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_

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*


 

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.

Aftershadowing…

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Clint

So I have a confession regarding this week’s comic. I’ve had the idea of it in my head a long time because hey, there are these tacky things called “truck nuts” (spelling can vary depending on who’s trying to trademark them) which are basically oversized novelty plastic testicles you hang off your truck’s rear hitch so anyone behind you on the road gets a face full of big ol’ balls bouncing around. So of course I wrote that Chuck had scavenged a pair and he’d have them proudly hanging off of the ranch’s wagon.

Problem being that in all our recent showings of the wagon, I hadn’t been paying attention to that particular bit of continuity and so no nuts were present. This wasn’t a matter of awkwardness, believe it or not, even though you might think so with the idea of turning to your wife/artist and hollering across the room that she forgot to draw the balls on the truck. We’re well past that point of the relationship. No, it was just me forgetting, flat out. It was just a background detail anyhow, not something we’d called attention to.

But no worries! I could still reference them and just have it be that they fell off or got shot off or met some other such vague fate at some vague point between their first appearance and now. The continuity of that appearance would thus be preserved and I could even make a new joke out of it. I’m a genius.

Out of curiosity though I decided just a couple days ago to peruse our archives for the first appearance of the truck nuts, and discovered something…

…they’d never been shown. Ever. Maybe they were in a draft of a script that never made it on the page, or maybe I’ve just had it in my head all these years. Wouldn’t that be nuts (har har)?

But welp, Dawn had already been drawing and as before noted it was not a particularly crucial plot point. So I’ve violated the principles of foreshadowing. I have no Chekhov’s Ballsack to point back to, only the informed speech of characters that yes, at one point they were there but are now gone. Obviously this was not the work of the Huachucas since it has been so since the truck wagon first appeared in Episode Four, but hey, Oscar and Chuck don’t know that. Could have just as well been Suzie surreptitiously performing some vehicular emasculation prior to the cameras getting a chance to broadcast it.

These are the webs I weave, sometimes out of cleverness and sometimes out of mild desperation. And sometimes, that’s a fine, fine line…