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.

Whither the Weird West?

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Clint

Those of you who’ve incorporated this blog into their weekly reads might recall that I believe heartily that the Weird West represents a fertile ground for all manner of fiction. Those that haven’t can probably hazard a guess that a guy writing something called Zombie Ranch would have such a belief.

As a swift recap for those just joining us, Wikipedia defines a Weird West offering as “a combination of the Western with another literary genre, usually horror, occult, or fantasy”. In the past I’ve talked up what I considered to be some high-quality examples, such as the Role-Playing Game Deadlands, or the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption, or there’s the television series of “The Wild, Wild West” or the Jonah Hex comics.

But then again, there’s the movies. If you enjoyed the cinematic versions of “The Wild, Wild West” and/or “Jonah Hex”, I’m not going to sit here and argue that, no, you didn’t… that’s your prerogative. Too many people end up wasting their breath on such back-and-forths. What I will say is that I personally found them by and large to be formulaic products of Hollywood that didn’t really pay too much attention to what they were adapting beyond the surface trappings. You can argue that they weren’t exactly adapting Shakespeare… I can argue that “Shaun of the Dead” wasn’t paying tribute to Shakespeare either, but still managed to be a smart and soulful film… something that felt like a labor of love instead of a means to a paycheck.

The saddest thing for me though is that I feel the same emptiness in the “Transformers” movies, but the Transformers movies continue to break box office records while film after film attempting to tell a Weird West story fails to connect with mainstream audiences, even with big budgets and big stars backing them up. As a caveat, I have yet to go see “Cowboys and Aliens”, so I won’t speak as to its quality… but regardless it’s barely made half its budget back since it opened. It’s such a dismal performance that Disney just outright pulled the plug on its planned “Lone Ranger” movie, which was all set to have the Lone Ranger and Tonto fighting werewolves. After reading that article I’m not so sure I liked what they were planning (far as I know Weird West never really figured into the Lone Ranger mythos), but it’s a moot point now: if Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde couldn’t get your butts in the seats, I suppose they figured Johnny Depp can’t, either.

And this after Depp and Gore Verbinski already rescued the pirate genre from the depths of obscurity and made it cool (and profitable) again. Disney isn’t banking on a second helping of lightning in the bottle. If there’s a film out there waiting to be made that can cause cowboys to be hot stuff again, much less the Weird West, “Lone Ranger” won’t be it.

I mean, I can’t honestly say there was any time period that the Weird West was ever super popular, not in the way pure Westerns were all but a dynasty for several decades, first in books, then radio, then film and TV.  We get brief flare-ups from time to time (the “True Grit” remake being the most recent), but the Western is still by and large considered Hollywood’s past, not its present or future. Throw aliens, robots, or (ahem) zombies on top of that and you’re going to have a rough time pitching it, especially since none of the films mashing them up have so far enjoyed either critical or commercial success.

Is the Weird West just too weird for the great majority of the ticket buying public to wrap their heads around? I know people will ask me at conventions what Zombie Ranch is about and I still have never quite mastered the art of rattling off a quick answer to the question, or at least a quick answer I don’t feel is leaving major elements out. Zombie Ranch is probably weird even for the Weird West, and then beyond that I see a really simple idea like “Cowboys fight Aliens” fail despite all the money and pedigree it boasted.

So I suppose it’s a niche within a niche (within a niche?), and that’s not enough for today’s filmgoing public. The good news is, despite repeated failures at the movie box office, the Weird West doesn’t show any signs of dying out as a concept, and I’d still like to think that’s because, hey, it’s a good concept with a lot of potential still to be mined. We have our books and we have our comics and video games, and every so often someone tries a TV show or film, and sooner or later I have faith that lightning will suffuse that bottle on the big screen like a prairie thunderstorm. “Pirates of the Caribbean”, after all, only came after decades of failures at reviving the genre (“Cutthroat Island”, anyone?).

For the moment, though, I’m happy with the niche.