UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

9 thoughts on “558 – Cotton Clad Calamity”

  1. Raznaak

    Yup, he’s a bastard XD

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Are those pajamas available in XXXL in the gift shop?

  3. Otaku

    It’s been a while, so let me ask: Did we get a reason for him to WANT Susie dead? Not to backseat, but if we didn’t, I’m worried were about to move into “Stupid Evil” territory. Now, stupid happens, don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad storytelling for that to be the case here.

    You’ve just done a good job NOT having that be a driving factor, so the “Kill off the stars of my successful reality TV show.” seems shortsighted, otherwise. Oh, I guess I could be mistaken about the in-story reality TV show’s success. Like, if the company behind them is losing money, or they think a change in management at the ranch would make the whole thing more popular/profitable, then I can see the above scenario happening as well.

    I REALLY think I’m just forgetting something important, but that I don’t have time to deep dive to remind me of, hence the comment. >_<

    1. Deoxy

      It certainly has been stretched out over quite a while, but there have definitely been hints from quite near the beginning that whoever is running the reality TV show definitely wants her dead.

      But I certainly don’t recall any reason why.

      1. Clint

        Yeah it’s fair to not remember since it’s been a hot minute (many, many minutes) but if you feel like a refresher the most relevant bits would be the beginning of Episode 8 and the end of Episode 15. We haven’t explicitly spelled out exactly what The Exec means by his “side hustle” or who was on the other end of that phone call, though.

        I’m hoping that when the whole thing is eventually available it will make sense, or at least enough sense to have hung this narrative on.

        1. Otaku

          Thanks for the replies, Deoxy and Clint. Yeah, I’d totally forgotten about those things. Good to know!

  4. Evervigilant

    Seems about time for the two people who aren’t there to make a surprise entrance as the ace Susie didn’t even know she had.

  5. Scarsdale

    There’s still 3-5 people on her side that might be planning something. This guy is a megalomaniac with a god complex, so letting him think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed sets him up for a fall. Everything depends on those cameras, and I suspect their little stop over by the charging coffins had something to do with her actual plan, not the one the a-hole thinks it is.

  6. lyra

    Really enjoyed the opening of Zombie Ranch. I like the combination of the western setting with the zombie concept, it gives the story a really distinctive atmosphere. I’m a freelance illustrator and animator, and I’d be interested in seeing how some of these scenes could translate into motion, especially as a short animated teaser or character scene.

    If you’re ever interested in something like that, you can reach me here:

    IG: eve_verse_
    Email: [contact.lilaclines@gmail.com](mailto:contact.lilaclines@gmail.com)
    Discord: Lyralilac_

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558 – Cotton Clad Calamity
Posted on August 26, 2026 by Dawn

What would you call this? Armchair assassination? Merk-from-home?

Well, Suzie ain't dead (or undead) quite yet, so we'll just have to see if his gloating is justifiable.

The Stealthiest of Puns

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Clint

Ever run across the Stealth Pun entry on TV Tropes? It’s mostly something where writers get to feel clever by inserting jokes into their work that they don’t explicitly call attention to, often in the form of sleazy puns or references. One example listed on the page is from the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series where the character Oz–who is a werewolf–habitually wears a sheepskin jacket. Making him a… well, you get the idea…

Well it wasn’t too long ago that I realized I’d crafted a pun so stealthy even I didn’t realize it until it was more or less too late. For many years we’d been intending to introduce a traveling doctor and their bodyguard, with the bodyguard role eventually fleshing out into a Native American, and the name of that Native American kept coming to me as “Whitecloud.” There were times I would go out and research looking for alternatives but nothing just seemed to fit quite as well, and so the name persisted and persisted until finally, the character was introduced. But she wasn’t introduced by name right away. We decided to leave the readers in a bit of suspense as we brought Issue 17 to a close with the newcomer raining down tear gas to drive off a Huachuca charge.

Somewhere in our in-between issues break as I was looking at Dawn’s art for that sequence for the dozenth time or so, a realization hit me so suddenly that I let out an audible groan. The mysterious Whitecloud’s first appearance in the comic had featured her unleashing…

…a white cloud.

I had without any conscious intent stealth punned myself.

Honestly though, with her name still unrevealed at that point I could have changed it, so the fact that I did not do that probably says even more than anything my subconscious may have done.

Well played, me.