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.

Silent Menace

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Clint

I struggled for some time with a strange question, something only writers of fiction ever have to consider: should I have the Huachucas talk?

So far in the course of the comic, they had been presented as a silent menace. Half-glimpsed nightmare figures, in their own way as frightening or more frightening than the zombies. That had been intentional. One of the original inspirations for them was the “Street Thunder” gang from John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, whose members remain eerily silent throughout their entire reign of terror on the police station and its surroundings. The name Huachuca is a loosely translated native American word for “place of thunder”, and just in case that wasn’t an obvious enough homage Suzie even noted that “Desert Thunder” was something else they were called.

There was also the thought of contrasting the very talkative antagonists we’ve presented so far in Muriel and “Mr. Clean” (as the fans have named our shadowy executive… and I kind of like that nickname since it not only applies to his bald exterior but his removed state from the dirty proceedings he oversees). But in the end, Dawn and I talked it over and decided that continuing the silence of the Huachucas and their Brujefe probably wasn’t as necessary or powerful a concept as we originally imagined.

For one thing, I think such a thing plays out with far more impact on film than it would in a comic. In comic panels, even when there are no words, our brains often fill in entire conversations occurring… a phenomenon we’ve actually made use of in the past. It’s what makes those comics that decide to have no word balloons or narration work and still tell effective stories to us as readers. We’ll even fill in all the necessary sound effects.

Given that, I’m not sure how many times we could have our Brujefe standing around smiling with her dolls before it ceased being eerie and people started making up pithy MST3k dialogue to fill the void. Perhaps it’s the wrong decision, but on the issue of silence, luckily there’s other examples out there of brutal outlaws who aren’t as silent but are certainly still menacing. You don’t get much more talky than Lord Humungus, for instance, but I don’t want to meet him in a dark alley, no matter how much some might have seen him as a reasonable man.

Keeping the Huachucas silent could have been an interesting gimmick, but I think in the end it would have been just that: a gimmick, rather than something that helped the story. In the minds of the average person I’m sure they remain figures of nightmare, but one of my most important credos with any villain is that they never see themselves as villains. The Huachucas may be brutal and capable of great cruelties, especially to those outside their circle, but they’re still human in the end. Communicating is something humans do.

I just have to remember, Hitler was human as well. He communicated quite a bit.

And with that invocation of Godwin’s law upon myself, I shall end here. The rest is silence.