So I’d been pondering our last poll, the one regarding Rosa, and coming to gratifying conclusions. Maybe I shouldn’t be… I mean, to be honest I set that one up mostly for entertainment, including providing a ready made “joke answer”. Little tip: if you want to get anywhere near receiving useful data from a poll, don’t give a smart-ass option. It will win out, every time. Rosa Amarilla: Threat or Menace?

• Neither! Viva Rosa! (33%, 18 Votes)
• Who cares, with that horrible Spider-Man still at large? (27%, 15 Votes)
• Threat. (15%, 8 Votes)
• Menace. (13%, 7 Votes)
• Undecided. (12%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 55 Except this time, it didn’t. It came close, but the very fact it wasn’t the top answer was pretty surprising. Maybe it’s just because people weren’t familiar with the reference to the old Spider-Man comics, and the infamous (and very funny) Daily Bugle headline “SPIDER-MAN: THREAT OR MENACE?”. Maybe. I like to flatter myself instead that we’ve created an interesting enough character to actually warrant the cries of ‘Viva Rosa!’, and I suppose I can back that up by noting the good number of respondents who also considered her a threat, a menace, or just weren’t sure yet (but hey, they cared enough to click that). Anyhow, I don’t know if any of you out there feel up to it, but if you wanted to leave a comment here to explain why you voted in a certain way, I’d love to hear it. The polling function is always interesting because it’s so limited in some ways: anytime I put an “Other” option in there and people vote for it, I’m left wondering what the “Other” would be. For instance, in the poll about which character(s) you’d like to see more sketches of, Suzie was the clear winner, but a strong runner-up was the “Cambot/Popcorn/Other” choice. Did those of you who clicked on that want more Cambot pictures? Popcorn pictures? Or maybe random zombies and zombie creatures? My current theory is the latter, cuz, you know, we have a good helping of zombie fans reading Zombie Ranch for some reason. But hell, for all I know you wanted more pictures of the ClearStream clerk, or the shadowy executive Dawn and I colloquially refer to in our internal discussions as “Dr. Klaw”. Oh, I know there’s more detailed polling surveys available out there which allow people to explain their answers, but I don’t know if you the fans would be interested in such things. Hey, maybe I should make a poll! 🙂 But no, the poll this week is reserved as a place for people to vote some opinions on Dawn’s first piece of potential cover artwork. I also have to admit we’re running somewhat behind our original intended schedule, so we’ve decided to extend the “artwork” period to two weeks instead of just one. Might as well get it all out of the way now before we start a new chapter arc, right? I personally think Dawn’s been doing some wonderful work with these, so we both highly appreciate everyone’s patience, not to mention we actually want your feedback on some aspects of them. For instance, this week’s cover possibility… white cross? Wood-grain cross? Or cross filled with zombie images? We’ve been arguing about it, and in this case figured we’d let Ye Publick chime in and shout out which you think looks best. Last but not least I wanted to share a link, which is the newest trailer for the remake of “True Grit” that I had mentioned in a previous blog. I had already had good feelings about having the Coen Brothers at the helm, but this has me really excited, even moreso than the first teaser did. So click here, scroll down a tad, watch the video, and see if you agree. “How many men have you shot?” “Shot? Or killed?” Mr. Bridges might very well fill The Duke’s shoes, after all…