The Crankshaft Awards 2023, Part 6!

55 thoughts on “The Crankshaft Awards 2023, Part 6!”

1. My computer tells me that today is the 6th anniversary of SOSF.
   HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!👀🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏽🧚🏼‍♂️✨☄️
   My thanks to TF Hackett, Epicus Doomus, posters like ComicBookHarriet, and Banana Junior 6000, and I believe good people like BeckoningChasm, and Billythe skink also posted. Without SOSF, how would I have encountered the wit and dazzle of Be Ware of Eve Hill? And the kindness and literary skills of Anonymous Sparrow? I read Mela’s posts, and always hope for more. A lasting side effect, a couple of years ago, we had a conversation about guitar solos. I just played Telegraph Road by Dire Straits. Yesterday, I listened to Flying Fingers by Joe Maphis. Thank you for that one, CBH.
   The leaders set the tone. The rest of us elevate this website into something I want to read every day.
   One of my favorite memories is joining in a ZOOM call, and seeing your lovely faces. Some surprises. the Duck of Death. (Miss her, but the Drake of Life is just as pleasurable!) Seeing Hitorque in the flesh. Mela was there. You had to be there, but Ian’sdrunkenbeard was exactly as you would expect Ian’sdrunkenbeard.
   I said a lot of words, but it can be summed up:
   SOSF IS THE VERY BEST OF THE INTERNET!🥀

   1. While the sentiment is very much appreciated, SP, your computer is either senile or a LIAR.

      SOSF’s 14th birthday will be celebrated on April 9th.

      The 17th anniversary of the first post on the parent blog, Stuck Funky, will be May 10. Which makes this community (such as it is) about the same age as one of it’s regular commenters.

      Now, if you will excuse me, I’m off to stare into the vast gulf of time that exists between current day and the first Michael Bay Transformers Movie.

      1. My bad. The notice was listed at the top banner for the site, where the heading is. Oh well…
         Misplaced affection is truth, undiluted in its purest form. Had I been around at the actual 6th anniversary, BWOEH would have been fresh out of high school, Anonymous Sparrow would have been just beginning his study of TV westerns, and CBH would be a teenybopper helping in her first calf delivery.
         (I have an ability to predict past events fairly accurately.)

         1. HA HA!!! There’s a rotating banner thing going on all year, and it occasionally goes to an old anniversary banner. Sorry for the confusion.

            Also you seriously underestimate how young I was when I assisted in my first calf delivery. 😉

            1. 😎😍😜

            2. Yes, TFH set up the rotating banners thing during the big Grand Finale, and it’s been like that ever since. I like it, it brings back so many boring memories.

2. As tempting as it was to vote for “The Full Cranky”, I had to vote for “Art Swipe”. Batiuk’s done some terrible things, but usually that means writing stories that are painfully unfunny, ridiculously overwrought, or offensively tone-deaf. But stealing artwork from a child? Dude, that’s LOW. And the thing is, if he had taken the time to find out who the artist was, and actually credited them in the strip like he credits the professional artists he gets to do his sideways comic cover strips, it would have been a pretty awesome thing to do. Give the kid something they can be proud of, and say “hey, I got published in a nationally syndicated comic strip”. But… nope. Just take the art, pretend his character drew it instead of the actual artist, and act like that was something to be proud of. Dick move, Tom.

3. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

   Crank is now persona non grata at ice carving festivals

   Boy, I hope Batiuk doesnt make a story arc revolving around Fortnite, because if he does, the cringe levels would cause the universe to implode upon itself

   1. A story arc revolving around whatnite, now?

      Pretty sure TB has no interest in any pop culture beyond Silver Age comics, “The Phantom Empire,” and the odd namedrop of Woody Allen that he thinks makes him look like a sophisticated Upper East Sider.

      1. TB also has a fondness for Seinfeld (perhaps because those characters are also self-centred oblivious smirkers plus living in New York) and has referenced them within the strip.

   2. Not to be confused with Frostonite, which is deadly to the Moon Roach in the *High Society* arc of *Cerebus.*

4. I voted for “A Single Funky Tear”

5. Still Gabby asks

   Which one is Manslaughter?

   1. Ooops! Manslaughter has been changed into full frontal nudity.

      (A sentence you don’t want to take out of context)

      1. It could have been worse. Full frontal nudity could have changed into manslaughter.

6. Manslaughter speaks to Batiuk’s major malfunction: his severe tunnel vision and lack of real empathy. He doesn’t feel his mother’s pain because he can’t even understand he’s causing it. He has no theory of mind so doesn’t know what it’s like to be expected to drop everything so a child can waste his life dulling his mind with gaudy trash.

