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.

Order and chaos in creation

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Clint

The creative process can be a funky beast. I remember reading one of Alfred Hitchcock’s storyboards for North by Northwest where he detailed the famous cropduster chase scene right down to weird little things like Cary Grant’s leg flying awkwardly upwards just so on one of his dives for cover (as you’ll see in the 89th panel shown in this presentation).

Creators like Hitchock and Stanley Kubrick were well-known for being nearly tyrannical in their attention to detail and insistence on the finished product matching the vision in their minds. You might argue their films were finished before they even started. Was there any room for improvisation? For changing circumstances? In Kubrick’s case there had to be, since there was no way in hell he could keep a lid on someone like Peter Sellers,  and in point of fact it seems he didn’t even try. The rest of the production might have been tightly controlled, but whatever Sellers said or did while the cameras rolled tended to make its way retroactively into the script, as if there were spots there marked with the cinematic equivalent of “This Space Intentionally Left Blank”.

It’s funny because Kubrick’s far from what I might think of as an adherent of “seat-of-your-pants” storytelling, but clearly he had some tolerance and even encouragement for it under the proper circumstances. Hitchcock I’m less familiar with, but film productions are such complicated things that surely he must have had to bend at times? (cue cameo appearance where he steps out and gravely informs me not to call him Shirley).

I find it impressive when someone has that level of drive and vision, birthing worlds and stories whole cloth right down to the smallest minutiae. Conversely, there are several classic films and classic moments in films out there that were more immediate and organic in their development, and yet no less enjoyable as an end result. Rutger Hauer’s final monologue in Blade Runner. The ‘shoot the swordsman‘ scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Pretty much the entirety of Casablanca.

Somewhere in this tug of order versus chaos lies all art that ever was created and all that ever will be created, but at each point of the spectrum there are examples of greatness. The creative process may be a funky beast, but it takes all comers, and that’s a fairer shake than most things in this existence of ours.