout's part.

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>>9903854
>>9904551
Glad you liked it.
Don't worry about the background damsel. She doesn't have insurance so she'll be thrown out the door.
>>9936297
I was thinking of drawing Grout as Inspector Zenigata but Zenigata can actually do his job, just not when Lupin's around.

>>9941682
Burglar Jim is funniest Jim. Thank you once again, Pen Anon. I like the finger waggle.

>Grout
What character does Grout match in terms of incompetence? Only Inspector Gadget comes to mind so far...

>>9939877
This all reminds me: Crit Anon, are you still around?

>>9941936
>>9938927

Grout bothers me a lot as a character on a certain level. In Milk Trail he SOUNDED more competent, now he's a bafoon. Maybe another early idea that got rewritten? Who the hell knows. I'll probably draw him in a swimsuit or somesuch kissing Walt or something. Fuck that cardboard cut-out piggie, true manlove must flourish! No homo though.

>>9938766
20 billion years in MS Paint can get the job done

>>9936290
I don't ever remember posting THAT.

>>9938992
I think it's a coincidence but right now Heather "TRAGIC CHARACTER" level transcends Flask and I swear to God, if Marx does not get to make out with her before she dies like all the chicks he threw under the wheels for greater good, I'm gonna be fucking disappointed.

Also that Jim pic is still coming... the job is being an absolute bitch right now, I'm cancelling my other obligations left and right to get to the deadline.

>>9938682
Oh... this is leading up to the Big Dramatic Rape Reveal, isn't it?

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>>9941936
>What character does Grout match in terms of incompetence? Only Inspector Gadget comes to mind so far...
That's actually a good comparison. I've been trying to think of someone who's incompetent but everyone takes seriously (except Penny and Brain but they don't count)

>>9943455
Oh God, I can even hear the voice...

>That title
That thing is one of the the worst cases of mis-casting combined with poor writing and generally just being badly-thought-out that I've seen.

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Last one for tonight

>>9943557
>Oh God, I can even hear the voice...
You know the funny thing is the voice I imagined he had almost sounded like Inspector Gadget.

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>>9906237
And I might as well post the comic I made for this.

>>9945598
Let's hope there's a tiny cartoon glass of water on the pavement in front of the building.

>You know the funny thing is the voice I imagined he had almost sounded like Inspector Gadget.
Damn it, I guess strange minds think alike...

>>9945643
I remember this, I loved the personality you gave porcupine-girl.

>>9941366
>Walt goes up
>cops stand back
>Walt talks to Heather
>learns about the rape

either

>Neo-Dottie arrives
>ruins it
>Heather jumps
>Walt and Dottie on opposite sides because Dottie never heard about rape thing and won't give Walt a chance to tell her
>Dottie writes Heather's death in news story as the cowardly way out taken by a serial murderer (including quotes from the strip at >>9885524, possibly falsely implicating someone else - "I'm not alone!")
>Walt gains unwanted fame as the man who cornered Wolf-Basher Hoss
>Escalation

or

>Portia suddenly develops skills and insight to compare her self-starvation to Heather's impending suicide (or she just reminds Heather of Terry/Jolene)
>talks her down
>Dottie arrives
>"So you're on the murderer's side now"
>opposite sides again
>court case, with incriminating quotes from mentioned strip, as testimony by Dottie

or

>Walt parlays crowd-talking skills into Superman-esque anti-suicide abilities
>something something "I'm on your side, even if nobody else is"/"I'll see justice done"
>talks her down
>same as previous

I doubt Walt's going to fail of his own accord, especially in front of his new girlfriend, though that would be interesting. I think Heather going through with it is possible but unlikely at this time because of the unresolved Terry thread and the need for the wolves to have a focus for their rhetoric, as well as the recurring conflict between Heather and Dottie.

The only thing that says to me that Walt and Dottie might not end up totally opposed to each other is that I half suspect Walt is going to wind up being lumped in with the predators due to his little not-flashback and unless Dottie gets the Big Harsh Lesson she seems to have been set up for soon, she'll likely be on that side for a while to come.

Bonus points: When Walt brings up the rape at trial and expects Doc to confirm it, Doc instead denies it as doing so somehow furthers the plan. First obvious hint that something's up with Doc.

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Does anyone have this in a bigger size?

>>9942280
>I'll probably draw him in a swimsuit or somesuch kissing Walt or something
I'm usually against this kind of thing, even if I never mention it, but I can see Grout being a bit gay for Walt for some reason. Maybe it's just my homophobia being glad of seeing a fuck up like him being gay. Don't let that bother you, though.

>>9943557
I think it's an okay sci-fi movie for kids if you ignore how different it is from the cartoon. It helps that the LatAm dub is pretty good, much better than the original.

>>9949012

The comic has gone so down the drain in terms of the established couples swinging, that this is just my snarky attempt at making 'impossible' couples possible while having fun with it.

Also I feel Aaron projects himself into Walt, so there's that.

>>9950270
Nice! You made them look so good together I almost forgot how much of a backstabber Sarah was.

>>9950513
Not mine, it's from Jamil's Twitter.

Does look real nice, though.

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>>9950547
Oops. I saw a unique file name and a new pic and assumed.

>>9948778
I could have sworn I had the large version somewhere but all I have is the one for ants. I found another Peter while I was looking though.

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>>9948778

>>9950909
Awesome! Now I can delete the old one.

>>9950744
>>9950909

Thank you! Peter is one of my favorite Endtown OCs. How'd DK manage to make a spider so damn cute?

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>>9951265

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>>9951265

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>>9951265
Hell even KC drew him.

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>>9950270

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Tonight... Walt.

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>>9938682
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwYN7mTi6HM

>>9958463
Nice!

I wondered if you were still around, good to see you are.

>>9959010
Thank you! I'm sorry I haven't been around a lot, my summer's been busier than I'd like it to be. These threads could always use fresh OC.

Also more anti Grout/Heather/Jacob/nuDottie/Walt/Portia basically anyone focused in this arc sentiment.

>>9958463
Tempted to draw Heather in Sammy's getup in that vid.

>>9959147
No problem, life always comes before comic critique. Thanks for being around, anyway.

>Also more anti Grout/Heather/Jacob/nuDottie/Walt/Portia basically anyone focused in this arc sentiment.
Of those, it's weird how only Jacob hasn't really degraded or been poorly introduced, this chapter. The closest we really got to poking holes in his portrayal was the whole thing about how Endtown's food scavenging system just doesn't really work, on paper.

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>>9959289
Do it!

>>9960085
It probably helps that Jacob exists to fill the popular pro-wolf sentiment at the time that there was good reason the carnivores/wolves in particular were getting angry and nothing else. The pro-wolf side was that the whole scene in the laundry suggested something more at work than what we were seeing at the surface, that there was food rationing happening because of a limited food resource thanks to Topsider tech improving with the satellite and any foragers we know of quitting their jobs because the food intake wasn't worth the risks of going out anymore. With what we know from previous arcs and the obvious showing that Jolene had indeed got fatter and some pigs were also inexplicably getting fatter before vanishing it painted an intriguing picture. Then that comes up and that's all she wrote, we get nothing that plenty of readers have been dying to know about his leadership since the Milk Trial arc, everything is as it's suggested! There's no war in Ba Sing Se!