7. I voted for “The Ultimate Art Swipe” but now that I look at “Moments Before the Crime,” it’s more deserving than I had thought at first.

   It’s the detail that his mom is sitting in a dreary kitchen, in a frumpy apron, on a rickety stool in front of a rickety TV table, and she’s peeling potatoes while a pot boils. It’s just a scene of total drudgery.

   It’s a kind of drudgery that millions of mothers have willingly undertaken for their children. No one sane expects little kids to understand how much work it is to raise kids and run a home. However, by the time you’re in your 70s you should be able to look back on your parents and have some compassion for the adult problems and hard work you didn’t understand as a kid.

   But Batiuk doesn’t. He’s proud of cultivating a childish mentality and promotes his preadolescent mindset in his blog and his strip.

   When you are a child, you don’t understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you, people aren’t put on this earth to serve you, and everyone has struggles of their own.

   Batiuk still doesn’t understand that.

   1. I wonder if this is why the default reaction to a problem is passively letting crap happen while impotently frowning. That seems like something a kid would do.

   2. Heck, I learned that lesson in my 20’s. My mom was an alcoholic but she had many good qualities and was there for us most of the time. I am glad I made my peace before my mom died. Nobody is an angel and my mom only wanted me to live a good life and contribute to society.

      And that’s all Batty’s mom wanted too (I think), so Tom needs to get over it already. So your mom didn’t support your interests and wanted you to do something real. But you were able to land a great gig doing what you love, although you show little gratitude for what you have. 

      One more thing: Encourage the youth, don’t criticize them for not liking things in the same way that you did. 

      PS: I may have voted more than once.

      1. Tom Batiuk was born in 1947.

         When he was in his teens, he probably laughed off criticisms of pop culture from oldsters born 60 years before him.

         People born in the 1880s were chronologically the same distance from Tom Batiuk as he is from teenagers today.

         The person TB’s generation knew as that crotchety guy from the last century who insisted that the wireless and the horseless carriage ruined the world, that music was better before that no-good Edison invented the phonograph record, and that gas light was infinitely superior to the Devil’s Illumination, the electric lightbulb?

         Tom is now that guy, but with his hobbyhorses moved 60 years ahead into the mid 20th century.

         In other words, he’s made himself an irrelevant crank.

         1. Very nice observation. I have to admit it is fun to watch boomers be the recipients of criticism from the younger generation—not that all of them deserve that—but Batty certainly does. 

   3. I honestly don’t know how I feel about the Rose Murdoch scenario. Especially if she’s a direct port of Tom’s feelings about his actual mother.

      On the one hand, you’re right, sometimes kids and later adults expect unwavering support in anything they do from parents that are just people and are never gonna get every part of you.

      On the other hand, narc parents are also a thing. And they often hold their so-called sacrifices over their kids heads their entire lives. Withholding love and esteem unless the kid fits some perfect unattainable and ever moving target, constantly needling for their kid to change. Denying their kid any moment of unconditional love.

      We don’t know what Tom’s real mom was like…but Rose is a textbook narcissist manipulator, and she’s absolutely fascinating in that regard as one of the most complex characters Batiuk ever wrote.

      Maybe he was being unfair to a woman he didn’t really understand. Maybe not. Maybe she’s a purposeful exaggeration of his mother. Maybe not. And there’s the extremely slim chance that this woman isn’t based on his real mother at all.

      

      1. Very astute points, and I agree with both of them — that narcissistic/Cluster B mothers do exist and they do an immense amount of damage, and that Rose Murdoch is probably the most real, most truthful character in the Funkyverse.

         But the weird thing is that the latter-day Rose is so insightfully written, and the comic-hatin’ housewife Rose is so cack-handedly one-dimensional.

         There is, of course, a simple explanation: A ten-year-old sees things one-dimensionally, while a 60-year-old has to deal with a lot more complexity. Especially with an ill, aging parent and a family of his own.

         The different portrayals of the young vs old Rose really lend credence to the idea that the character is Tom’s mother. He can only write young Rose the way he saw her as a child; he’s incapable of applying his adult thoughts to anything that happened to his childhood self.

         As an aside: I’ve pondered the infamous “stabbing the coloring book” incident. Who stabs books? I mean, where does that even come from? You might tear them up, throw them away, even burn them — but stab them?

         It’s so weird and specific that part of me thinks it must have really happened, or at least young Tom believed that it really happened.

