
No End is a webcomic that follows a group of people struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. They not only have to deal with a perpetual winter and hordes of the undead, there's also the day-to-day worries about friendship, betrayal, and even romance. Their ultimate goal is to outrun the military and to find 'Haven', a place rumoured to be free from the oppressive military, the oppressive cold, and the undead, even if none of them are sure that it even exists.
No End can be read here
. It also has a Tumblr
account run by the creators themselves.
Tropes included in this work:
- Action Girl: Jenn carries a Desert Eagle with her everywhere, and her military background means she's an excellent spotter. She also prefers skirts and wears stylish boots to trek around the wilderness.
- After the End: According to
Word of God, it's been eighty years since the apocalypse. - Alien Blood: Zombies don't decompose or heal, but produce a sort of black ichor from wounds after their original blood is exhausted. One scientist's notes lampshade how their biology — or lack thereof — makes no sense.
- Beardness Protection Program: When Wight needs to sneak past the military to escape Hades Station, he exchanges his respirator mask for a bushy fake beard
and wig from a theatre costume. It does the job — and delays The Reveal of his face. - Body Horror: The zombies themselves are bloodlessly gruesome, and their kills are often horribly mutilated. As a partially turned zombie, Wight has no skin or lips around his mouth. This is why he's rarely seen without his mask.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Eighteen-year-old Maverick is so deliberately rude and provocative that his own mother admits that he can be a nuisance. However, he's dependable and looks after his friends — much as he insults Wight, he then helps Wight escape danger at serious personal risk.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Cotton is a cheerful Team Dad but has a bad habit of ignoring his own feelings to focus on the group. When he develops a romantic interest, it takes a long time, a lot of coaxing, some mortal danger, and a very deliberate sit-down to make him admit it.
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: Wight's health issues rule out sex, due to being physically dead and carrying the zombie virus, but Modra reassures him that it's not a problem for their relationship.
- Cast Full of Gay: All of the main cast are some flavor of LGBT+, with several who are bi or pan.
- Crush Blush: Modra with Wight, Benny with Jerry, and Jerry (again) with Cotton, among others.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Jenn is never cold as in mean, but she's very distant and closed off at times. However it's clear that she cares for Wight and Cotton, and she does open up to Modra and Benny with time.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": It's not a sensitive topic, but Cotton goes by his nickname instead of his birth name Tristan because he doesn't like the literary allusion.Cotton: It was my mom's favorite, but I don't know why you'd torture a kid by giving him a name of some guy who dies at the end.
- Endearingly Dorky: Modra is kind, sensitive, easily flustered, and a Non-Action Guy in the Zombie Apocalypse. His personality quickly convinces Cotton, Jenn, and Wight to accept him as a companion despite their suspicions, and he ends up dating Wight.Cotton: Damn, boy, how are you still alive? Do the undead feel bad for you or something?
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Modra's blue mohawk is a luxury that he can't maintain after he leaves his (relatively) comfortable home enclave for the life of an itinerant adventurer. He eventually gives up and asks Jenn for a haircut after the sides grow out.
- Facial Markings: Facial tattoos are a fashion trend in Zeus, the most prosperous and well-supplied zone, but extremely rare elsewhere. Modra has a triple chevron tattoo
on his forehead as a Zeus expat; later on, Abby's teardrops are a giveaway
that they once lived there. - Food Interrogation: When the villainous Colonel Remington interrogates Benny, he offers
either a nice steak dinner if he cooperates — quite the treat for a fugitive in a Zombie Apocalypse — or a steak knife through the hand if he doesn't. Remington steps on the plate when it's clear Benny won't play nice. - Friendly Zombie: This is possible with some infected, but virtually unknown of thanks to the "shoot people the second they are bitten" policy. The few that have been encountered hence have every interest in keeping their state hidden.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Benny is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold overall, but tends to lash out with verbal abuse in response to any worry or confrontation. Deconstructed as it apparently got worse since the death of his father and can be a serious problem in his personal life — one bad outburst in Chapter 1 even drives Modra away for a short time.
- I Owe You My Life: Abby is revealed to be a military captain after the main characters — who are wanted for desertion and murder — rescue them and help them get home. However, they keep the team's secret
out of gratitude. - Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Benny starts out as being quite cold and angry, but he quickly shows a warmer and friendlier side when he's not under such extremes stress. He's ultimately a nice guy, just one who's prone to lashing out when he's worried.
- Matchmaker Failure: Cotton encourages Benny to act on his long-term crush on Jerry — forcing Jerry to admit that he already knew and isn't interested, reveal that he is interested in Cotton, and ultimately leave the group until people's hurt feelings settle. Worse, Cotton had genuinely hoped the perpetually dour Benny could find some happiness, but was terrible at judging the situation.
- Metaphorically True: Wight explains
that he always wears a respirator mask because of a "chronic respiratory infection". Which isn't false — he's a lucid zombie whose lips got bitten off, so his respiratory tract is as infected as the rest of him — but later on, he admits it was a deception. - OOC Is Serious Business: Jenn is a no-nonsense veteran who'll shoot someone dead without hesitation, yet a chance encounter with the quasi-mythical Red Twins leaves her too frightened to act and makes her break down afterwards.
- Perpetual-Motion Monster: Zombies have no physical needs; the flesh they consume only rots in their stomachs. This is a help to the rare Friendly Zombie Wight, since it's no problem for him to keep watch overnight — but his Secret Secret-Keeper says it was a bit of a giveaway that he never shows up for mealtimes and doesn't bother to breathe when he's alone.
- Pummeling the Corpse: When Abby finally gets to turn the tables on the man who had tormented them for years, they put one bullet cleanly through his brain, then empty the magazine
into his corpse with a Cluster F-Bomb before breaking down in tears. - "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Benny's jealousy towards Jerry and Cotton causes Jerry to leave in the middle of a trip, Jenn gives him a massive dressing down. He takes it to heart and works to make amends with them.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: In Chapter 13, Jerry admits that he noticed Wight is a zombie but kept quiet because Wight is friendly and it wasn't his business. After weeks together in close quarters, it was a bit of a giveaway that Wight is never seen eating and doesn't always breathe.
- Speech Impediment: Wight has a mild stammer when he's talking a lot. He does mention that he's not used to talking at such length and it's later revealed that it's his mask that makes him sound strange. However he also sounds strange without the mask; given that he has no lips due to being partially infected, he can't naturally make certain sounds.Wight: Was it hard to, to disappoint someone so that you could have what you wanted?
Wight: Jenn's more like a, a mother, actually, she's been taking care of me for as long as I can remember. - Sick Episode: Cotton is down with a fever when he and Benny arrive to Fen Mills, and it's pretty much up to Benny and Abby to devise an escape plan.
- 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: Colonel Remington, known to the group as Crow, somehow survived a bullet to the head, even though it was fired from a yard away. He's not too happy about it and seems to want revenge.
- Torso with a View: Jenn shoots one of The Dreaded Red Twins through the gut, leaving a hole big enough to fit an arm through. Being both undead and utterly deranged, this doesn't slow him down or even bother him; he cheerfully shows it off
in a later meeting when he spares her life. - Zombie Infectee: Infectees in this series have an even shorter lifespan than in other series: the military immediately kills anyone who's been bitten to break the chain of infection. A few lucky people survive the infection if they aren't killed before turning. Wight is one of these, as are Ratan and Tora, bounty hunter twins. This type of infected don't seem to be obligate cannibals, but Ratan and Tora eat people anyway.