I find his inclusion to JUST address that issue as particularly suspicious and a little too well timed to narratively stuff the suppositions of the audience and further demonize the wolves. The 6 year food supply thing alone is insulting.

>>9960493
Yes, that definitely felt like a "correction" of the story.

And yes, the only way it even remotely makes sense is if the stockpile was mostly there pre-settlement, and the scavenging was only ever really about make-work and getting troublesomely inquisitive people out of the colony for a while and giving them something to do.

I still like the notion that there's something screwy going on with the scavenging teams post-Allie (maybe she even initiated it before she died) and they've done a deal with the check-in guys whereby they "collect" the same set of cans over and over again while never really going topside, and the stores are increasingly full of emptied cans packed with dust...

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I felt like Grout suffered a rather SOFT rewrite - from a man without resources to do his job to a man without competence to do his job. In Milk Trial he wanted to help and the problem was that Sec took over. Right now he's behaving a lot like Dottie, giving Walt out of all people a chance to shine.

I bet they're really good friends behind the scenes, given making him a police chief without him being even remotely competent would've been seriously stupid.

>>9950270
I feel like Jamil and I are on the other sides of the barricade these days.

>>9958463
JUST DO IT.
DON'T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS

>>9960085
That's because Jacob is already an asshole. There's nothing to degrade.

>>9960493

The whole satellite business is so stupid, because right now Topsiders are unbeatable by any means other than...

...Marx.

>>9961630

>
I still like the notion that there's something screwy going on with the scavenging teams post-Allie (maybe she even initiated it before she died) and they've done a deal with the check-in guys whereby they "collect" the same set of cans over and over again while never really going topside, and the stores are increasingly full of emptied cans packed with dust...

That would've been clever. I don't expect cleverness

>>9962671

On top of that, you know... I miss Flask, as a crazy bitch she was she was a woman that felt like a woman with feelings, agenda and some means of working. Every girl so far is either in distress or a cunt.

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>>9960493

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Welp

>>9962761
It felt like she had self determination. Every female lately feels like a victim, a caricature, a stooge or a pawn.

>>9963553

Yeah pretty much. It's... weird. I'll say this and this might be a little bit shocking - I've met gay men that had disdain for women - merely because they saw them as a competition. A competition you can at least respect. But Aaron's view of women go beyond that and this just makes me feel uneasy.

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>>9963656
What's weird about Aaron's treatment of female characters is he can write villainous females pretty great. Flask falls in the category for me and Sarah likewise is built up from a blank slate to unrepentant sociopath in a pretty clear but not unsatisfactory way.

For female protagonist characters though? Gustine I feel is pretty strong but she also is the first female character to receive focus in Endtown. Confronted with a self-identity crisis and her own insecurities she has to contend with her body condition and survive in this post-apocalyptic society with Al, who coincidentally is a normal human. She's captured by Sparkplug but saves the day, where Al saves her shortly after as they continue the quest of getting her magic berry. There's equivalency in their stories and I don't feel like Gustine is presented dishonestly and in the end she decides to resurrect Al over regaining her physical humanity. They both find a happy medium and return to Endtown so everything's kosher.

After her Holly had been riding on the 'supportive healer' type for broken Wally and then damsel in distress which isn't as promising, but it was evened out with the Satellite Arc and the much more impressive Flask acting as counterbalance to both of them. Holly was really feminine and soft to Flask's hard ruthlessness and the complimentary pair to Wally which made the dynamic have a little spark to it. It's this balance that gets crashed down into breaking Holly down again as she's punished and again in danger in the Milk Trial Arc and after that it's turtles all the way down to the Ship Arc.

Dottie was impressive in the Milk Trial arc and showed promise of being a refreshing female character for the upcoming new arc, which is why I'm absolutely disgusted with this turn she took in this arc itself. There was no romantic undertones with her, she was simply 'THE FRIEND' to Walt and also served his foil to keep him in check and ask important questions.

>>9962671
>I feel like Jamil and I are on the other sides of the barricade these days.
Well he openly posted here as recently as last month. I take it you've not spoken to him at all lately?

I'd love to know his opinions on this arc, but I can understand if he wouldn't want to say anything and I'd respect that.

I do recall he was betting on Heather getting injured in the riot.

>>9964345
>ask important questions.
Yeah, Walt seems to have problems with that. Witness his conversation with Doc.

... Walt in a pink t-shirt asking "WHY DO I NEVER ASK FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS!?" when?

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>>9964345
For other females I haven't mentioned, Maude served more for fleshing out an important aspect of Endtown: a character who would unwittingly be friends with someone who would be absolutely repugnant to her if she knew their whole identity. She's...nice? But other than that she's more a vehicle for Linda's story arc to give and then take away.

Linda starts as a villain and very quickly swerves into being a constant victim. She's taken in by Marx, not allowed to die, cut off from her kid, brought to a place where ANYONE who knew of her past would hate her or kill her immediately, and is bullied at her new job by some shitty bitches. The one kind humanitarian thing she does is punished, as are the people around her, and she gets ostracized and leaves to an uncertain future as Endtown falls into a state of political disarray...until we come back and see everything's totally fine. Also Linda's gone, we can just forget about her. Even though she was a constant victim she wasn't portrayed as a horrific prejudiced Nazi like Sarah and Jim were later when transformed. They even refused to call anyone by their names despite now being mutants just like them! So it says a lot about Linda's personality, considering she went from sadistic Topsider raider to weebly koala bear in no time flat.

It feels like the longer Aaron is going on the less and less a female character is given a fair shake despite sharing equal screentime. This upswing of more violence against women, especially Heather's

>rape

really says a lot. To me particular it's uncomfortable and feels melodramatic, maybe even unfair to the female characters like Dottie who existed before this trend started up fully.

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>>9964481
That said, delivery!

>>9965346
Brilliant (and damn fast).

Have you given some thought to uploading these somewhere more permanent?

>>9965766
I was asked this before and I have thought about it, though I haven't been super compelled to do it yet. Doesn't help when my time spent making art (and where it's stored) is a computer I rarely get access to lately.

'Eventually but not now' is pretty much my feeling about it currently.

>>9965917
That's fair. I think your stuff deserves a place on the boorus and so on just as much as anybody else's, but you've got to do this stuff at your own pace.

Uploads of Endtown fanart seem to have slowed in general, even more so than the pace of creation has.

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>>9950270
I like this pic, but for some reason this is the first thing I thought of. (Have we made this joke before? I feel like this is a joke we've made before.)

>>9958463
>>9962990
Kek

>>9966429
Sarah: Prepare for trouble...
Jim: ...and make it double!
Sarah: To explore the world post-devastation!
Jim: To change our shapes and flee our nation!
Sarah: To give up both of our past lives for love!
Jim: To kill for each other should push come to shove!
Sarah: Sarah!
Jim:Jim!
Sarah: Team Topsider ascendant, now it's our turn!
Jim: Surrender now or prepare to burn!
Wally: Jeezis, you guys never learn!