         1. I’ve pondered the infamous “stabbing the coloring book” incident. Who stabs books? 

            Henry Bemis’ wife. She didn’t exactly stab his books, but drew over every single page with crayon, and took delight in ripping the pages out. It was honestly kind of silly. Fortunately, the rest of that episode is a lot better remembered.

8. And someone out there felt STRONGLY about Tom Batiuk patting himself on the back for stealing some little kid’s pencil drawing from the local comics shop.

   For the record, it wasn’t me. I did feel strongly about it, but I only voted once.

   1. I only voted once, too, but if I had voted multiple times it would have been for this egregious and self-congratulatory theft.

      The worst of it is: TB harps unceasingly on how important comics were to him as a kid. Well, that was 65 years ago. Here’s a real-live kid, right now, who loves comics so much that he sits in a comics store and draws a comic character, and quite well too. Basically, that kid is as close as you could get to a 2023 version of the young Tom Batiuk.

      But instead of seeing things through that kid’s eyes, Puff Batty thought only of his own feelings and what could be useful to him.

      He’s all for comics-loving kids, as long as those kids are ghostly versions of himself as a kid, and they’re carrying (ghost?) books for his author avatar.

      Actual real-life, here-and-now, comics-loving kids? Fuck ’em, the little shits.

      1. Like that one of Crankshaft’s buddies who discovered his late son had wanted a bike for Christmas when his parents couldn’t afford it. Now as a (retired?) widower, he can – and buys one to put under the tree, uselessly, when he could have donated it for an actual living child in the same situation. Only his ghost kid matters.

9. So, they guy who hovers under Mitch’s bedroom window is Negative Man from DC’s Doom Patrol?

   1. Yes. Creepy, right?

      Yet only half as creepy as Superman X-ray stalking his ex in Superman Returns.

10. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Mindy: What’s gramps doing?

    (Pam looks outside, and sees Crankshaft brutally murdering Lillian McKenzie, while Pam’s expression turns into Wally Winkerbean’s from the Funky Winkerbean strip from February 11th, 2005)

    the expression i’m talking about: https://i.ibb.co/yPx3N4n/IMG-2754.jpg

    1. the image didn’t show up when I posted it on wordpress so here:

       

    2. Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean

       Pam: OH MY GOD, DAD! WHY DID YOU KILL LILLIAN!?

       Ed Crankshaft: Why the fuck not? She was a despicable piece of shit.

11. The Drake reads Tom’s Facebook page so you don’t have to!

    I don’t know how to quote with the new WordPress editor and it won’t bold or italicize now, so I’ll indicate where the quote is. I know we’ve seen this spiel before, but I see it in a new light now.

    —–

    TB:

    My sense of humor was to be shaped by various influences. It started with my dad, whose punning and wordplay I quickly picked up on. Whenever my mom was doing something and would ask for a hand, my dad would break into applause. My mom never thought that was funny. I, on the other hand, found it endlessly amusing.

    At other times around the dinner table, my dad, my sister, and I would conduct a conversation consisting of nothing but non sequiturs, with my mom being the odd person out. We all found this to be great fun—again, my mom not so much.

    —–

    Wow, this guy has more mother issues than the entire run of Mothering Magazine. Not a scintilla of affection for the woman; an entire lifetime later, he still happily reminisces about how left out she felt.

    —–

    TB:

    My dad’s tastes in comedians also led me to the kind of professional comedy I liked. I was never much of a slapstick humor fan, preferring the likes of Jack Benny and Bob and Ray. Later, I gravitated toward the work of poet Ogden Nash and comedians Bob Newhart and Woody Allen. Oh, and let us not forget Pogo. My dad and I could sing “Deck Us All with Boston Charlie” by heart and did so every Christmas. As I was growing up and absorbing all of this wordplay, it never really crossed my mind that I’d find it at all useful.

    —–

    How has it ever been “useful,” Tom? Not one thing you’ve ever written comes up to the standard of the even the lesser efforts of Jack Benny, Bob and Ray, Bob Newhart, or Woody Allen. And if I were Will Smith, I’d smack the name of Pogo out yo’ mouth. Imagine thinking his work reflected anything of these talents.

    1. It’s truly insulting. There’s more laughter, more intelligence, more insight into humanity, and more entertainment value in five minutes worth of virtually anything they ever did professionally than there is in fifty years of Batiuk. 

    2. Practicality is something he doesn’t seem to value so, there is no affection for the woman trying to get him to amount to something.

12. +1 here for The Swipe.

    I think that between strips like that and arcs like that Phil Holt The Immortal vs. Prince Valiant week, we see some insight as to why he is seemingly an outsider among other creators within the medium. No Pulitzers is one thing, but no Ruebens is another.

