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.

X-citing times…

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Clint

If you haven’t noticed, yours truly is a big comic book nerd, and has been for many, many years. Decades, even. In fact, if my occasionally not-so-great memory serves, this traces back to circa 1980 when a very young Clint stumbled across his older sister’s small collection of Uncanny X-Men, a small collection which just happened to cover most of the Dark Phoenix saga.

Fast forward to these rather incredible times when comic book stories have hit the mainstream, but that particular saga, still considered one of the best stories ever told in comics, has yet to be successfully translated to the big screen. Oh, I’ve had hopes. Back in the early oughts Dawn and I got extremely excited at the closing moments of X-2 when the Phoenix symbol showed up on the waters of the burst dam where we last saw Jean Grey sacrificing herself so everyone else could get to safety. It wasn’t precisely the tale told in the comics but the main points were there, and third film could start the ball rolling.

Well, now of course we know that ball rolled right off the cliff with the utter misfire that was X-Men: Last Stand. Fox really squandered all that potential, to the point where they ditched everything and started over. YMMV on whether the various attempts since then were good, but in the meantime a new production company called Marvel Studios emerged in 2008 and started a relentless march of introducing, developing and merging the stories of various superheroes into an entertainment juggernaut, despite not having the rights to Juggernaut or any other X-Men or X-Men adjacent characters.

It’s all a complicated story, but when Marvel Comics fell on hard times in the late 1990s they ended up selling off the movie rights to a lot of their more well-known characters like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and yes, the X-Men. Marvel Studios had to make do with the leftovers, and despite what some revisionists might claim Iron Man prior to 2008 was no A-lister. Where Sony and Fox seem to stumble about looking for the proper way to showcase their own Marvel characters on the big screen in a consistently well-received manner, Kevin Feige was a steady hand on Marvel Studios’ tiller that led to success after success both with mainstream audiences and nerds such as myself. They just seemed to get what it was about the comics characters that made them last in the first place, and even if some of the details were changed the heart and soul was there. (Source: me legit tearing up during the first Captain America movie the moment I could tell they were getting him right.)

Anyhow, why am I blathering on about this? Well, for one thing, Marvel Studios has achieved quite a feat in terms of chaining their movies into long-form storytelling on a scale unprecedented in cinema, if not unprecedented in comics. They took their lessons from the comics and it paid off, and at this point I basically look forwards to anything they announce. I can’t say that about the films put out by Fox. I enjoyed Logan, for example, but for me all signs right now are pointing to them flubbing a second attempt at the Dark Phoenix saga. It’s just too rushed to have the proper weight.

And that’s a shame, but I feel X-citement as I write this blog on Tuesday night, because in less than half an hour it will be 9:02 PM PST, otherwise known as the moment the Disney/Fox merger finally clinches and the X-Men officially “come home” to Marvel Studios. Dark Phoenix will most likely still be released, and Feige tends to have things planned out years in advance enough that I wouldn’t expect any X-movies in the immediate future, but hey, just the thought of a decent Fantastic Four at long last has my antennae perked. Or at least a proper introduction to Doctor Doom, which I feel needs the kind of patience and build-up that Marvel Studios has proven very, very good at.

And hell, audiences were just fine with the MCU version of Spider-Man swinging his way onto their screens only a handful of years after Sony made their last solo attempt. Maybe sometime in the next decade, an MCU Jean Grey will be introduced, and built upon, and finally the epic saga of my youth will play out to my satisfaction.