No Passtime For Old Men.

We here in the Funkyverse commentary community are currently gritting our teeth through the second week of ‘Senior Baseball’ hijinks in the copy-pasta nightmarescape that is Crankshaft. The art has been awful, and the gags as limp as a hand-me-down training bra. On the upside, at least this arc involves Crankshaft himself, and I would even venture that today’s strip comes closer to an acceptable joke then we’ve been used to so far this year. It’s inoffensive, and I have a sneaking suspicion it might make the shortlist for best of 2024. Though this says more about the dire state of comedy in 2024, than the quality of the strip itself.

For those of you new to the Crankensphere, Cranky’s been on a senior baseball/softball league for nearly 20 years, giving Davis plenty of clipart to select from this week. We’ve even already had a week of Davis, senior baseball material in 2017. Looking at those gives a good indication of how far his photoshop efforts have fallen off.

And hey, at least I’d say the vast bulk of these strips are tolerable to good, with a few real gems. So if you wanted to actually ENJOY Crankshaft this week, take this little trip down memory lane with me!

2005

Look! It’s Matty Kornbluth!

2012

2013

2017

18 thoughts on “No Passtime For Old Men.”

  2. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to have a mind capable of writing these kinds of weak, droll, barely smirk-worthy gags for decades and decades on end. But then I get bored, and start thinking about something else. The idea that you can actually carve out a lengthy and lucrative career doing this never fails to amaze me, and makes me wish I’d spent more time perfecting my comic strip chops instead of, you know, doing things and having friends. Max “Ice” Berg, the top Jewish private eye in all of Nome. There was potential there, I think.

  3. “Swim meet”? “Curt Flood joke”? “Inside baseball”?

    Three strikes, TB, you’re out!

    The correct joke for this strip would be:

    “Well, it looks like no sporting event will be taking place here tonight.”

    “Mother Nature is telling us to hit the showers…”

    Or at least a Tim Raines reference. Give Rock some respect, Batiuk.

    1. My Immaculate Grid for today: Curt Flood, Tim Raines, Storm Davis, Ken Cloude, J.T. Snow, Bob “Hurricane” Hazle, Jeff Weatherby, Steve Fireovid, Tim Raines Jr. (That last one’s cheap, but it’s a different player so it counts.)

  4. The sad thing is that tedious, forgettable non-humor such as this is the best that he can do.

  5. My unpopular opinion is that the “trash talk” strip is funny! I’m gonna yell that at anybody who cuts me off in traffic: “PAPER CLIPS…!”

    But…How do I yell it? “…” means “an unnatural or thoughtful pause.” Like I just did. How do you yell “[WORDS]…!” You pause, and then yell “!”? Outside of Victor Borge, “!” does not make a sound.

    Obviously, it would be funnier if the guy screamed “…PAPER CLIPS!” because he had to think of a mild insult, and he was really bad at that, so it took a while. Seriously. How do you yell “…!”? C’mon, try it. “TOM SUCKS (pause) …!” See? You can’t do it. Go ahead, try every glottal stop you got, and then do “PLASTIC…!”

    You should never or certainly should see the horrible movie “A TALKING CAT!?!” Or try to pronounce the title. You can do “?!” which means “I don’t understand–Wait, I do!” with a lift in your voice. “Wait, is Tom a…HACK?! Why, indeedy doody.” See? That’s doable. Now, try “Tom is a HACK…!@#$%^&&*” Impossible.

    (If you watch “A TALKING CAT!?!” do NOT do a drinking game based on how many times someone yells “Cheese Puffs!” Even it’s water, you will die of drowning)

    1. Look closer…Charlie actually says “PAPER CUPS”, not “CLIPS.”

      I guess the “…!” punctuation is meant to denote that Charlie sort of pauses before realizing the insult is over? So he yells them, but with a kind of hesitancy, in that he’s not quite sure they’re right? It’s kinda weird, but I can sort of ‘hear’ how it must sound when reading it.

      And I *did* find this one mildly-but-still-respectably funny.

      1. *Charlie actually says “PAPER CUPS”, not “CLIPS.”*

        “The post office blew up! USA!!!!!!!!!!”

        1. Charlie actually says “PAPER CUPS”, not “CLIPS

          His name is CHARLIE? It should have been “CLINT “

  6. Did Batty ever actually watch a softball game? You can’t “brush back the batter” when lobbing it in. You don’t pitch overhand at all and the ball has to arc.

    1. It’s weird, because in the earlier arcs, what they’re playing is clearly labeled as baseball, and they’re shown throwing overhand. But this week it was changed to softball.

  7. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    I wanna see Crankshaft actually play instead of a boring interview with the Reincarnation of Pop Clutch, Who Was Murdered

  8. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    I wanna see some baseball playing! I wanna see Crankshaft’s skull get split open and leak on the ground! I wanna see someone mildly interesting

  9. Thank you for the post!

    Out of anything that Tom’s written which I would classify as not-bad, it tends to be the visual prop gags. Crankshaft had a lot better art quality to it ten years ago.

    Is that Pop Clutch in the 2012 strips?

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