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 Department of Redundancy Department…

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Clint

My name is Clint Wolf, and as I writer I have sinned.

Maybe.

It’s about this and last week’s comics, where Suzie is going over all the little bits and pieces of information that got lost in the shuffle, in much the same way the detective in the climax of a mystery novel might go back over the crime with all the suspects gathered. Conclusion: trouble. Huachuca-sized trouble.

By itself I would completely excuse the scene as necessary, not only for the characters involved but for the readers who have been watching this all play out over several years of real time and can’t reasonably be expected to keep everything in memory. Even the aforementioned mystery novels find it a quite helpful trope to summarize the events and evidence that have collected throughout a book which a fast reader might devour in a single evening.

No, the questionable element is that in this very episode we already went over some reminders of this information in the form of Frank’s talk with Lacey and Suzie’s later confrontation with them. In our “live” schedule these conversations played out over a month ago so might still justify a refresher, but once people are doing archive guides or reading a print issue, will it seem like a weird, redundant waste of space? Yes, some members of the crew didn’t have the whole story, but since the audience did, would it have been better to just cut to Suzie saying, “…and that’s what we know so far.”?

I chose here to go with the redundancy because of one thing that comics have over something of pure print prose, and that’s the imagery that accompanies the words. We can mix and match subtext beneath the text, showing different character reactions to the news and each other. Different connections can be drawn, and reminders can be shown beyond just the raw data. For instance in this week’s installment it’s no accident that Chuck (destroyer of tractors), Frank (withholder of firearms) and Rosa (who spied the staked doll long before Suzie) are all featured as the bits of the tale relating to their particular decisions are told.

Perhaps it’s a bad example since the series has long since recycled the bit to the point I stopped caring (or watching), but those first few times in Supernatural when Sam or Dean had a secret from the other that we knew and they didn’t, there was a wonderful tension to be experienced both in their conversations and their eventual confessions. They weren’t saying anything in those confessions that we didn’t already know, and sometimes we’d watched them already made those exact confessions to someone else, but there was still a fresh story being born out of that particular iteration.

It might be that in the course of time I will look back and decide I’ve sinned after all — but for now, I will remain stalwart in my belief that Suzie’s briefing is not nearly so redundant as the surface might seem.