    1. Not even a “Happy 50th Anniversary, Funky Winkerbean” from any other comic strip. Which is pretty standard in the profession.

       1. All those other comic strip creators, sitting around in the syndicate bullpen, excluding Tom from their bullpen antics! He’ll show them! 

          Comics CAN TOO be not funny! And they can be about cancer and stuff and be way better than your stupid ol’ comics! And they can also be about new superheroes I created when I was 12 and that are SO MUCH BETTER than the stupid comics of today! Which I DON’T CARE that you won’t let me into your little club and let me write real comics with cool covers, because I’m writing my own covers and real illustrators will draw them if I pay them to! And also sometimes comics can be funny like when I have Crankshaft blow up his grill again! Which is hilarious — way more hilarious than your stupid comics! And I’m totally influenced by Bob and Ray and Woody Allen and Bob Newhart and smart people like that, so you should let me into your bullpen and write comics because I’m influenced by all the right things! But if you don’t I DON’T CARE because you all probably ripped off your ideas from somewhere else anyway, and I hate you and you’re all stupidheads. Also, I need one of you to write the intro to The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 19! I promise it’ll be great exposure when I sell three copies at the next OMEA conference! 

          1. [Citizen Kane clap gif]

             Yeppers, that about sums it up.

             I was curious about why, after over 50 years of professional cartooning, TB has not won a Gold T-Square from the National Cartoonists Society. I did a little Grandpa Google search and now I think I understand.

             It’s not enough to have been a pro cartoonist for 50 years. Per the Rube Goldberg site: “It is worth noting that the Gold T-Square Award is not just given out to just anyone who has been working as a professional cartoonist. It is gifted to those who have shown outstanding and dedicated service to the profession as well as to the National Cartoonists Society.”

             The last person to win one was Mort “Beetle Bailey” Walker. I think we can all agree that there was nothing particularly groundbreaking or notable about Beetle Bailey (or his other famous baby, “Hi and Lois”); “perfectly professional and capable” are words that spring to mind. My guess is that Walker was a mensch who was well liked and tried to boost the profession and give others a leg up.

             But the Gold T-Square is only one of the awards that the National Cartoonists Society gives out. There’s the Silver T-Square, “for persons who have demonstrated outstanding dedication or service to the Society or the profession.”

             And there’s the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, which has been given to dozens of deserving recipients. And the Gold Key, which “honors the recipient as a member of the National Cartoonists Society Hall of Fame.”

             And of course, the Reuben has been awarded every year since 1954, and the winner need not be a member of the NCS.

             And yet… Tom Batiuk’s mantlepiece remains empty.

             Hmm.

             1. I wonder if some of it is the fact that for more than half his career now Batiuk was not the only (or even primary) artist on his work?

                He didn’t draw John Darling, he never drew Crankshaft, and since 1998 he hadn’t drawn Funky Winkerbean, though he claimed to ink it for a few decades.

                He’s the writer, but not the cartoonist.

             2. Counter-point: has anyone hung around the profession for 50 years and NOT won the gold T-Square?

                Because that sentence “outstanding and dedicated service to the profession as well as to the National Cartoonists Society” seems precisely aimed at Tom Batiuk. It’s not like there’s a huge list of nominees.

             3. Counter-point: has anyone hung around the profession for 50 years and NOT won the gold T-Square?

                Charles M. Schulz. Johnny Hart. Chic Young. Lots of others. 

                The only people who HAVE won it are Rube Goldberg in 1955, Mort Walker in 1999, Arnold Roth in 2018, and Garry Trudeau in 2019. 

             4. OK, but I think those are all edge cases. Schulz and Young both promptly died after hitting 50 years, so maybe the society felt there wasn’t any point in awarding it. Hart stopped winning any kind of cartooning awards after his religion took over the strip. And you have to count their work before Blondie, Peanuts and B.C. to reach 50.

                Batiuk is in good health, meets the 50-year requirement with Funky Winkerbean alone, and we all know he wants awards. And, lifetime awards tend to be given very quickly, because they often go to people who are old and infirm. His absence seems very conspicuous.

       2. Not even a “Happy 50th Anniversary, Funky Winkerbean” from any other comic strip.

          But then, there wasn’t a “Happy 50th” IN Funky Winkerbean (or Crankshaft). (And Batiuk DID do celebratory strips for the 40th and 30th anniversaries, so it’s not like it was “beneath him” to be self-congratulatory.) (Not that that last point really needed to be said, since Batiuk will get self-congratulatory over things he made up himself. ”Hey, look, Lillian’s an award-winning author! Guess that means I really am award-worthy since I write Lillian!”)

