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.

Putting Adobe on Blast…

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Clint

Hoo boy… I’ll admit I haven’t been keeping up on the comics industry as well as I could have these past several months, but that didn’t stop my social media feed from lighting up with a great deal of gnashing of teeth from several fellow travelers. The culprit? An early presentation by Adobe of a new product to be included with their upcoming AdobeMAX suite, called ComicBlast.

Okay, so basically I bookmarked this in my head since it was about a week ago and of course everything happens the day after I write this blog. Now that Dawn and I have watched what was making everyone so upset, I’m… well, I can see it. The framing is clearly “this will be great for professionals!” rather than something meant for beginners and/or children as Adobe CEO Eric Snowden (no relation to Edward)  later tweeted in an attempt at damage control.

I’m going to include some videos and y’all can judge for yourselves if you want, though it’s telling that both the “jaded pro” video and the “interested beginner” video both have questions on what exactly ComicBlast is supposed to provide for them. There are neat features but even with the idea of being able to edit and resize things afterwards, there’s a certain point where you’d be editing and rearranging so much you might as well have just started from scratch.

Also yeah, I didn’t notice the first time since the video was going (probably intentionally fast) but why does she have the algorithm-generated balloons and captions and then she imports her art which… contains hand-drawn balloons and captions in the same positions? Another bizarre thing to include was the demonstration of the lineart function which makes a serious boo boo in panel 1 by shading things such that a character who was standing in front of the giant man is now standing behind him (check frames 1:58 and 2:03 in the presentation video). An artist trying to use the feature would have to redraw that arm and leg.

But, yeah, you can handwave all of this as alpha development stuff. I think what really got folks in a tizzy was what one commenter brings up: Adobe consults professional photographers for Photoshop, etc., but what comics professional was consulted on this? It’s like the company didn’t take it seriously, and oh boy if there’s one thing comics industry professionals love, it’s to not be taken seriously.*

(*sarcasm alert)

There are certain things Dawn and I can think of that we would love to see in a helper program, and maybe there’s still time for ComicBlast to implement those. Or maybe as the last video says, Adobe will quietly take it behind the woodshed and it will never happen. We shall see.

Original presentation:

Professional response:

Beginner response:

Aftermath response: