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.

Struggling with your letters

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Clint

As you might be aware if you’ve ever checked out our creators page, Zombie Ranch is pretty damn close to what would be termed a “mom and pop” operation. If our computers have trouble, I’m the IT guy who fixes them (and does our backups). If our websites have issues, Dawn is there combing over the code to see what happened. I take care of all our permits and licenses and taxes, while she figures out our booth setups and transportation. She’s the sole artist for the comic, while I’m both writer and editor.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the lettering.

I have a feeling that for most people producing their first comic or webcomic, the lettering is a low-priority thing, if not almost an afterthought. I see a lot of first efforts out there that will just have blocks of text with no balloons, sometimes with a thin line indicating who might be speaking, and sometimes not. There are comics out there, particularly in the case of editorial cartooning, which thrive in that format, but mostly I think it’s less of an artistic decision than one of either not thinking on it much or just plain not knowing any better.

We weren’t much different when we started. I actually just delegated the lettering to Dawn along with everything else, and she did her best, but it took a long time before we even decided on a consistent font, and it was longer than that before I finally started taking on the burden of getting all those words and sound effects properly presented on the page. I like to think this was less a matter of laziness on my part as lack of confidence in being able to “do it right”, or at least to do it efficiently… but in the latter case we’re right back to that situation of the lettering being that afterthought, that red-headed stepchild you have to deal with once all your prettier and more important kids get attention.

I’ve come to the realization over the years of producing this comic that treating lettering as a throwaway aspect is not a great way to go. It’s sort of like the soundtrack to a movie in that for the most part, if you’re doing it right, people won’t even consciously notice it’s there unless there’s certain moments you want them to… but try to think for a moment how Star Wars would have been as an experience without the music of John Williams?

Not a perfect analogy, and (as with many things I often preach here… I know…) we’re still not consistent at living up to the ideal. But thinking from a writing perspective, what better way to get your words onto the comics page in the way you imagined than to figure out this whole lettering business and start taking care of it yourself? In fact I noticed this actually seemed to be a trend in creator-owned comics with a writer-artist team, such as the critically acclaimed Chew: Rob Guillory does all the artwork, but John Layman does the lettering in addition to the scripts.

I’m not to Layman’s level yet (I’m sure there’s a joke to be made about “layman’s work”, just as I’m sure he’s probably heard it)… but I’ve definitely tried to step up, taking the work off Dawn’s hands and hopefully retaining if not expanding upon the quality.

And if you haven’t noticed except where we want you to? Well, I’ll take that as the best compliment.