13. RE: 2/18 Sunday ‘Shaft:

    You know, when I said in a comment yesterday “Can’t wait to return to Montoni’s (I’m just guessing) next week!” I was being sarcastic. Imagine my surprise.

    Looks like Min-dull has picked up the position from Pmm of asking what Ed is doing. Guess it’s a distaff Murdoch family tradition.

    Also, shouldn’t she be behind the counter of the pizzeria she and her basset-faced fiance purchased last year? As far as we know Mopey never hired anyone else to work the joint, and Pizza Box Monster won’t be back until Halloween.

    1. Unbelievable. Batiuk spent most of December gift-wrapping Montoni’s and Mindy for Pete, and he’s ignoring that it happened before February ends. Watch Monday morning’s strip be that Pete’s back at Atomik Komix designing a cover because he’s “freelancing.”

       1. Yep, and in addition to what’s already been mentioned: Who lays a pizza flat on the back seat? Pizzas are to be carried on the passenger side. A pizza just sitting on the back seat will slide off the seat with the lightest tap of the brake.

          And using extra heat just to keep it warm? But what about kLiMaTe DaMaGe, Tom? What about the doom that awaits us all in… [checks watch] … well, in a very short time? What about our dear Mother Gaia?

          I’ll spare you all a lengthy Duck/Drake Rant, but the Funkyverse’s wild swings between self-righteous ecological doomsaying and insane overconsumption of resources have always irritated me.

          “We’ll all be dead soon as the Earth turns into a blasted, scorched husk and/or a floodplain that turns Kansas into coastline. How bad is it? I can’t even get my precious Silver Age Omnibuses on time because of a cardboard shortage! See what I mean? It’s freakin’ serious!“

          1. Also, what 1986-model car has rear seat heaters? And if it did, who would let Crankshaft drive it? The most benign forms of combustion imaginable are nuclear weapons in his hands.

          2. Not to mention Mason flying halfway across the country to deliver information that could be done via telephone or e-mail. Yep, great use of time and resources there, Mason. You’re a stellar example of humanity. No wonder you wanted to play that paragon of virtue, Les Moore.

             1. My favorite example was Funky flying to Texas for a checkup. I can’t remember whether it was specified that he was going to M.D. Anderson or whether I just inferred that because… why else would an Ohioan fly to Texas for a “checkup”?

                News flash: One of the best hospitals in the country is right at your doorstep, schmuck. It’s called the Cleveland Clinic.

                And Funky sure was smug about his checkup. Maybe he was just full of himself because he was wealthy enough to fly all over the country for routine preventive(?) care. Smirk it up, creep.

    2. Good point. When I read the strip this morning, I totally forgot that Mindy is one of the owners of Montoni’s, and she would normally be working, and if it’s her day off, she sure as shit wouldn’t be eating Montoni’s pizza. This is one strip where it would be more appropriate for Pmm to be in the car.

       1. And she’s recently engaged, after waiting many years for Pete to finally upgrade his Engagement Tiger. Why is she now hanging around with her grandfather at 6 PM?

14. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    (mindy sees Pete talking to a black-haired woman)

    Mindy: Gramps, who is Pete talking to?

    Crank: Go check it yourself!

    (Mindy walks into Montoni’s and prepares to punch the woman, but notices that Mopey McMopester is talking to Heather “Chien” Parks, and they’re in a conversation about how Les sucks as a person)

15. Late response, but congrats to the winner. Though it was fair cause, I was rooting for stuff like Mason Jarr the Movie Star and Full Frontal Edity in my ballot. Lot of diversity in the votes this year.

    Casual Montoni’s in the Funkyshaft is still rather bewildering in a way.

16. Welp, there’s a new “Match to (f)Lame” on the TB website.

    …I walked into the store and spotted The Flash #115 on the rack. As I leafed through the book taking in the art and story, it rearranged my molecules. Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t burst into flames right on the spot. A few months hence, a letter to the Flash Grams letters page would win me original artwork from the magazine, which further cemented the deal.

    WOW WOWWWWW WOWEE WHAT AN ORIGINAL PHRASE LOLOL “REARRANGED MY MOLECULES” OMG WOW JUST BRILLIANT YIKES

    Also, cemented what deal? Also, he says “hence” when he means “thence.” Will someone please buy this man a dictionary or just show him how to look up definitions on the web?

    Here, savor the brilliance yourself:

    https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-206/

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