(That does actually feel familiar, but I can't find anything similar)

>>9966685
Holy shit! That's great.

End

>>9966685
11/10

>>9966429
>What could have been
I'm more sad about how Jim and Wally could've easily been buddies if the circumstances had allowed it.

>>9883573

Why do I feel this is some interpretation of internet bullying.

Like, rotary telephone bullying.

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>>9968701
hahahahaahahaha how the fuck is rotary telephone bullying real hahahahahahaha nigga just walk away from the phone like nigga hang it up haha

>>9968701
You're not the first to say that. This and things like "HATER!" or Grout's incredible incompetence give a certain air of immaturity in this story, as if the people aren't taking things as seriously as they should. Compare it to the first chapters where things were less serious but it was obviously done on purpose while in this one it just feels like Aaron isn't capable of making a serious story.

>>9969326
This just makes me wonder how it's going to escalate now that Walt's yanked the line.

Maybe we *will* see a spooky ringing disconnected telephone.

... In before they all have emergency wireless because Mallard was responsible for designing the phone system.

Random thought: What's the potential for ditto involvement here? We haven't seen hide nor hair of the damn things since we returned to Endtown, but I doubt Mallard would have sent the entire supply with Wally.

Are they currently only known about at a high level and used mostly for foraging camouflage, or could someone have obtained them and started using them to move around Endtown undetected, say, to move pigs or to look in windows and tap phones without anyone seeing ?

And have they figured out how to breed them yet? If they are, I hope whoever's doing it doesn't think you have to use negative emotions (though you'd think Endtown would be full enough of them, anyway, being the place it is)...

>>9969450
They use old-timey phones in the first place because long-range signals could be picked up by topsiders.

>>9969450
>Maybe we *will* see a spooky ringing disconnected telephone.
If that happens I'll cash in all on Eye's involvement, as the phone metaphor already happened before incomic with Wally.

>Random thought: What's the potential for ditto involvement here?
With the outright prevalence of them in the last arc I'd like to think Aaron shelved them for a while or situated them as the answer to the Topsider tech superiority and foraging issues.

>I hope whoever's doing it doesn't think you have to use negative emotions (though you'd think Endtown would be full enough of them, anyway, being the place it is)
Cut to Topsider Linda hugging her child and telling him to have a good day while she goes to work with her trainee partner, then rolls on up on what seems to be an easy mutant catch...endlessly reliving the day she turned into a mutant

>>9969538
>Eye's involvement
More like Marx's involvement. The veil is not that thin.

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>>9969529
Even from under a mile or so of rock?

And even short-range radio?

I would have thought the prohibition would be on using radio to talk to forager teams or other settlements.

>>9969538
The speech has been kind of similar to that of Eye, but that could be a red herring. If it is Eye, though, I'd still be looking for a remotely-affecting host rather than some kind of possession of the phone lines/phones.

>With the outright prevalence of them in the last arc I'd like to think Aaron shelved them for a while or situated them as the answer to the Topsider tech superiority and foraging issues.
Frankly I would too because there's already too many odd and ill-defined possibilities to account for, like Eye possession, for this to be the satisfying mystery that it could be.

>Cut to Topsider Linda hugging her child and telling him to have a good day while she goes to work with her trainee partner, then rolls on up on what seems to be an easy mutant catch...endlessly reliving the day she turned into a mutant
Or pigs, being mercilessly taunted about being fat little piggies then tempted with large quantities of delicious food, then taunted once again, over and over. What's depressed, binge-eating self-loathing taste like to a ditto, I wonder?

I remember Aaron implying Endtown was going to get an upgrade from its current fake daylight at one point, and people speculated that Mallard was going to use dittos to give Endtown a much more pleasant simulated environment. That's a lot of dittos that would need to be bred...

>>9969569
... I think I'd prefer Eye.

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>>9968655

>>9964345
>>9964544

The joke about him writing females few years back is that I'm 90% sure he had an editor. You can tell that. If you compare Albert strips with Endtown during half of Gustine Quest to end of Milk Trial, you could tell that there is something jarring - it feels like two different people are writing it.

It's further proven with this arc with Dottie of all people being a completely different person. I think his ex-wife had some say in writing some of the characters, that's my professional hunch there. Given that there are big retcons where "his" characters distance themselves from "her" characters. Art can tell a lot about one's person state of mind.

On top of that Aaron never grew out of Albert-style writing - people are hurt, killed or otherwise bad things happen to them, but it's so distant and so cold it's rather unsettling as they don't seem to be even sympathetic deaths. If you page through his interview with that guest comic he outright says he finds people being hurt comedic. It's a bit unsettling.

>>9964429

My only means of contact are tumblr and I have not seen him faving anything of mine in the long while, so... I dunno. Maybe he's upset with my stance. Hell I do the same thing when I'm upset at fellow artists.

>>9968655

The worst thing is that Jim had more emotional depth than Wally. Wally felt so much like a blank slate. I talked about this with Kazen how it was hard to draw anything with him cause there was nothing to hook into.

>>9969416

As I said from a man that had no resources to do his job he went to man that had no competence to do his job. Grout couldn't be appointed police chief if he was incompetent given the pre-selection shown a while back.

>>9969450
>>9969538
>>9969623

> Eye involvement

Eye left a package there too?

>>9970253
>My only means of contact are tumblr and I have not seen him faving anything of mine in the long while, so... I dunno. Maybe he's upset with my stance. Hell I do the same thing when I'm upset at fellow artists.
Or your recent stuff might not match his tastes. I like a lot of it myself, but your stuff can be a little niche sometimes.

>The worst thing is that Jim had more emotional depth than Wally. Wally felt so much like a blank slate. I talked about this with Kazen how it was hard to draw anything with him cause there was nothing to hook into.
Wally does just seem to wander through the plot like Alice in Wonderland a lot of the time, too. He was incredibly passive last arc when any reasonable person (with ditto skills, to boot) would probably have been looking for a way to get out of the ditto-cage and save their loved one much earlier, especially if it had already proven hazardous and he had a child and someone very child-like to consider. He was basically playing exposition-catcher through the whole thing. I think he was better pre-Unity, though.

>Eye left a package there too?
Hosts and pawns. Though this might not be the way Eye does things - its modus operandi seems to be to fuck shit up as quickly and as messily as possible, with messing with people's heads as a secondary thing.

On the other hand, we have a sample size of one single incident to point to in that department.

>>9970253
With this arc I can believe he's freebirding it without an editor. Hell I had that feeling since we left Unity since that's also where the *unity* of the story elements started seriously dissolving. The Dittos freely mirror Wally, saving him from actually getting clobbered by the lizard in the ring (despite this never being a thing before and Wally mentally wanting to die from Holly's supposed fate and Eye's taunts). Incongruency continued with Clive's tracker and the Topsiders increasingly ridiculous forces all looking for this one plasticized brain. Instead of the elements and characters building naturally towards the plot there were parades of gotcha moments and things introduced or happening solely to *service* the plot to go a certain direction. It just progressively is getting more transparent the further from Unity we go, where a revision with Jim's fate changes a whole end sequence for an arc's climax.

