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.

Hobby or job?

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Clint

There’s a constant, looming spectre that lurks just over the shoulders of everyone involved in creating webcomics. Were I hosting a social mixer where it needed a nametag, I suppose I’d call it “professionalism”. Sooner or later, it creeps into the thoughts and stress levels of everyone who decides to try their hand at the art beyond just a momentary fling, and even the most successful are not immune to its insidious whispers.

If you don’t believe me on that last bit, I submit this Oatmeal comic as damning evidence. Love The Oatmeal or hate it, as web ventures go it’s a pretty successful thing. $500,000 in revenue this year alone. Matthew Inman is one of those few webcomic creators who does not need a day job.

And yet, as noted in the comic, Inman sometimes doesn’t update his site more than once or twice a month. He is on the one hand riddled with guilt by this, but on the other thinks that forcing himself to update more frequently would be a bad idea.

“I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have anything to say, you shouldn’t be talking. And if you don’t have anything to write about, don’t write.”

Does this make him unprofessional? Well, this is the spectre we all deal with, the idea that if we’re not working X number of hours a week, or producing X amount of content for consumption, we’re not being serious. We have no right to call ourselves professional. What we’re doing is dabbling, and while that’s cute and all, at the end of the day it’s just a glorified hobby at best.

The fact that even Matthew Inman still experiences this guilt despite his financial success, and that he still gets “Oh, you’re a web cartoonist…” comments at parties, speaks volumes about how it’s good to have some perspective on this. Who, exactly, is judging you? Who is setting the standards? Isn’t part of the whole glory of this modern webcomics free-for-all the idea that you are beholden, ultimately, to no one except yourself?

And yet that spectre looms. Is this business of creating comics a job, or a hobby? What determines the dividing lines? Level of enjoyment? Income tax categories? Page views (hah)? Invites to comic conventions?

Is it even worth stressing over? Inman is holding to the kind of schedule (or lack thereof) which according to most webcomic success models should be a recipe for failure, but it not only succeeds, it’s succeeding at a pace he’s comfortable with. According to wikipedia he typically spends about eight hours over the course of a few days getting a new comic together, which would be pretty enviable hours for a job. Of course, knowing what I do, I guarantee you that’s just the observable “work” of drawing and arranging, which doesn’t take into account all the stuff involved in collecting notes or even sorting out the contents of one’s own head into coherent communication with an audience.

We (and most other web creators) aren’t making nearly the money Inman does, but that to me seems like even more of an argument for proceeding at our own pace, and “professionalism” be damned. That’s not the same thing as saying we don’t care about our readers, but Dawn and I have this strange compulsion to find enjoyment in what we’re doing, and worrying too much about whether we’re working hard enough is a fantastic way to destroy that. Just a few months ago I had to force myself to step back from the brink and relax after becoming nearly obsessive about our self-imposed deadlines, to the point where even posting a few minutes after midnight on Wednesday felt like utter failure. A lot of you don’t even come to check on the comic until  Thursday or later, so that’s kind of insane once I took some time to think it over. No one really cared about those few minutes except me and that spectre hovering over my shoulder. Well, and that one other guy… but he’s gone now since we refused to go five days a week for his benefit.

I do these blogs once a week because I feel that’s about the length of time I need to come up with something interesting to write about. We do the comic once a week because we feel that’s about the length of time we need to keep doing the story justice, and keep it rolling along without fear of our creative juices drying up like a Mojave waterin’ hole. I remember attending the Eisner Awards ceremony at San Diego Comic-Con in 2011, and although it was a largely sleep-inducing affair, I have this odd recollection of more than one person being introduced as “The Hardest Working Man in Comics”. In any case, the title’s already taken, right? Might as well aim a little lower.

If that makes us nothing more than hobbyists in some eyes,  so be it. I have made my peace with that. Zombie Ranch may never be something well known in the webcomics community, much less beyond it. I have made my peace with that as well.

In this way, I remain polite, and I remain positive, and we continue to provide the contents of our heads to a small but enthusiastic section of the public, which I suppose wouldn’t be too far off to call returning customers.

And isn’t that, in the end, what professionalism is all about?