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.

Strange Love

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Clint

kyle-lambert-stranger-things-posterI am a child of the 1980s. I remember rotary phones, cassette tapes, televisions with “rabbit ear” antennae (and no remotes), and the freedom of a good bike to roam the neighborhood. I remember also a time when movie studios kept pumping out awesome flicks starring kids much like me, insisting that little boys might very well befriend an alien from beyond the stars, or build a spaceship in their backyard, or find a lost secret pirate cave beneath their sleepy little town, dodging everything from gangsters to the U.S. government along the way.

With that in mind, the new Netflix original series Stranger Things hits me right between the eyeballs. It’s a love letter to the early ’80s of my boyhood, both real and imagined. It also owes a substantial part of its DNA to the works of Stephen King, except that King was writing in the ’80s about being a kid in the ’50s, while Stranger Things jumps that forwards to cross-pollinate with Carpenter, Spielberg, Cronenberg, Joe Dante, and the other luminaries of the pop culture Reagan era.

It works surprisingly well, and not just on a nostalgia level — although there is certainly a half-cringing joy in seeing those green and yellow striped athletic socks and tousled haircuts again, or my completely shameless joy at hearing X-Men #134 namechecked or seeing the blue cover of the D&D Expert Set that lo, I once did own. No, Stranger Things works because it goes beyond merely aping the aesthetics of early 1980s America and its films, it captures the ineffable spirit and charm of them as well. Stranger Things remembers that there was an era where child actors were not just tolerated in a cast but were the leads, and we loved those films because of them, not in spite of them. At the time I’m sure it helped that I was just about the same age as the protagonists of E.T. or The Goonies, but the kids of Stranger Things are relatable little cusses that you can’t help cheering for, able and willing to display a wide range of emotion to satisfying effect. The teenage and adult cast are no slouches either, and allow a full gamut of era-specific tropes and imagery to be run through as their seemingly separate stories all weave into one at the end.

Simply put — if you like ’80s things, you’ll like Stranger Things. And even if you don’t or you’re ambivalent, I’d still tell you to give it a try, because it has good performances and a good, slow-cookin’, creepy story, the kind I’d expect the regular readers of Zombie Ranch to appreciate.

Hell, the Duffer Brothers who created the series were born in 1984, one year after the setting of their fictional tale, but you wouldn’t know it. You don’t have to be personally nostalgic to appreciate what the show offers. It just helps.