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 land of the blind…

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Clint

An old saying goes, “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” I may have brought it up before. It keeps echoing back in my head any time I attend a panel on writing or comics, or these days am on such a panel. Or heck, even when someone comes by our table at a convention and asks for advice.

Now I’m not sure that I feel like a king any more now than I did several years ago, but I’ve begun to consider that the realm of fiction is, was, and continues to be one big land of the blind where even the experts would be lucky to have a single functioning eye. Ask thirty writers what makes good writing and more often than not you’ll get thirty different answers… sometimes very close, sometimes wildly different, but none of them 100% the same. Ask the same thirty writers ten years later what makes good writing, and they may not even have the same answers their younger selves gave. I don’t even have to be speculative there, Alan Moore published a guide in 1985 that not a decade later he was considering the worst sort of uninformed tripe. That’ll make you question whether their vision is any better now than it was then, right?

Is commercial success the way to tell who should be dictating good from bad? Only if you consider Fifty Shades of Grey the best novel ever published in the English language, and E.L. James the pinnacle of the writing craft. Personally, I like to believe there’s more to it than that.

What about critical acclaim? Well, ask thirty critics whether a given writer is “good” and chances are at least one of them may be completely ambivalent, if not actively hostile. There’s just no security in fiction, no infinitely repeatable formula the way a chemist can be certain combing two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen gets you a water molecule. There are just artists groping their way forwards the best they can, hopefully connecting with an audience groping back the other way, and if someone gropes something sensitive you just have to pray that will be an ultimately rewarding experience.

Does all this mean I see no point in giving or receiving advice on writing? No. Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be part of panels or writing these blogs. It’s a conundrum that seems as contradictory as the advice sometimes is, and like I said I do keep musing on the land of the blind and whether the only partially blind make for good leaders or are just stumbling themselves and their followers towards the pits of related Biblical proverb.

I think what I keep coming back to is another old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” I like finding out about, and passing on, certain observations of form and function regarding the art. Here’s what this guy does. Here’s what this girl does. Here’s what I do. Check out all these tools and inspirations. Come on down to the stream of my thoughts, and drink as deeply as you want. Or, having had a look at what I showed you, trot away to find something more palatable to your thirst.

I can’t guarantee, after all, that the water is pure and good — maybe I might just have a higher tolerance for dysentery than you do.