Endtown by Aaron Neathery for April 15, 2016

Plus the the chlorine or chloramine will kill it anyway.

Okay, I’m speechless. See you all on Monday.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. She couldn’t get it into water in time. :-(THANK YOU Aaron for not making the ‘baby’ look anthro; I would have been in serious tears!

Yup. The reveal: right balance of pathos and creepyness

that’s odd, we’ve only seen either anthro or monsters after change but this flashback is showing animals (who can talk) as they would be in nature….maybe people developed partial immunities over time? like the female cat commander in early strips (i forget her name)

Captain Flask?

Well, Holly’s gone ‘round the bend and Lynn’s about to go over the edge. Serious bad stuff here. Figures. I finally get one right and it’s BAD. I always assumed there was some heavy stuff in Holly’s backstory, but DAMN! Hang on tight folks, it gets bumpy from here… ;-(

Holly is …. looking a bit out of it in panel one (pin point pupil) and sounding altogether too calm. Lyn is looking…on the verge of panic (maybe?) or wondering if he is next and what will he turn into? This whole scene is just so Aaron!

Poor Lyn and Holly. They’re trying to wrap their minds about what just happened. What had been on news stories or whispered about concerning people mutating into animals or as Holly experienced with her friend Ethel, has now become a horrible reality in their own lives!

Lyn slowly backs out of the room, triggers the remaining BuddiBombs, starts running and never looks back.Maybe this dittoMax theater play is Lyn’s way of apologizing to Holly for HIS behavior…

No, No! It’s resting. Look!

I can’t help thinking, she hasn’t seen herself in a mirror, yet.

apparently she can’t hear herself either….Wally had said to Jim earlier that he would get used to the shift in voice tone….I can imagine Holly’s sounds a little squeaky at this point. I’m not sure she realizes she has mutated …. Lyn looks ready to ‘scream’??? in that last panel….. Geez…I can’t wait for the book to come out so I can read this whole story again at once!! What a twisted imagination you have Aaron!! Don’t ever change!!!!

It’s resting… It’s pining for the fjords!

Lyn looks like he is about to freak out, but not sure how to take the child being a fish. Incredibly sad, or funny.

If this is strictly Holly’s story, it’s for all intents and purposes subjective. She with her fevered mind thinks she’s looking at a dead fish. Lyn, on the other hand, might be viewing something much more horrible. I’m curious to find out Lyn’s side of the story.

I got lucky and guessed right about the baby. Poor Holly! Poor Lyn! What a nightmare!

She knows it is her baby that is confirmed in P3, Lyn has no lines in today’s episode so we can only speculate based on his expression. I see a man who’s having a hard time accepting what he sees. Holly, meanwhile, his slipping inside herself, I fear for her sanity over the next few days.

Congratulations on a truly dystopian strip… but… where’s the umbilical cord? If the baby turned into a fish in utero and disconnected from the umbilical at that point, then presumably it died very shortly thereafter. Still horrifying to give birth to a fish/baby in that case, but at least she didn’t kill it trying to get it to the tub.

On the other hand if both her and the baby turned anthro at the same time, with her struggling to give birth and save the baby before it suffocated, I guess that might explain the tipping point for her sanity…

Seeing Holly as her anthro self in this strip, it’s kind of hard to tell what’s actual past reality as projected by the Dittos, and what’s “creative license” as evidenced by food that can be eaten and “Lyn” being aware of the other observers.

Lyn has come home to check on his sleeping wife—and found the bedroom splashed with blood. He followed the blood to the bathroom, where he found some kind of mouse creature that talks. It addressed him by name, then said that the dead fish floating in the bathtub is his child. Lyn has a lot to process. Holly may not yet know she’s mouse. I was almost correct about her drowning the child. though accidently. Either one or both of the Hollisters could just think they’re in a horrible nightmare.

It looks like Holly mutated and gave the birth in the bed.She knew fish need to be in water so by the time she got the tub filled it had died.This has been a rough ride.What happens next will be bad too, but it’s hard to imagine what could be worse that mutating, giving birth to a fish, having to fill the tub so it can live and being too late.I suspect that Lyn will either mutate into a monster and get killed by the Buddibombs, but it can’t happen in the house because the 6 remaining B-bombs would do to them, blow away the whole house and killing Holly too.So I hope Lyn runs away and either gets hit by them outside, or escapes them.But otherwise, not a clue. It was interesting to hear that Lyn might be seeing a different thing in the tub.

it seems weird, between the snake lady and the fish baby these don’t look like anthro mutations, they’re just full on animals.

just wondering if Holly is aware she has changed

Are they sure it’s theirs? Doesn’t look anything like either of them…

People giving birth to fish? Yes, that’s funny. Wait until you hear the one about the mouse giving birth to a fish!

