(4/n in a series on comics and cartoons that I enjoy. If you’re tired of superhero movies that concentrate on amped-up violence with some tacked-on human-interest story, this series is for you.)
Endtown is a post-apocalyptic comic, but perhaps the strangest and most original apocalypse imaginable. Most of the Earth’s surface has been destroyed by advanced weapons, and humanity has been hit by a mutagenic virus. The few remaining un-mutated humans live in environment suits their entire lives… hunting down and killing mutated humans. The latter have taken refuge in underground shelter communities of which Endtown is one.
In these animal forms resides so much humanity, but they are transformed by their animality as well. No one knows why one person becomes a cow, another a koala, and another a wolf. And some individuals were changed into nightmare forms scarcely capable of description.
Endtown is exhibit ‘A’ that Hollywood needs to look to web comics for new ideas. It would take many books and movies as explanatory metaphors for this series. Like maybe the Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, Mad Max, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and To Kill A Mockingbird to name a few. Yet it feels like a natural tale from the storytelling mind of Aaron Neathery, with characters that invite empathy*.
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- *How do you know when you’re a Fan? When you start to care what happens to the characters of a story. (Also when you buy the author’s work or send them some $$ on Patreon)
- Of the three modern anthropomorphic comics I will review in this series, Endtown is the grimmest but by far the most creatively wide-ranging. I sometimes think that Endtown is 200 years before Doc Rat, which is another 200 years before Zootopia.
- Seriously, tinsel town, back a dump truck full of money up to Aaron Neathery’s driveway and see if you can’t work something out. (And if you screw it up, the topsiders are coming for you!)
georgewiman 