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.

OMG Spoilers!

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Clint

So this week’s comic revealed that yes, Mrs. McCarty and her posse are responsible for the current smoky state of the Z Ranch. It’s entirely possible that this surprised no one.

But you know, that’s okay. I find there’s entirely too much emphasis these days on twist endings and endings in general, where the destination eclipses all thought of enjoying the ride to get there. There are a lot of people out there who have come to a point where, if someone reveals the ending of a book/movie/etc., they feel as if their whole experience is irrevocably ruined. In extreme cases they now refuse to read/watch/listen, because why bother? They know how it turns out.

I’ve never been able to understand it. Is there really nothing to be said for the journey? Have our narratives become that fragile, that the moment Point B becomes clear, we lose all motivation to reach it?

Keep in mind that for thousands of years, the exact opposite was the case. If you’ve ever been to a production of Ancient Greek or Shakespearean drama, they employ Prologues as a matter of course, such as the famous one that begins Romeo & Juliet:

Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage—
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

If the language is giving you trouble, let me just put it this way: Romeo & Juliet commit suicide, and that tragedy will finally convince their two warring families to make peace. The play is telling you that straight up at the very beginning; yet if you posted a summary like this for a modern movie, to a modern internet forum, you’d be raked over the coals for ruining the plot. Shakespeare and Sophocles weren’t afraid of telling you “Dumbledore dies”, they used it as a hook to keep your interest as they brought you on the journey. Like the Columbo mysteries where the culprit and crime was always revealed at the beginning, making them not so much “whodunit?” as “howdhecatchem?”

I had someone get legitimately mad at me for “spoiling” the end of the movie 300 for them, which for me makes as much sense as someone claiming you spoiled Titanic because you tell them the ship sinks. But I’m sure someone has done just that. This obsessive need to avoid spoilers at all costs has gotten way out of hand, and feeds back into creators who feel a need to throw in more and more ludicrous twists to keep their audience guessing. An infamous example comes from the DC Universe crossover event Armageddon 2001, where the identity of the mystery villain was leaked before the end, and rather than soldier on with the carefully constructed foreshadowing of the series so far, DC decided to chuck everything and insert a nonsensical last minute change to preserve the “surprise”.

And that was back in 1991, before the Internet existed in its current form. Nowadays entire messageboards exist to comb over the latest clues in an ongoing series in near instantaneous fashion. If you have enough fans, then guess what? Some of them are going to pick up on the trail of breadcrumbs, and it’s only human at that point to want to show the path to others. Should you derail your narrative because they’ve figured out where it’s headed?

I say no. I say, focus on the journey and let the destination stand. For one thing, there will always be things some consider blindingly obvious that others will completely miss. Never assume that “Everyone could see this coming” is any kind of true statement… usually it just means those who didn’t either remain quiet out of fear of being thought stupid, or aren’t really paying attention to forums and comments anyhow. For another thing, if the journey is good enough, then it shouldn’t matter, and those who figured it out ahead of time are going to just feel gratified rather than disappointed. Or maybe they’ll be disappointed… you can’t control every last opinion. But it’s better than chucking everything, isn’t it?

But let’s all take a breath and calm down about the spoilers. Yes, we love to be surprised and taken in unexpected directions, but that shouldn’t be the only thing, or fiction eventually just dissolves into a senseless mass of WHAM! moments. They’re great, but as a writer don’t make them the end-all-be-all or you’ll end up with an unsustainable case of Shyamalan Syndrome. And as an audience member, take the fact you know the truth about Keyser Soze or Malcolm Crowe before you watch those movies as a liberation rather than a disaster. It’s a lot less stressful on both sides.

Plus, even if you knew it was the McCarty gang, maybe you didn’t figure out it was their own bulldozer on fire…