But, not to really crap on that, I really liked the Unity arc and found it thrilling to read despite the changes since what happened inside of it didn't totally exist to service the plot. Jim going crazy felt organic, Sarah's evolution felt strong but not contrived because she showed disgust regarding her companions earlier. Wally and Holly get development and reaffirm their relationship's strength and an abused kid is removed from a horrid society. It still worked. Same can't be said for the following pair of arcs with patchwork narratives fixing holes left from oversights of characterization or previous established lore.

>>9970604
Just say it. It all got worse with Kirbee.

>>9970376

> Or your recent stuff might not match his tastes. I like a lot of it myself, but your stuff can be a little niche sometimes.

Oh I know I'm very niche. Nowadays though Tumblr is the recipient of my game sprite art. FA's architecture and audience is not fit for it.

> Wally does just seem to wander through the plot like Alice in Wonderland a lot of the time, too. He was incredibly passive last arc when any reasonable person (with ditto skills, to boot) would probably have been looking for a way to get out of the ditto-cage and save their loved one much earlier, especially if it had already proven hazardous and he had a child and someone very child-like to consider. He was basically playing exposition-catcher through the whole thing. I think he was better pre-Unity, though.

He had more to do in Satellite arc, but he was Alice. Later just became the narrator.

> Hosts and pawns. Though this might not be the way Eye does things - its modus operandi seems to be to fuck shit up as quickly and as messily as possible, with messing with people's heads as a secondary thing.

Eye is Chaotic Evil, this is Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil at work.

>>9970604

Not everyone can write a good story from a get-go. And even when the author is good then editor is needed as a sanity check. Hell, at work I'm asked to be the sanity checker for my boss and he's a reviewer for scientific articles. The problem Aaron has is that he's too sure of his writing ability and disregards critique. It took someone close for him to change his ways.

As for the rest: Large part of Unity arc was written when his ex-wife was still around, then he started tweaking it, one of the biggest rewrites was Sarah turned from someone that really loved Jim into a turncoat. But that still worked in the end.

But yeah after that it all fell apart.

>>9970873

It started with Holly abused for no reason during Milk Trial. If you go back she's the only one that looks like she was beaten during Milk Trial.

>>9970873
I can't say it because I actually *liked* Kirbee for a while. It was nice that there was a character that showed not everyone in Unity were pure sociopathic creatures. Ironically she also ended up being a version of sociopathic in her absolute willful cluelessness with the situation between Wally and Holly and sliding in when Holly was (unfairly) losing it through a series of suspicious and unfortunate events. One thing that never happened that I wish did was Holly bringing up Kirbee being from the society where they ate baby fetuses shamelessly which would have fleshed her dislike of her immensely with what we learned of her own baby's fate in the ship arc. It's absolutely stunning that something so simple to provide conflict and complexity was avoided solely to make Holly look more like an unstable bitch and make Kirbee this perfect cinnamon roll despite the impossibility that for as functioning as she is she never questioned her society up until she met Wally. Considering her age there even is the strong possibility she was in the colony during their *genocide* Peytr mentioned to Sarah.

There was a lot of potential in Kirbee and Aaron denied her and Holly proper development as female characters with different motivations. Holly's coddling of Clive happened but not preceded with Chic whom she saved his life and originally sided with, and no explanation of that sudden cut of connection either. It just resolved into 'I want to kiss Wally!' on Kirbee's front versus Holly's 'REEEE EVERYONE IS SHIT' with no development between the two points.

>>9971211
Not him, but...

>Ironically she also ended up being a version of sociopathic in her absolute willful cluelessness with the situation between Wally and Holly and sliding in when Holly was (unfairly) losing it through a series of suspicious and unfortunate events.
Wally's half of that was always really weird to me, too. Cheating on someone is something only a sociopath does when it's a woman doing it to a guy (Sarah and Jim), but suddenly because it's Wally and cute little Kirbee doing it's okay, even presented as a sweet and romantic thing?

>One thing that never happened that I wish did was Holly bringing up Kirbee being from the society where they ate baby fetuses shamelessly which would have fleshed her dislike of her immensely with what we learned of her own baby's fate in the ship arc. It's absolutely stunning that something so simple to provide conflict and complexity was avoided solely to make Holly look more like an unstable bitch and make Kirbee this perfect cinnamon roll
Yes, that very obviously wasn't done because it would have either made Kirbee look bad, or, once again, too stupid for words, as well as giving Holly a very reasonable reason to hate her on top of seeing her as a bit of an idiot. But we couldn't have Holly looking reasonable...

>despite the impossibility that for as functioning as she is she never questioned her society up until she met Wally. Considering her age there even is the strong possibility she was in the colony during their *genocide* Peytr mentioned to Sarah.
She probably was. Someone said they might have sent her out while it happened, but why would they care? They didn't seem to think much of her, they even sent her on hazardous corpse-nabbing duty, if I'm recalling Unity correctly. On top of that, if just makes her look dumber if she never ever gave any thought to the sudden disappearance of the non-lizard members of the colony... or if she did and simply believed people when they said they all left.

Hey guys you want to hear some fucked up parallels?

Remember that "Lost the baby" business? How people speculated it was miscarriage and how well that didn't set with people so it got retconned

Now look what happened: Holly got beaten up (Maude and Linda look unaharmed), her womanhood violated, drove to suicide and suddenly an Aaron insert is there to resolve the manner. In milk trial we "had" to hate the Sec because of that, now we're to hate wolves???!!

Let that sink in. And since Aaron or one of his "watchers" reads this, I'm sure this will be proven invalid for some shock value death.

>>9973580
>How people speculated it was miscarriage
Yes..
>and how well that didn't set with people so it got retconned
..no? I didn't see anyone being opposed to it like with Heather's rape.

>suddenly an Aaron insert is there to resolve the manner
I thought Wally was pretty impotent about everything that was happening to them and he even said so. Hell, he didn't even manage to catch Holly in time, if it wasn't for the other guy they would've both fallen to their deaths.

>In milk trial we "had" to hate the Sec because of that
It was pretty evident they were being manipulated, so far I've only seen people considering them victims too in the end.

>Let that sink in
I can't unless you make what you meant more clear.

>>9973580
>Remember that "Lost the baby" business? How people speculated it was miscarriage and how well that didn't set with people so it got retconned
If you're referring to the moment on the clocktower, I do think it was originally supposed to have been a stress and beating-induced miscarriage while imprisoned, but I don't think that was changed due to anyone's reaction, I suspect it was quickly swapped out for the past-miscarriage plot thread because Aaron got a Big Idea just after he wrote that particular strip. It did always feel very odd to me that Holly was still obsessing over that internally eight years after it happened while being so functional otherwise. That seems like a behaviour usually engaged in by people who have been in an obvious spiral for all that time, inwards and outwards.

