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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.

Guessing games…

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Clint

There’s a tab on several of the more popular TV  Tropes pages with the initials “WMG”, which stands for “Wild Mass Guessing“. If you’ve ever debated with your friends over something like whether Cobb is awake or asleep at the end of Inception, you’ve experienced this phenomenon. It can be a lot of fun to look back at something you’ve enjoyed and consider its bits and pieces, especially if there might be a follow-up in the works. I think we all have a little bit of detective in us where we’d love to put together the clues we’ve been given and see our theories come to fruition on the screen (or page, wherever).

Is it sometimes a recipe for disappointment? Sure, especially if you get your heart set on things turning out a certain way and the creators take matters in a different direction. X ended up engaged to Y instead of Z?! Sacrilege! Nonsense! Meanwhile the creators can end up bitter at the backlash of their fandom—who are you to tell me how things should go? Who’s running this story, anyhow?

It seems like any popular work of fiction will run into this problem sooner or later, but webcomics can be particularly vulnerable what with their ongoing nature and the ease of access to the creator(s). At least to start with… it seems like many of the biggest ones today started off with an open comments section… then at some point started moderating the comments… then killed comments altogether, perhaps continuing to respond on a forum… and then eventually they stop really interacting on the forum, either, and the conversation becomes mostly that of moderators and fans talking into the wilderness, wondering if anyone hears. At that point it’s basically become indistinguishable from the traditional mass media set-up, right? Except maybe the people that were there from the beginning feel personally shunned now in a way they wouldn’t if there had always been a clear divide.

I wonder sometimes if everything that gets popular is doomed to this same progression, a progression that seems to start out of simple, innocent speculations that are made with no more motive than pure love and enjoyment. And on the creators’ side, don’t we want to have people excited about what we’re doing? Don’t we, to put it plainly, want to get people to care? To get them talking?

I know I do. I love hearing your reactions and your guesses on where things are going. With the amount of cliffhangers I put in week to week (especially lately), what else should I expect? I love hearing someone “call out to the screen” and tell Chuck to spray his antagonist in the face—knowing that yes, that’s exactly what they’ll see a week from now (predictable but satisfying), but will they have also guessed that an angry billy goat subsequently butts the man off the roof (surprising, but hopefully no less satisfying)?

Maybe this is another reason I’m reluctant to push too hard for recognition. Yeah, there’s the occasional comic which engenders no comments at all, but I’d just as soon have a small handful of neat responses than a page full of “FIRST!”. It’s at the level I can still personalize things… not to say I respond to every single comment, but if you stick around I tend to end up knowing names. It’s sort of like Cheers in that way. Please get the Cheers reference so I don’t feel terribly old.

Just something that’s flitted across my mental radar from time to time. Don’t get me wrong, of course I’d love to get to the point where more people than not have heard about Zombie Ranch when I bring it up, at least in comic/webcomic circles, but I hope that won’t ever have to go hand in hand with feeling overwhelmed by wild masses, guessing or not.

P.S. speaking of word getting out about the Ranch, Sunday-Superheroes.com has a review of us up this week. Check it out!