UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

5 thoughts on “Issue 22 Cover”

  1. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Ooohhh … He looks – desperate.

  2. Zombatar

    No hat. He lost his hat. Which had a lot of his personality. Alert! Alert! We have a Lost Hat emergency! This is Not a Drill! Alert! Alert!

  3. Scarsdale

    Hang in there, I’m a retired fireman, and those pictures/videos have me sweating… The closest thing to a forest fire I ever fought was when a stupid tried to burn raked leaves on a windy day. 4 houses! Mostly grass and bush fires but, yeah.

  4. Clint

    Good news, we are back at home and there was a home to return to. It’s been a crazy week and a serious near miss seeing as several other homes on our block burned. Terrible stuff but the Ranch persists.

    1. Honzinator

      Welcome back.
      My mom’s whole town, Monrovia, seems to have survived so far, too, but it ain’t over yet.

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Issue 22 Cover
Posted on January 8, 2025 by Dawn

Traditional post-issue comic cover! Episode 23 is currently TBA but we're hoping to have the first page out on January 22nd so as to not leave y'all hanging from the proverbial cliff for too long.

[1/9/2025 NOTICE: Some of you may know we live in the Greater L.A. Area and if you've heard about the wildfires here: yep, we're currently evacuated from our home and still unsure as to its fate. We grabbed our computers and backup drives so whatever happens we still have our files, but definitely expect some delays and cross your fingers that the worst we're going to end up having to do is throw food out of the fridge due to power loss.]

[1/11/2025 UPDATE: Good news, we are back at home and there was a home to return to. It's been a crazy week and a serious near miss seeing as several other homes on our block burned. Terrible stuff but the Ranch persists.]

Previously… in the future…

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Clint
When Dawn read the script for this week she came to me with some confusion. She didn’t understand Frank bringing up Suzie’s dad. What prompted that? “Ah,” I replied. “In the previous panel Suzie is talking about how Eustace might still be alive, and she’s needling Frank about not being willing to go after him.” “But what’s that have to do with Suzie’s dad?” It was one of those moments where I realized I needed to back up a bit with my explanation. Except backing up in this case was a reminder of where we’re headed to. Dawn and I had talked over the subject before, on more than one occasion, but… when was the last time? A month? Two? And with all that’s been happening this year, yeah, even my co-conspirator might forget some of those details that we haven’t yet “shared with the class,” i.e. you the readers. On the audience end, the details surrounding the fate of Jonathan Zane have been kept deliberately obscure, and this latest heated exchange between Suzie and Frank is another example of that. It’s there to be speculated on. Eventually I intend the patience at finding out answers to pay off. On Dawn’s end, I’m really glad she brought up her confusion because I don’t mean for her to be in the dark, too! I know there are productions out there so secretive and/or so on-the-fly that actors get their scripts and do their scenes a page at a time. They just know that they’re angry at so-and-so. Why? That’s classified. Seems insane, although I guess with enough talent and judicious editing we oftentimes don’t notice, even though the actor may not actually find out they’re angry because Character A betrayed Character B until much later on. But that’s not my intent. Dawn is my production designer and director of photography and also in a sense every actor, responsible for conveying ranges of expression. If she doesn’t know (or in this case, doesn’t recall) crucial underlying bits for motivation, that’s going to make her job much harder and might well impact the end result. So yeah, I have to remind myself to keep her refreshed, like the “previously” segments of a TV show but for stuff that hasn’t actually been produced yet. Otherwise the subtleties of what’s happening may be lost on her, and if they’re lost on her that’s going to have a lot of potential to cascade through and lose the readers as well. I mean, like I said above sometimes the obfuscation is intentional and a certain level of reader confusion and intrigue is what I’m looking for. But keeping the behind the scenes communication as clear as possible is what I think separates today’s confusion from confusion that persists even later on once all the answers have come forth. If and when the reader goes back through the comic, there should be more “Aha!” than “Huh?” Keeping the artist reminded (and mindful) of not just present but future is, I think, the key to that.