>Now look what happened: Holly got beaten up (Maude and Linda look unaharmed), her womanhood violated, drove to suicide and suddenly an Aaron insert is there to resolve the manner. In milk trial we "had" to hate the Sec because of that, now we're to hate wolves???!!
I do see some parallels here. I'm not sure about "violated" - I remember speculation Holly had been raped by the rats, but I'm sure Aaron would have at least used that as ammunition in an email by now if it were the case (in before this gets back to him and gives him ideas) - but the whole "Focus male saving a suicidal tower-jumping woman traumatised to insanity by a group of meanies" thing definitely has a ring to it...

>>9974852
>I thought Wally was pretty impotent about everything that was happening to them and he even said so. Hell, he didn't even manage to catch Holly in time, if it wasn't for the other guy they would've both fallen to their deaths.
I always saw that as Holly actually waiting until he was close enough to grab her - a cry for help, not 100% a suicide attempt - and Angus having to help out because they just ended up a bit too far over the edge.

>>9982230
It's strange, I never considered that Holly might have gotten raped by the rats even though they're rats and she's a female rodent of equivalent size. It seemed more likely she was beaten and had a miscarriage while in captivity.

It's a shame we couldn't have the cake and eat it too in this situation. I'd think Holly miscarrying a particularly young fetus would hit her very hard after delivering a stillborn fish in her past, enough to justify the wildness of her desires to run away from Endtown and be with Wally at an even more obsessive rate than she was previously. Add in the infanticide of Unity and it's a perfect storm involving insecurity and death of children and motherhood that had been so important to Holly in the past. Hell it might have made the ending even stronger for it too.

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>>9982692
Possibly. I think either way the baby obsession thing would have been very poorly foreshadowed by her behaviour - if anything her previous stuff like being so concerned for Wally even at risk to herself and even hiding out in his backpack to come with him spoke to me of the loss of a partner, and far more recently than Lyn - probably some wandering wastelander that she'd previously become attached to and had been unable to save/protect from something.

If her issue had always been intended to be loss of motherhood/family, you'd expect pre-Milk-Trial foreshadowing in the form of obsessively collecting and reading old motherhood magazines, long lingering glances at happy families, being obsessed with helping children, etc. That kind of thing.

The closest we got was the sand creature, and that got killed in front of her without apparently triggering anything from the past, and nothing except a brief speech from Holly about how yes, she actually *can* handle horrible stuff like that, IIRC. It seemed more like a method of showing Holly was Flask's polar opposite when it came to empathy, which suited her depiction at the time and, I believe, was the psychological wind-up for a later "FUCK YEAH!" sequence where Holly socks Flask right in the face.

>>9939112
What rape thing?

>>9983528
Exactly.

>>9979807
It was so beautiful.

>>9983047
>her previous stuff like being so concerned for Wally even at risk to herself and even hiding out in his backpack to come with him spoke to me of the loss of a partner, and far more recently than Lyn
This. It was totally this.

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What happened to Denise?

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>>9986637
Whoops, I messed up the date there. It's supposed to correspond to the actual date she showed up and then summarily vanished for the rest of the arc.

>>9986719
It would be ironic if she actually disappeared.

>>9986719
Also, that's a very nice picture. Could almost pass off as one of Aaron's sketches.

>>9986719
Swinn? Is that canon?

If not, I still like it. And that's a nice take on her in general.

>>9986744
It would be. It's weird how that whole thing got a load of setup and then just seemed to kind of vanish, complete with Walt somehow managing to forget to even press charges. It's like we saw a plotline cancelled before our very eyes.

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>>9986744
I wouldn't be surprised if that's brought up to mask that the narrative completely forgot she existed on a first name basis at the start.

>>9986766
Thank you but I can't take much credit for it, I just eyeballed this panel and drew it for recognizable likeness.

>>9986792
Not canon last name, but missing posters don't omit last names so it's a placeholder until we find out what her real name was. I picked something vaguely person-sounding but still piggish to land in that 'wink wink' naming scheme that happens in Endtown (Swinn -> Swine).

Okay, so who is it? Who's on the roof with Heather already?

A) Dottie and a partner
B) Two of the shorter police
C) Mix
D) Unexpected third party

>>9993848
I want to say a pair of cops since Grout mentioned a crowd didn't show up yet. Convenient considering the circumstances, unless the officers originally were pursuing her for arrest and she bolted to the top of that building to jump.

I foresee Dottie showing up for a new scoop here, or a cut of her documenting the massacred corpse and frog person's testimony.

>>9993848
There's also a chance that it's two wolves up there.

>>9991891
Those pictures are fucking me up. Nobody but Aaron and maybe some of us should be allowed to make colored art.

>>9998219
The color choices and blending confused the hell out of me. Why is Wally's lip apple red, why is Holly some peachy color instead of white, why are the values unbalanced in saturation, and what the hell is up using specular highlights on characters who aren't actually GLOSSY?

The best colorwise I can compliment is not shading with black but I argue substituting dark values with blots of umber is barely an improvement.

>>9998762
>not a single bunny gal as main character
Come on Aaron, get with the times..

>>9996140
I imagine even Grout would be treating that as more of a crisis situation, though.

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Looks like it's just a couple of residents. A beaver and... something? Possibly a wolf? In before she turns around and gets a fright.

I guess Walt can't see the blood spatter clearly from that angle?

>>10001318
>That first panel
That almost looks like it was done in a 3D modelling program.

>>10001013
>Grout
>being competent

>>10001318
InB4: >>9999285.

>>10001318
>Walt's on the verge of talking her down
>Heather turns around, sees wolf
>Shock
>Stumbles backwards
>Splat (or possibly bounce if the fire department has quietly turned up with one of those trampolines in the meantime)
>Walt thinks she was frightened of him
>"Oh how terrible I am a scary monster"

>>10001804
Please don't let it be this.

>>10001430
It looks like SketchUp or something. Maybe Aaron was tinkering, or maybe he had to re-do the panel at the last second? Stands out against his usual lined style...

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>>10001318
She's a horse. Does anybody know how to lasso here?

I guess it was kind of fortuitous that I just heard this on the radio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRYZijLZR-Q

>>10003949
Holy crap!

And oh, man, the face on Walt at the end there...

I'm glad I wasn't drinking when I read this, PA.

>>10004089
I spent way too long on those eyes, but I guess it was worth it.

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>>10003949
I'm dying here. Never leave us.

>lasso Heather like the horse she is
Suddenly I'm in the mood for Heather in bondage. Also, do you think there are Endtowners who fully embraced their animal looks and use it to spice up their sex life?

>>10004269
Huh, another thing which suggests that maybe the original idea was that most Endtowners stuck to their own "species". I remember Holly's gal-pals raised their eyebrows a little at her boyfriend being a cat, too.

>Also, do you think there are Endtowners who fully embraced their animal looks and use it to spice up their sex life?
I'm going to say probably, but I think it's likely that there's also a bunch who do the same thing but with some amount of latent shame, like the implications with Maude.

>>10004269
>Suddenly I'm in the mood for Heather in bondage. Also, do you think there are Endtowners who fully embraced their animal looks and use it to spice up their sex life?
With Heather being one of the few people that can tailor and alter clothing I wonder how much weird shit she's gotten over the years.
>Do you alter belts
>We can only make them smaller because they're typically leather and... what's the ball for?
and after 6+ years
>D-do you, c-could you adjust anything in uh-uh l-la-latex?
>Sure, why not? Does your wife have tits or uddrs? Or is this for you?

>>10003949
Kek, between Walt's fish story and Grout's complete dissonance with the situation it makes for a really strong and funny strip. Nice job!

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>>10004269
>Suddenly I'm in the mood for Heather in bondage
Might as well bump with a pic I did when I was predicting Heather was going to he kidnapped by the wolves and I figured I might as well ink it.

>What the hell is this shit Harry?
>You asked me to tie her up Frank.
>Not like that. Get that shit out of her mouth.
>(Heather)Tighter...
>Alright we're done. I'm turning myself in.

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So.

How many other characters do you think will be dead by the end of this arc?

Denise Swinn is certainly a contender. But what about Dottie? Disregarding her previous "death" of character, do you think she might die? Perhaps she wouldn't even die to the wolves, but the blame would be placed on them regardless for "the greater good".

Do you think Aaron would stoop to using her death as further motivation for Walt to deal with the wolves? Portia would be too obvious of a death, but I wouldn't put it past him for killing her either way.

Baseless assumptions aside, here's a bear from the booru.

>>10008715
I was thinking that Portia is a shoo-in for a death-by-fridging due to a lack of essential characterisation, but over the last couple of months I've come to suspect that that's just how Aaron's writing females now - Heather's not much better.

I can see Dottie disappearing from the narrative a-la Holly if things proceed as they are - possibly just fading into the background permanently in favour of Portia, after serving her part, maybe ending up a casualty by way of proving her wrong about wolves and then serving her up an "ironic" death. I feel like there's going to be a growing rift between her and Walt developing before that, though, so I don't know if it would be intended to motivate Walt.

I'm 50/50 on Denise having become one of the vanished, now. It'd be nice if Dottie found out and a shred of respect for her first-name-basis rival (possible ex-friend?) caused her to start looking deeply into the disappearances and putting the pieces together. Just as likely that she's either on-hold while we take the Heather Train to Existential Horrorsville or she's just been abandoned completely as the plot's been changed.

I think there's a chance Jacob will buy it in a "hoist by his own petard" situation, but that'll be dependant on him becoming more than a bit-player brought in to clarify something - perhaps the "crushing" of the source of the Examiner's food shortage stories will lead into that.

As the comic gets darker and darker I can see one of the old comedy-relief characters being killed off, perhaps. Possibly Maurice?

Grout, perhaps? He seems to be there for no greater reason than to get the audience to wish anyone else at all were in charge of the cops.

If more rats get introduced, expect more expendable rat deaths. I also would not be surprised to see more dead wolves by the end of the chapter.

>>10008715
With Dottie's character assassination I wouldn't put it past Aaron to have her be in the wrong place for a story only to die as a consequence and assert she deserved it. I could imagine Walt commenting on it that she told him to do nothing (start of arc) and how she was wrong and now she's dead or something mindbogglingly self satisfied in that same vein of regard.

Personally I wish Grout would get the Allgood treatment but I have a feeling that won't happen. Nobody acknowledges how much of a shitty chief he is, not even the story.

>>10001318
Why does Heather, a horse, have cloven hooves?

>>10001318
>I'm sure whatever is bothering you isn't so bad that it can't be fixed
Welp here we go, how likely is it that the supposed rape is mentioned?

>>10009947
Brief oversight if I had to guess.

>>10009180

> Personally I wish Grout would get the Allgood treatment but I have a feeling that won't happen. Nobody acknowledges how much of a shitty chief he is, not even the story.

It's still weird cause in Milk Trial, Grout was being shown as the less trigger happy and more inclined towards problem-solving. Now he's incompetent to hell.

It's stupid, then again Aaron needs some new villians so he's gonna kill off some old characters like Dottie. Fuck that.

>>10010567

"I lost the baby" becomes
"I lost the virginity"

>>10010619
If she snaps on Walt it could be a rant on how the wolves took everything from her.

"My friend, my way of life, my *purity*-" or something to that effect. Probably vaguely mention she 'took something from them' referring to bricking hatwolf and that they wouldn't take any more from her as she's going to take her own life by her own terms.

It's an understandable motivation and vague enough to where she doesn't just come out and say she was raped (since that would be very tacky) but usually purity=virginity so...

>>10010567
It certainly sounds like the cops don't know about the wolfslaughter, at least, or they would have forewarned Walt - he's obviously going in completely blind, saying that. Then again, this is Grout we're talking about...

Necessity and advisability aside, if the rape thing is still on the books (if Aaron hasn't had second thoughts), it may come out here explicitly, or, if Walt actually can convince Heather to talk to him, Aaron might soft-touch it by having her whisper it inaudibly to him and simply imply that something bad happened on top of the beating (more obviously than the alley exit, I mean). After that it might be allowed to remain implicit, or made explicit during the trial that I half-suspect is still coming.

>>10010683
The maybe-trial that could still happen I hope does, if only so we can seen Denise again and get a bead on her stance. Heather would be implicated in two deaths considering the set up of Arson-wolf on top of Hatwolf's murder and the pig lady did originally come to defend him and glasses-wolf when Walt first threw their asses in jail.

What I like about the irony of that early plot thread was Walt warning the two that they were incredibly retarded and lucky Portia only had pepper spray on her to defend herself. Cut to Heather's Alleyway and what happened to Hatwolf and his warning was vindicated months later. I do appreciate that, if nothing else.

Now that said if she's talked down and arrested for what happened I don't think there's any fair way for her to be excused from one count of murder because we all saw she killed hatwolf and not in self defense. She hit him on the back of the head, no equivalent wounds on Heather, and had hidden herself to jump him once he walked on by to commit the act of the murder. The fact there's an eyewitness further weakens her stance.

>>10010801
I'd say the initial blow might still count as self-defense if it could be proven that he was following her into the alley with malice aforethought and she was aware of that. On the other hand there was no escalation here, she just bricked him before he could even do anything. And it looks like she kept going to make sure he was dead after the first blow knocked him over/out, so at that point the definition of "positive outcome" probably starts to rely on Endtown's legal distinctions between murder and manslaughter. She might be able to cop an insanity plea...

Unfortunately as far as we know the only one who could confirm any claim on Heather's part that she'd overheard the wolf planning to harm her would be his accomplice, and Glasses *does* seem marginally wiser than his pal, but not enough to forego the whole revenge thing and let his idiot friend lie in the grave he dug for himself.

