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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.

The author is dead, long live the author.

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Clint

So there’s a new review of the comic out, courtesy of the fine ladies over at Girls Like Comics. I thought the reviewer had some interesting things to say, particularly the notion that Zombie Ranch could be thought of as one of the ultimate takes on the over-saturation of the zombie genre: the idea of the zombie being commercialized, mass-marketed, and ultimately tamed.

There’s no question in my mind that back in 2009 when I started putting this story together, I was only willing and able to do so because I felt this particular take might have something new to say in the midst of what even then was arguably a crowded market. I had no intent of capitalizing on the trend, because trends are damned fickle things, not to mention they can be a double-edged sword (Alan Kistler  outright stated back in 2011 that he refused to look at any review submissions he got that had anything to do with zombies, regardless of other factors). Anyhow, whether the “zombie bubble” collapsed in a few days or a few years, I still figured we had something unique that could outlast it. That was important to me.

But although I certainly haven’t shied away from a certain amount of social commentary in my writing, and I certainly had the notion that zombies were potentially being done to (un)death, I never actually had the intent of thematically equating the taming and processing of our zombie herds (for profit!) with the glut of zombies in popular culture.

Does that make the reviewer wrong? Nope. Actually, it’s kind of a cool interpretation, and it didn’t stop her from recognizing some of the more intentional dramatic and satirical themes I’ve put in. It wasn’t that long ago that I brought up the concept of Death of the Author, where the creator’s intent is not the end-all be-all of a work. It’s a particularly interesting phenomenon in the context of serially produced webcomics, where a fan often is able to just up and ask the creator(s) what they meant a certain scene to convey or even give their own theories on why things are happening or what a character’s motivations are. I’m quite guilty of responding to more than one instance of this with a Word of God in the interest of limiting confusion, and sometimes I wonder if that’s a good habit or a terrible one.  Maybe I should be content to leave more things up to interpretation rather than speaking out with a voice of (potentially stifling) authority.

After all, sometimes the alternate interpretations can be pretty interesting stuff.