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.

Nostalgia… in the FUTURE!

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Clint

So here’s a thing that happens sometimes in fiction. You have a character who’s a young teenager, but a writer who’s in, say, their thirties. If said writer isn’t careful (or perhaps just flat out doesn’t care), you can end up with a 13 year old girl talking and acting like someone much closer to that writer’s age. Alternately they could end up as the author’s vague memory of what being a teenager was like, or perhaps a crankily rendered stereotype of “those damn kids” that the author is certain they were never, EVER like in THEIR youth, uttering all manner of unintelligible slang when they don’t just have their noses buried in their Twitters or Instaspams or whatnot.

I may have mentioned this before, but I went to Junior High School (not sure foreign equivalents here but think around ages 12-16) in the Valley. Not just any valley; the San Fernando Valley. THE Valley that brought the phrase “Valley Girl” to the world, with all of its attendant “ohmuhGAWDS” and “totally tubular to the max”‘s and “gag me with a spoon!”s. Except… I don’t really remember any of my peers at that time actually talking like that, except when they wanted to make fun of the TV shows and such that insisted we did. The male equivalent was the surfer dude a la Jeff Spicoli, and to go by the media of the day, all us damn kids at Walter Reed Junior High should have sounded like that. We didn’t. Well, not all of us. All stereotypes do have their elements of truth, after all.

Is this a terrible thing? Perhaps not. I doubt I should be casting too many stones when I’ve made a conscious decision to have most of my characters talkin’ like twangy cowpokes (y’all), even though many modern day Texans don’t sound too different from, say, Californians, barring certain pronunciations of words and names for things. What can be more jarring to me is a 13 year old in 2014 who suddenly starts ranting about how the Star Wars prequels are so inferior to the original trilogy. Or rattles off a multi-page statement on the dichotomy of Church and State in America. Or instantly recognizes and starts gushing over a Snake Plissken figurine.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for a 13 year old to be capable of any or all of these things, but as they are things my 40 year old self is totally capable of I feel a certain alarm and closer examination might be in order before they go live in the mouth of a character who could be being reduced to little more than a mini-me sock puppet.

It’s a challenging thing, perhaps, to put yourself in the shoes of a generation different than your own. You can find far more webcomics characters nostalgic for Super Nintendo and Gargoyles than you can find ones nostalgic for the Apple II and Johnny Carson. Even more challenging, though, is to put yourself in the kicks of the younger generation (it is “kicks”, right? Damn kids). What are the things that they’ll be pining for 20 years from now? And looking back at my own youth, I have to admit, my fondness for the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival comes straight from my dad… so it’s not *just* the new stuff that kids might end up carrying through to adulthood.

According to his bio that I myself wrote, Uncle Chuck scavenges “pre-plague memorabilia”. Well, what’s that mean? License plates and coca-cola signs, the kind of vintage stuff you might see on a show like American Pickers? That’s the memorabilia of *this* day and age. There’s no reason he can’t since he very well might have watched that show as a kid, just like he watched Deadliest Catch. Obviously I have at least one nod to the 1980s in his love for ZZ Top (a band which itself cultivates an even more retro image with its classic cars, etc.). ZZ Top is still touring to this day, but maybe might be considered “old people” music? Still, like I said, I’m all into CCR and they broke up before I was born. I think the ZZ Top vibe is one Chuck would similarly appreciate, especially since they’re Texas boys.

You know who else is Texan? Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob Squarepants. So yeah, her presence amongst Chuck’s acquisitions is my speculative nod to future nostalgia, the kind even a zombie apocalypse won’t be able to fully extinguish. Or considering how much would have been lost, maybe it would just make it all the more keen.