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 art of the whiplash

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Clint

A couple of weeks ago I talked up the praises of inserting the occasional stoicism in your absurdity, and vice-versa. I brought up the TV trope phenomenon of Mood Whiplash, where the tone shifts abruptly, and how when done right it enhances emotion and storytelling. One famous example of this is arguably the biggest scream moment in the movie Jaws, where Brody is crankily shoveling chum into the ocean, mumbling a disgruntled laugh line just before the giant shark surges out of the water, clearly showing us (and him) its titular pearly whites for the first time. It’s a shocking moment and any laughter chokes immediately into stunned horror. And then it’s right back to a laugh line, but a much more somber one, clearly one delivered because Brody’s mind just can’t think of any goddamn thing else to say as he backs up slowly to the false safety of the wheelhouse: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Another prime example that has stuck with me comes from the pages of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing. Moore retooled the origin story into something existentially horrific: up until those moments, the Swamp Thing was a mutated Alec Holland, a human being still under all that plant matter. Then Moore flipped the script, using the analysis of a cold-hearted scientist discussing the once-held belief that living flatworms seemed to absorb the knowledge and memories of a dead one that they ate (heck that’s been the premise of some zombie stories, too).

The reveal of all this is that the Swamp Thing was not, indeed, ever Alec Holland, but a product of mystical/mutant plant matter that fed upon Alec Holland’s murdered remains and regenerated itself based on a memory, a lie that it had lived as a man. The swamp thing does not take this well and has brutally murdered the scientist by the end of the issue.

Where’s the whiplash? The barbecue.

In truth I can’t remember if it was the same issue or the next, but ST suffers what can only be classed as either a dream or a psychotic break, if plants-that-think-like-men can be said to be capable of such. What he sees is a backyard grill manned by human-sized flatworms, one of which is wearing a chef’s hat and a “KISS THE COOK”-style apron as he looks at ST and enthusiastically shouts, “Eats! Come getcha eats!”

It’s a height of absurdity, something that made me laugh out loud at the time, and a brilliant example of wielding that whiplash to great effect because it’s happening smack in the middle of all that aforementioned existential and physical horror. Much like Martin Brody couldn’t wrap his mind around the size of the shark and the realization of what deep shit the three men on the Orca were in, the Swamp Thing’s consciousness is trying to process a concept of absolute madness, and so resorts to absolute madness to visualize such.

And here we are with Zombie Ranch, where this current run of the “cartoon dramatization” is perhaps my most ambitious attempt yet to intermix absurdity with what is in actually a deeply disturbing, defining, and tragic moment of the past. Time to see if I can get that whipcrack to work, or if I just end up hitting myself in the eye.