(In before whoever was doing the pig-harassing was monitoring the whole thing and becomes a surprise witness once they get caught too)

>>10010886
>Unfortunately as far as we know the only one who could confirm any claim on Heather's part that she'd overheard the wolf planning to harm her would be his accomplice
Or by sheer convenience to the plot someone remembers the Oracle pool/Marx comes out of nowhere and smugly exonerates Heather in some sweeping showboating way.

>>10010953
Ah, but last time someone tried to use the Oracle's replay function as evidence (Mallard, at Al and Gustine's trial) it was ruled inadmissible due to potentially being able to fake it, if I recall correctly. Or at least that was Flask's argument. Seemed like the Oracle is regarded as not being enough of a person to count as a witness, despite having an apparent personality and intelligence, and magic is regarded as intrinsically untrustworthy.

Marx could potentially function as a witness, but I'd prefer just about anything else, frankly. Him deus-exing the verdict really would just make this Milk Trial 2.0...

>>10004359
>another thing which suggests that maybe the original idea was that most Endtowners stuck to their own "species"
There is nothing that suggests that. All the jokes are simply from how funny it is to see a cat and a mouse together.

>>10004597
Heather's seen some shit.

>>10006032
Marvelous.

>>10012117
>There is nothing that suggests that. All the jokes are simply from how funny it is to see a cat and a mouse together.
Sure, if you only take the "pervert" comment from Flask and the reaction from Holly's friends (and regard Flask's comment as a joke and not genuine prudish disgust), but mix that with the little cat family from last thread and it perhaps paints a broader picture.

>>10012171
>mix that with the little cat family from last thread and it perhaps paints a broader picture.
I still think you're jumping to conclusions.

>>10012341
Oh, hey, I thought it might be you!

It's entirely possible, I can clear quite a good conclusion from a standing start... but it's an intriguing arena for speculation, especially since it got me thinking on the psychology of the whole cross-species relationship thing, and that lead me back into something that may apply either way.

See, I was thinking about the non Wally/Holly romantic pairings we've seen the comic focus on... Typhoid Mary + anthro certainly seems to mostly pass without comment. Why?

Well, in Flask's case it was it was a hidden part of her past (I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, if her painful memory of what had turned into a cross-species attraction subconsciously figured somewhat into her disgust at Wally and Holly mixing it up, possibly crossing over with any residual disgust she felt about her own transformation.)

The other two, though? Al and Gustine, and Maude and her man? Nobody except Topsiders and Allgood ever seemed to cast aspersions on them, the Topsiders for obvious reasons and Allgood because he's got the whole thing about Anthros not seeing each other as animals which clashes with the fact that Maude's hubby is implied to have enjoyed her animal side quite a lot.

It made me think: what if humans are seen as universally desirable? Apart from the cartoon animal instincts, everyone's still mainly thinking with a human mind, right? Which means the primary neurological wiring for attractiveness is probably still fairly heavily biased towards human faces and body types.

Even if you don't think the original idea was that they mainly stuck to their own species', one could still imagine that a Typhoid Mary might be seen in Endtown society as a bit of a "catch" - any anthro with a human-looking partner might be considered lucky, even if the TM would have been regarded as average or even below average, pre-war.

I wonder if jealousy about such motivated any of the anti-humanism on Jacob's side?

>>10012171
>(and regard Flask's comment as a joke and not genuine prudish disgust)
It's obviously a joke man, come on..

>>10012117
Not that anon but I don't think that discussion is framed at all like a joke, it feels too genuine to be read as it. Logically if there was no amount of actual species segregation in Endtown then different specie pairs wouldn't elicit the same reaction, although I'd imagine vast size differences would bring some attention as a version of perversity (like how would an elephant fuck a mouse?)

Wally and Holly are both small with Wally being a little bit larger than her but not dramatically. They're both consenting adults and this is at a time before Milk Trial where full speciesm wasn't on the table for being embraced as a popular ideology yet. So with that in mind the cat and mouse irony shouldn't be used as an example of being a pervert or a sign of a perverted relationship but Flask asserts it is.

Then again, for a moment's of devil advocate, Flask is a murderer and used to be a Topsider so big shocker she's also a prejudiced bitch.

>>10012644
I'll allow for the possibility, but as >>10012652 says, it does feel a little too genuine to me. I've outlined a reason for possible bigotry on Flask's part here >>10012636

>>10012636
>It made me think: what if humans are seen as universally desirable? Apart from the cartoon animal instincts, everyone's still mainly thinking with a human mind, right? Which means the primary neurological wiring for attractiveness is probably still fairly heavily biased towards human faces and body types.
>Even if you don't think the original idea was that they mainly stuck to their own species', one could still imagine that a Typhoid Mary might be seen in Endtown society as a bit of a "catch" - any anthro with a human-looking partner might be considered lucky, even if the TM would have been regarded as average or even below average, pre-war.
You haven't been here for long, huh? This is pretty much a given.

>>10012652
>this is at a time before Milk Trial where full speciesm wasn't on the table for being embraced as a popular ideology yet
They already met Jacob and his followers. It did seem like it.

>the cat and mouse irony shouldn't be used as an example of being a pervert
It would be the same if was a fox and a bunny or if Wally was an owl.

>Flask asserts it is
She is crazy. She asserts a bunch of nonsense during the whole trip. It's supposed to be funny in a dark way.

>>10012751
>You haven't been here for long, huh? This is pretty much a given.
Nope, quite a while. I'd suspected humans were more attractive in-universe (I think I even saw it come up in conversation midway through last year), and I'm aware that the anthros often have body image issues, but it just struck me that humans being more attractive and regarded as a universal exception in pairings could be why only the mouse and cat focus duo get commented on as weird twice, including once by otherwise friendly people.

Something else that came to mind: Babies are vouchsafed by Aaron to be random, but we also know that the anthros have little understanding of their own variant biology. I wonder - what kind of urban myths about sex and procreation have taken hold in Endtown? Do some people, for instance, think that the baby, though random, is slightly more likely to be of the mother's species than the fathers? Do they think horoscopes have any influence? Blood types? Parental personality combos?

Randomness is fertile ground for faulty pattern-recognition giving rise to superstitious notions.

Heck, I'd love to know what sort of urban mythology Endtown has on the whole. It's been eight years, there ought to be something...

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>>10012853
>to this day legends persist of a small, lightning-fast mouselike figure seen darting across rooftops under cover of darkness...

>>10012751
I'll give you that with Jacob and his followers; it's been months and I can't remember every specific detail with pure clarity. But I do find it interesting you say this all as if you know what it to be total fact despite us just sitting here postulating our takeaway from the comic and not saying with certainty that's what it is but what we interpreted it to be from information presented. How do you know with total certainty that the predator prey angle comment is a joke and not specifically a perverse thing in Endtown if there's only one example of it where someone actually comments on it? The only example aside Wally and Holly that comes to mind is Walt and Portia though we haven't seen anyone actually react to their relationship itself since they isolated themselves from the storyline once it was forged.

I also even pointed out that Flask might be totally prejudiced anyway because of her background so I'm not sure what you're arguing here.

