UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

6 thoughts on “542 – Catching Up”

  1. Keith

    Some friction, but yeah. IRL, I’d like these two…they should have kids. 😉

    1. Dawn

      I might have to draw out what their kid would look like. First thought is that their kid would look like Ongo Gablogian from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”

    2. Scarsdale

      He’s pushing 60, she’s maybe 30, more likely less. Chuck is most likely shooting blanks, and besides, he’s talking to her like a baby sister than a love interest.

  2. ConcordBob

    It is really hard to have a favorite character, as there are so many good ones. But I think Rosa is my favorite. Chuck is a good accomplice in sneaking work, but not much for romance. Uugh.

  3. Otaku

    I mean, if they don’t have at least an inkling of what’s going down, I’m actually disappointed in Clearstream. If anything, I’m starting to wonder if they caught on and realized “Wait, we can use this.”

    Because of course they can. 😉

  4. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    I’m way ahead of you – I’ve been waiting for you to catch up. From November 2020:
    I would hope for nothing less – her and Chuck have the potential for a great deal of positive mischief.
    Speaking of which, I received the email notifying me that my order for the NSFW “Chuck and Rosa Finally Do It” (age verification required) limited edition hardcover is going to be delayed due to the pandemic. I think it’s really cool that you’ll be adding some additional stretch goal goodies when it ships – thanks for all your story and art.
    As for the inscription, ” We owe it all to you ” will be sufficient.

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542 – Catching Up
Posted on April 9, 2025 by Dawn

Talking points…

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Clint
Comics is (with some experimentation aside) a silent medium, that is to say… well, that we don’t hear what they say. Characters “talk” by way of printed words on the page and what voice they have is pieced together in the reader’s mind. It shares this feature with prose, which occasionally makes for a jarring audio book experience as the person you’ve spent years “hearing” one way turns out to have a very different interpretation in the author’s head. Zombie Ranch is in no way immune to this. I write the characters with a definite voice for each because I feel it’s very important to get their particular cadence and personality across even if the end result still depends on a reader’s interpretation. Actually check that, it’s more than a feeling, it’s a downright necessity. Why? Off-panel dialogue. The recent pages have been indulging in this a lot, and I’m hoping it hasn’t been a confusing mess to try to parse out. Off-panel dialogue means the “balloon” is coming from a source not depicted in the panel itself, and without an actual voice to hear it can be tricky to clue the reader in as to who the source is. I do have several tricks up my sleeve in regards to this, for example… …using ellipses to chain together dialogue between a panel where the source is pictured and where they are not. This may not be a grammatically proper method but I think it definitely helps to indicate a continuation of speech. On the other hand there are times I still use ellipses as a “trailing off” indicator as well, which would be the exact opposite (a stoppage of speech). Are readers getting confused by that? I don’t hear complaints, but it’s possible people are just being polite and/or not feeling it worth complaining about for a free webcomic. Understandable. Commendable, even. But still, I do try. My other main cheat is names, but it’s easy to overuse that. People don’t tend to constantly call each other by name during a conversation. Except when they do, like the Sheriff’s particular habit of constantly wanting to check in with Jimmy. and  other main way is like I said above, giving (or at least trying to give) each character an individual voice. Voices for the voiceless. As noted above it’s a happy byproduct of something I’m already doing. “Shitfire” is an epithet that only gets used by Suzie (and her late lamented pa), so if that’s part of an off-panel dialogue that would be a big raging clue that Suzie’s the source. Oscar is the only one who calls Frank “chief” and Suzie “big boss” as go-to nicknames. Lacey has her “yugh” and “HO-lee crap!”. Iphigenia Langhorne calls everyone “darling” like it’s going out of style. Frank’s speech is as clipped and to the point as The Exec’s is long-winded and sociopathically philosophical. Deputy Jimmy likes to rhyme a lot of the time. Eustace has a bit of a stutter and every statement he makes tends to sound like a plea. Brett… well Brett’s a bit slow on the uptake, if you catch my drift (he probably didn’t). Some of these characters have never met and quite possibly never will, so it’s not as important to be able to distinguish between them. For those closer at hand, all these little verbal tics and cadences hopefully serve as a “who’s who” guide when the balloon tails have a point, but don’t show where they’re pointing.