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.

Timey-wimey

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Clint

Several of my good friends are pretty obsessed with the TV series Doctor Who, from whence comes the partial quote titling this blog where the titular Doctor tries to explain how time and determinism work.

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually — from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint — it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly… timey-wimey… stuff.”

If that sounds like nonsense to you, well, yeah. In fact my quick summation of the premise behind Doctor Who is that “it’s about a master of time and space who is always rushing to get somewhere.”

I’ll let that sink in a moment.

My second summation of Doctor Who is that it’s one of the most successful framing devices ever created, which is why I feel it’s lasted and entertained generations of people in one form or another for more than half a century. Aside from a few constants, a writer for Doctor Who can dream up basically any story, set in any time and place, with any characters they choose. Why does the Sonic Screwdriver work on this door but not that one? Why is there any dramatic urgency in getting back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. “in time” to travel to a spot ten years in the past? Please, people. You are just prisoners of your linear, subjective viewpoints. Sit back and enjoy the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ride.

In other words, seeking a sense of canon and continuity in Doctor Who is a good way to drive yourself mad, especially since the show itself cheerfully doesn’t give a damn. Writing for the show must be an exultant sense of freedom.

I’m honestly not sure I could handle that much freedom, in fact. But the fans of the show are so used to just accepting the idea that pretty much anything can happen at any time. Zombie Ranch, on the other hand, is a much more down to earth setting where (media interludes aside) the locales tend to be local and time progresses in linear fashion. The occasions I’ve gone “out of sync” with it have usually been through the device of a camera showing “recorded earlier” type footage. Today’s comic marks the culmination of me messing around with something a bit more risky, where I ended the last episode on the morning after the McCarty departure, then spent the pages of this episode so far rolling back and filling in the blanks of the night, until finally it’s come back around once again to Suzie spying the smoke. I didn’t really give any caption hints about all that until now, and it’s theoretically such a big departure from the usual progression that I risk confusing everyone. But theoretically, it’s also pretty fun to try something different.

I haven’t abandoned the idea of cause to effect — though presented out of order to the reader, things are still in order to the characters — but it was time to see how timey-wimey I could get.