Personally I just find the idea interesting that there is social taboos in Endtown like fucking a prey if you're a predator and speculating on that because as this guy said: >>10012853 we have VERY LITTLE information on the urban life of Endtown as well as beliefs or social taboos aside the now defunct humanity-preserving mentality and anti animal product thing,

>>10013043
Not that guy, but for preds and prey at least, it is definitely possible to interpret the dialogue as some kind of taboo thing going on. I remember one of Holly's friends even remarks that she's "playing with fire" (albeit with a smile on her face), and you'll recall how real Wally's fears about engaging in some species-play with Holly were. I guess there'd be a latent fear there in general, first- and third-party, about one partner in a pred/prey pairing setting off the other partner's instincts. And not without reason - look at Cliff!

I'd really like to know, personally, if the predator scare thing that was mentioned by Dottie at the start of this arc (if it *is* still a thing) was the result of the escalation of notions like these or if it's come from somewhere else. I could even imagine that Wally and Holly, as the arguable heroes of the rocket mission and a pair for two years, perhaps became the face of predator-prey relationships in Endtown, and changed people's perspectives. Holly, at least, was mentioned in-comic as an Endtown notable. Maybe their disappearance opened old wounds? Maybe there were even nasty rumours?

In a meta sense, though, I think Aaron might have decided to keep the focus narrowed down to pigs and wolves shortly after the start of the arc because someone told him that Zootopia had done the whole "general predator/prey anthro discrimination" thing just recently. Or it might just have been rearranged to be something that's going to be built on top of the current conflict rather than being the basis for it.

>>10013043
Jeezis, calm down a little.

Not a single couple has been the same species in the entire comic, not even in the background or crowds. You got this idea that Aaron meant to have same species couples from two jokes that have more to do about a particular pairing than anything else. And you think it's complemented by a "cat family" from a single panel that supposedly contradicts everything that came before and after it, nevermind that there is little reason to believe it was a family. You know what I think? That you're overthinking things. It's fine that you find these ideas interesting but don't let that distract you from how things really are. Most importantly, don't let it become an obsession.

>>10013309
No, that was me who was speculating about the cat family, not the guy you're responding to, and even then I admit I'm speculating.

It's all in fun, you know?

>>10013270
>because someone told him that Zootopia had done the whole "general predator/prey anthro discrimination" thing just recently
Me thinks that's it. I hope he doesn't drop the thing about "dimensions" just because of the Rick & Morty comments.

>>10013270
>Holly, established as being well liked by the community, disappears the same day Wally, a literal who from the wastes, does
I don't believe they'll touch on it because of Marx's happy theater time basically showing what happened to them to a gaggle of children as well as Doc. Unless people naturally distrust Marx and toss his story as bullshit (I mean, I would) then the takeaway is a predator vanishes from Endtown and Holly Hollister is missing. Shouldn't Holly have missing posters set up by friends in that case?

I wonder if going Topside is a method for suicidal Endtowners to end it. Between the Topsiders and Eatbeasts, or hell even Mallard's special guns, you could easily kill yourself and not be a bother to anyone else in the community.

>>10013451
Just going outside puts the colony in danger of being discovered. It's best to kill yourself inside if you're gonna do it.

>>10013572
That's why you get on a foraging team! Unless of course foraging has been totally discontinued since the Rocket Arc due to the Topsiders satellite, but it isn't like there's any proof it has or hasn't.

>>10013451
I don't think they'll ever touch on it simply because I suspect Aaron has more or less washed his hands of Holly's section of the plot. I think the most we might get is a resurgence of Doc's anger at Marx if Doc does turn out to be involved in the pig-nappings somehow.

I do remember one of the most recent things Aaron said, though is something along the lines of the children paying more attention to Marx's stories than the adults. Either way, the story probably came quite a while after the disappearance, in which case there would have been a long period where it was likely a mystery - I doubt the rats wanted to publicly admit to anything regarding the fooling of two guards and a busted elevator, for one thing. You would have expected her friends to wonder what the hell happened to her - personally I'd imagine there might even have been a flurry of news stories regarding the search for Holly Hollister.

It'd be interesting if nasty rumours about a bad end to Endtown's premier predator-prey relationship had been the seed for the current tensions, even if disproved later (because once these things start, often mere corrections won't stop them...)

As for going topside, I think you probably need a permit, and it's a brutal way to die anyway. Perhaps more of a thing for people with deathwishes? They can always sign on for forager duty, and with that sort of occupation if you don't die then you're at least doing something (thought to be) useful...

>>10013572
We've also seen exile mentioned, IIRC, so if you screw up too badly, badly enough that popping the elevator and letting you go is seen to be less dangerous than keeping you in town, you get shoved out into the Waste...

>>10013593
It certainly feels like half the point of Allie's rant way back when was that the pickings had gotten so slim that there was little point continuing, and this was supposed to be impetus to get the hydroponics going, but I feel like that may have been retconned now.

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>>10014574

>>10015086

Okay see this bothers me.

So when Allie was around, the police force worked normally and was competent...

...and then all of a sudden during Milk Trial they stopped?

Retcon?

>>10015110
We never saw the cops do anything besides walk the streets though.

>>10015110
>...and then all of a sudden during Milk Trial they stopped? Retcon?
MARX. Why does everyone forget Marx?

>>10015229
I actively try to forget him.

>>10015229

Why should I remember "Deus Ex Machina" plot device.

You can basically explain everything in Endtown with him

HELL. That's so far the explanation - Endtown, shelters, Milk Trial, Dittos, all fucking Marx.

>>10019835
It's been a while since the last update.

>>10020085
Looking forward to it? I am. It was just starting to get real interesting.

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>>10020200
Not him but I finally got around to reading about a month ago and it was great. I'm totally looking forward to when it gets off hiatus.

>>10021122
Woah, what a honey bunny. Upcoming character?

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>>10021336
That's what it says on his twitter.

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>>10021122
>>10021516
I'm wondering if it's a grown up Sammy...

>>9988432
I haven't seen this one before.

>>10021565
Sammy didn't have the spots on her ears, though that could be makeup or maybe something that happened as she grew.

It'd be interesting if it was revealed that Jasper had lost track of time during his search and that Sammy had been leading her own adult life for years, now.

>>10021767
If she wasn't wearing make up we could tell if she has the spot on her eye.

>>10021829
That, too, could be makeup. Ladies of that era used to make fake beauty spots with black taffeta.

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>>10020200
I'm just waiting for Maude to come in and save everybody's ass. Or more likely, get captured as well.

>>10023022
Well, she may have lost that gun she had in the encounter with the other vultures, but she's still got more options open to her than Jasper and Luellen. She seemed to be pretty quick-thinking back there, and it showed that "playing possum" isn't something that has to happen every time she's scared (I was worrying that was going to be a handicap for her), but we'll have to see, I guess.

So I only really got into this webcomic recently and basically binge-read to the point where Holly leaves and I'm kinda surprised how many of the characters there's so much fanart for are kinda killed off pretty fast. Is this a normal feeling for a newfriend?