Wow!

Wow…

I was going to let out a loud expletive here, but I usually censor “crap” as “carp”, so that would be greatly inappropriate.

They didn’t even get to choose a school.

That “fish” looks kinda furry to me. I think I’ll go with the “mutant fish breath air” theory, and say that Holly may have unintentionally drowned her baby.

Look at its eyes. It has Lyn’s eyes. It is an anthro mutation. Take it out of the water, slap its backside, and maybe try mouth to mouth.

I think this is Holly’s point of view. But her experiences are so horrible as to be repressed, and this is being shown to Wally, Kirbee, Chic, and Irving, who also may have anthro eyes, so they can help her work it through. And Lyn’s actions and seemingly reactions, are Holly’s memories and projections of what Lyn may have seen or felt. So Lyn’s glares at Wally may be Holly’s projections of Lyn seeing Wally as an interloper. Holly may be bound for the Underground Mutant Railroad very soon. Maybe she doesn’t know what happened to Lyn. Or maybe Lyn threw himself on the Buddibombs to save Holly. There are also more Buddibombs in the Neitherlands, in addition to Holly’s unused six.

I think Holly’s too much in shock to process that she is an anthro mutant. I mean the whole business with Ethel would be enough to drive most of us to drink but giving birth to a fish? I think Lyn is beginning to process it and his tears in the 4th panel are his reaction to what has happened to Holly and their child.

I suspect Lyn is actually Holly’s subconscious. She knows Holly’s life is being played out by the Dittos and is letting Wally know what parts are important and that she expects Wally to take care of Holly (her conscious half) now that he knows the awful truth of Holly’s past. Perhaps now he’ll understand why she was so upset over Clive, her baby substitute. Clive was as helpless and dependent as her unborn baby. Sadly, Clive, for all intents and purposes, is already dead. He’s only ‘alive’ when he’s plugged in. His life ended when the Topsiders murdered him and stole his brain.

Lyn will not be needing the leftover Buddibombs to explode. Just give him a few more seconds…

Man. Poor Holly.

OK…. Holly gave birth to fish, and perhaps she drowned them unknowingly that they needed air. This gives us a really good perspective on just how Holly got so messed up.

First, I’ve had fish that went into shock being transferred from a broken aquarium to emergency water, turned belly up, then recovered.

Two, just reread the Mayor’s fishing trip, and Syd the fish could breathe underwater and on the surface.

Hmmm… wonder if the child gets named Syd?

Freaky, especially if the kid looks up and says “Daddy!”

We need to remember that Holly has experienced several extremely stressful events. She was involved in a car crash, an encounter with a former neighbor (now a talking serpent who almost scared her to death), the death of her former neighbor and her neighbor’s husband (by the buddibombs she was carrying in her purse), and her consumption of vitamin V (aka Vodka). I may not be a doctor; but I am sure that these things had a major part to play with the child not surviving.

The Holly we were introduced to (in Endtown) is not the same Holly that lived in Hillside and was married to Lyn. Our Holly (Endtown) is a sweet, caring, selfless woman who tries to help others whenever she can. Holly has changed considerably from her life in Hillside.

Lets not forget that Holly was place on trial (unfairly) in Endtown and saw her community fall apart (just like she experienced in Hillside). She lost many friends during the recent events in Endtown. Holly may be carrying guilt about the death of her neighbor and her neighbor’s husband as well as the death of her child.

Lyn may be angry at all mutants; because he blames them for the loss of his wife and child. He may be looking at Wally as a way to blame all mutants for what has happened to him

Dragoncat may be right in more ways than one. Lyn is conscious, and he’s just been exposed..

Scenes from what could have been a happier time for the Hollisters. None of these pictures have been drawn by me but I do approve these images.

…said the mouse who just gave birth to it…

Those drawings are very nice. Thinking of what could have been. the kid-fish in the bottom drawing is especially cute! If only, but maybe it still could. Wishful thinking.

Any news from Three Steps Over Japan? I think the epicenter of those big quakes in Japan is around a hundred miles north of the city where he lives. He has posted after the 6.7 magnitude Thursday, but Saturday’s quake was a 7.0. Keep good thoughts in mind for him and his, and the people in that area, and now Ecuador.

It seemed she thought it had to have water right away.Or she had to drown it right away.Apparently I was right on both counts, though the drowning wasn’t intentional.Mutants may look like birds or fish or crustaceans or lizards, but they’re still humans. They still need air.

Yes,finally, this explains everything that has been going on with Holly.