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.

Dodgy drafts…

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Clint

A question I get asked a lot, even from other webcomickers (perhaps especially from other webcomickers), is how Zombie Ranch goes from thoughts in my brain to a finished page for consumption. Mmm… brains… consumption… wait, where were we?

Well, first off, I’m only a portion of the process. According to our latest poll, the overwhelming majority of you who cared to see ‘behind the scenes’ are interested in everything, but I will let Dawn talk of her end of things when and if she chooses to. Actually, if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to click on over to some of the videos that were done last year, where you can see her drawing and coloring. In one of them you can hear me yammering on as well, should the sound of my voice be a curiosity of yours.

https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/extras/dawn-tv/

https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/extras/podcast/

So that’s a taste of her side of the equation. On my side, there’s mainly the script. Yes, Zombie Ranch does indeed have a script, and it can get pretty complicated at times as I try to communicate what I want to the woman sitting five feet away from me. That’s not as easy as you might imagine, which believe you me has given me new respect for the writer/artist teams who aren’t even working in the same state (or even country!).

But I’m guessing one of the first questions any aspiring comics writer asks is, “What’s the format for this?” If they also happen to be the artist, the answer is most likely “Not much”, since they have the most minimal communication barrier possible. For the rest of us, we grasp about asking people and looking at various sample scripts, and eventually come to the perhaps disquieting realization that there’s no universal format. I mean, if you’re working for a certain publisher such as Marvel, I would guess they have a “house style” for scripts in the same fashion they do for artists… but I swear to you, I’ve seen a lot of samples from professional comics writers whose scripts have marked differences in presentation. Sometimes they look no different from screenplays, including all the dialog being centered and instructions like EXT. STREET – DAY. Sometimes they marshal the power of the computer age to include reference screenshots for the panels and characters. There are so many different ways that successful, critically acclaimed comics writers have brought their ideas forth, how can you possibly choose?

Well, keep in mind that I haven’t been doing this for very long, but I went through that period where I was fretting about how to write the script, which as you might imagine can really get in the way of actually getting a script written. So anytime anyone asks me the question of how I set up my script, I will gladly share what I came up with. As far as self-publishing such as webcomics goes, I think the question of comic scripting boils down to two rules:

1: Is this format comfortable for you?

2: Are you communicating effectively with your creative partner(s)?

It’s really as simple as that, in my opinion. My scripting style uses a lot of discrete elements to try to make it as easy as possible for Dawn to pick out the details she needs to. Often the dialog for a certain page starts with the horribly last century method of just writing lines in a notebook, so that I’m not thinking of too many things at once. Then in the next pass, I move things electronic, but I still use nothing fancier than plain old Microsoft Word for my drafts.

Speaking of drafts, if you click the image below you can see a scan of one of the printed out pages when I was revising my first draft of Zombie Ranch several months ago, complete with my horrible handwriting as I pondered changes and expansions.

Zombie Ranch Script Draft

Not especially pretty, as you can see, but the basic script format I still use is present in this example. I was in the process of expanding the original, very condensed 12 pages into something not quite as hurried, which explains why the printer stamped this as ’16’ and why the bolded “PAGE” entry at the top doesn’t have a number following it. This is about as rough as it gets without me subjecting you to my mad, cramped notebook scribblings.

If you compare this page to the final product visible in story pages 16-19, you’ll see how differently things can turn out. I’m often revising, sometimes until the last minute, based on feedback from Dawn or just my own sensibilities as I try to find the precise “rhythm” for that week’s installment. Obviously some elements are easier to revise than others… once Dawn has a panel inked, there’s no going back, but the word balloons are all added electronically, making them comparatively easy to alter or reposition.

But anyhow, there it is. I have several pre-programmed Styles in MS Word that are a click away as I write. “COMIC PAGE NUMBER” is big and bold, “Comic Book Panel” is underlined, “Comic Book Visuals“, italicized, and “COMIC BOOK BODY” (for the dialog) is all caps.

This honestly isn’t even the best example for scripting since it doesn’t include later improvements I made such as numbering every dialog element, or including the title for posting the page along with the page number. Actually, that sounds like a good topic for next week! Stay tuned!

P.S. Big thanks to Michael Hamersky, who read and reviewed the full print version of Zombie Ranch #1 this week on his blog. If you’re interested to see what he thought, click here: ComicBookCollectorsBlog.Com