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.

Delaying the action

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Clint

I recall a review of Zombie Ranch from a couple years back that was not exactly glowing. The reviewer seemed to have two main complaints, one being that there was no opening narration to explain the setting, and the other being that the comic “doesn’t go anywhere”. Despite this he declared it “okay”, but then gave a 1 star out of 5 rating, which left me wondering what scale he used for things he found actually terrible.

Now in the interests of fairness, what he was reviewing was our print copy of Issue #1, which corresponds to Episode One online (pages 1-23). There was more story on the website by that point, but I can’t fault him for giving his opinion on the comic as a standalone product. I just found it a great irony since that first episode is the one I’d always considered to be the most self-contained as a story, and by the end of it much more had happened than people just standing around talking.

I bring this up because I’m sitting here thinking about how, if he felt Episode One was slow and pointless, this current Episode would probably drive him to madness. For all I know he wouldn’t have even been satisfied with the chaos and running about of Episode Six or Seven, but then this just reminds me that I don’t want to be writing based on the desires and tastes of others, at least not without a hefty paycheck involved.

But yeah, Episode Eight is I guess a bit of a breather for me (and for you? I can’t make that judgment). Not filler, mind you–I’ve never intentionally written a story page that just takes up space–but compared to the previous stuff it possibly comes off a little slow. Will the eventual print issue suffer for that?

I do write with the print issues in mind, but I also write for the overall story and each individual weekly installment. Sometimes balancing all of those needs is tricky, to say the least, and a lot of my decisions often come down to pure gut instinct that a certain moment or direction just feels right. At the moment it feels right to ease up on the gas pedal, so to speak, while we change lanes from one arc to the next.

I could have made a big dramatic deal over Suzie crossing the bridge… maybe… she slips! Cue lots of gasping from the onlookers as she struggles to pull up before the zombies get her!

I could have… but it felt artificial. The bridge crossing becomes yet another instance in the lives of the Z Ranch personnel where the risky and fantastic is so mundane to them they don’t even think twice about it. It is my intent, after all, to show this as a procedure they’ve gone through before. It remains, after all, a whole theme of the comic to contrast an occupation most would consider insane with the workaday attitudes of the men and women making their living doing it. It takes a lot to make these people lose their cool, which arguably makes it all the more exciting when they finally do.

In fact there was a fair amount of feedback in the latter parts of the last arc where Readers Like You expressed just that sentiment, that Zombie Ranch for them was a satisfying progression of a slow burn of development leading to an exciting payoff in the end. That “end” culminated in Episode Seven with Muriel’s demise, and yet since this is a serial, that end was also a continuation… and from another perspective could even be seen as a new beginning. In that respect I consider Episode Eight to be where I answer some lingering questions, raise some new ones, and am busily striking the flint that’s going to light a new fuse.

So although it might lack the zombie stampedes and punching and shooting of its immediate predecessor, I still feel like there’s plenty going on. There are probably people who disagree, but those are also probably the people who never gave the first arc a chance, either. For the rest of you, well, I’ve already managed it once. I hope you’re content to come along and see how this second go ’round shapes up.