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.

Spring cleaning

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Clint

A couple of years ago I made a blog post about the practice of creators going back and “renovating” their webcomic, basically fixing up their early work with a new coat of polish matching their later efforts, and the pros and cons of doing so. It remains a controversial subject, and man, sometimes it’s really tempting to revisit our earlier chapters, but our biggest worry is that dwelling on the past to that degree will impact our present and future.

Now that we’ve got our Kickstarter underway it’s even more tempting. If someone comes to look at our work, will they be turned off from pledging money towards the print volume because the first pages have a rougher look, particularly in the lettering? Possibly. People familiar with webcomics would probably understand, others might not. But trying to fix that is a bigger undertaking that it might seem.

So, insane man that I am, I announced my intention to at least rework some lettering for the print volume if we’re successfully funded. The art will still stay mostly the same because Dawn’s going to have all sorts of fulfillment to have to deal with, but now that everything will be collected together in one discrete package I want to give the reader a better sense of consistency.

Lettering can be an important part of comics storytelling, as I’ve also previously discussed, so this isn’t something to be done lightly,  but on those occasions where I’m looking to change more than just the font involved, I’m hoping to change things for the better. For instance, it was only comparatively recently that I learned how to do a nice looking curved stem for word balloons, and because of that there are a lot of panels where the stems are “elbowed” at sharp angles. I want to preserve those angles for any electronic dialogue like the cambots or walkie-talkies, but as I go through this touch-up process I’m trying to make it so people are always speaking with the more organic feel of the curved stems.

There are also cases where, because of need to meet deadlines or whatever, the flow of the dialogue isn’t as optimal as it could be, so I’m having a look at those pages as well. It’s a time consuming process, so in a fit of optimism since the project is over 80% funded now, I’ve actually already started. Ideally I want to be done by May 10th or shortly thereafter so there’s no extra time wasted in moving on to the printing/rewards stage.

It may seem masochistic, but honestly I’m finding it an oddly soothing and rewarding exercise. I think it’ll be a nice feature for the TPB. Will we replace the online pages with those new versions as well? That I’m not so sure about. They stand as one version of Zombie Ranch, our previous print issues another, and the trade volume will be a third. Can’t tell how far you’ve come if you lose sight of where you’ve been, right?

We’ll see if that still makes as much sense to me then as it does now.