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There are certain limitations that come with the conceit of Zombie Ranch as a “show within a show” style of narrative, but there are benefits as well. One of the greatest of these is that I have the option, at almost any time I so choose, to digress from the current action into a side commentary in the form of the “A Moment With…” segments, where an out-of-sequence interview occurs with a character.
The modern “mockumentary” style Zombie Ranch at times resembles–you know it if you’ve watched The Office or Parks & Rec–has almost constant asides like this as part of their storytelling, but in my opinion that sort of frequency doesn’t translate well to comics. A few seconds set aside for Jim Halpert to deadpan stare into the camera and tell the audience what he’s done to Dwight’s stapler takes up a lot more real estate in our format and is potentially far more disruptive. So even though the tool is at my disposal, I’ve used it very sparingly.
This latest one with Oscar? It was time to talk about his lemon tree. You know, the lemon tree?
Okay it’s been in my notes for years and the closest we got to it was him kicking back with a glass of lemonade on the Siege House balcony. But when Oscar alluded to how he tries to keep Frank alive it seemed a natural time to finally bring up his other long-running project, and so… A Moment is born.