Oh heavens, we’re in for a miserable week in Crankshaft aren’t we? Skip going to Komix Korner and asking DSH where to find Batton? That’s like Jar Jar Binks asking Neelix where to find Scrappy Doo.
Sunday by contrast was at least a real joke at its naissance, but crippled with clumsy execution.
A clever and cute idea though, and various handicrafts are an established Lillian hobby.
What a quilt! Must have took Davis a while to draw it. I mean, surely he couldn’t have just found some kind of reference to trace, for such a unique idea. There wouldn’t be any photos of such a quilt, sewed by some sweet lady in Lynnwood, Washington, who had a nice little puff piece article written about her back in 2022.
And for the awful lazy cherry on the frozen dairy dessert, he just had to use ‘Jazz Hands Lillian’ One of the most awkward and ugly of all the stock Lillians. Weird bony shoulder bump. Chinless mouth melting down her neck. Elderly breasts drooping to her waist.
It was drawn first by Ayers in December 2016, only months before he would retire.
And every time Davis uses it, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me…
Son of Stuck Funky 
If he doesn’t want to be accused of phoning it in, he maybe shouldn’t phone it in.
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Professor CBH!,
I have a nominee for worst arc of the year!!!
That is the wonder of Tom Batiuk. One thinks there is no way it can get worse than a repeated Crankshaft BBQ grill story line. One says, “I have now seen it all, I have been inoculated against anything TB can produce.” *
Then midnight crawls along. I open Monday’ strip and find Lefty seeking an interview with Batton.
TB has the gift. No one had that on the prediction of next week’s arc.
C’mon TB, bring on the Les! It couldn’t be as bad as this! (Until it is.)
*Now I understand why Epicus Doomus and Be Ware of Eve Hill no longer read Crankshaft.*
We’ll cover the repeated Crankshaft arc later this week.
Heck we never found out what happened to rowboat guy and now we are back to comic books.
I think Eugene rowed to his death because he found out Lillian’s deceit out of despair
CSR,
I agree with you. It definitely looked like suicidal ideation. (Anyone having these thoughts, please get help today!)
Personally, I was hoping that this strip would have been Tom Batiuk’s final strip, and we would be having a SOSF Sayonara Party at CBH’s farm later this week.
Yeah, that’s a theory I’m was planning to advance in a future post.
The Medina County Fair was held last week, and so I am surprised we haven’t seen the annual fair strips in Crankshaft.
It must have been a fair-weather fair, one best left not with an “au revoir” but with an “adieu.”
Pas mal, eh, Chat Bleu?
Wow, that photo swipe is a lousy thing to do. If I were Cody Sexton of Lynwood Today I would write a cease-and-desist letter just to be an equal jerk. Even a self-drafted letter would result in some costly lawyer involvement.
Skip, Batton and DSH John. Yep, we’re in hell.
And now they’re planning on doing the interview at Montoni’s. Which means Mopey Pete is assuredly going to show up. Because sometimes even hell can get worse.
“The final indignity is that there is no final indignity,” wrote Philip Caputo.
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it:
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Oh, Faustus! leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.
(Christopher Marlowe, *Doctor Faustus*)
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Skip: Great, where is he?
Batton breaks a vase at Skip’s head, three stooges style
Maybe we should interpret Sunday’s ‘Shaft as TB and Davis smugly admitting to the endless Xeroxing of Ayers’ work.
The best part of the quilt art swipe is where Davis decided to copy exactly the mask that has the anchor-shaped design patterned on it… a design that resonates a bit more in Lynnwood, WA than in Centerville I would think as it is the alternate logo of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken.
He did manage to put in a bunch of superhero masks that weren’t in the original though. ‘Cause I’m sure Lillian’s gaggle of 105 year-old biddies is teeming with comic book fans.
Why did Tom Batiuk think it was a good idea to make a COVID mask out of BOTH HALVES of Wonder Woman’s costume? The top is bad enough, but ewww. Very Brooke McEldowney.
ComicBookHarriet,
My second submission for the Cranky awards:
*Most Horrifying Sentence Cobbled by SOSF…*
One of the most awkward and ugly of all the stock Lillians. Weird bony shoulder bump. Chinless mouth melting down her neck. ***Elderly breasts drooping to her waist.***
Emphasis mine! Worst word-picture ever!!!
[Personal aside to CBH:
Please Google, “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel” by Jenny Nicholson.]
It is lengthy, but it is broken up into chapters.
LMAO!
Strange you would think I hadn’t already watched The Star Wars Hotel video twice! It is choice content. Best thing to come out of Disney Star Wars IMO. Seating her behind a pole. The MADNESS!!!
CBH,
What could I have been thinking that I might possess some little bit of Star Wars trivia beyond your reach?🤪🤩😎
Once I came across that video, I immediately thought of you. I love Jenny Nicholson. She is the only person in the world that could make me feel bronies are fascinating.
To all things vital at 1238 in the morning!
On the one hand, I’m tempted to thank Batiuk for not having Monday’s word dirigible read “I’m Skip Bittman from the Centerville Sentinel, and I heard that Batton Thomas, Creator of the Once-Syndicated Comic Strip ‘Three O’Clock High,’ comes in here from time to time.” On the other, he chose the most ham-fisted way to shoehorn in unnecessary background while not having Skippy say the name of the guy he’s frackin’ LOOKING FOR!!!
I would say this looks to be a long week of mutual backslapping, but I fear someone will come up short-handed.
Your Havana Magic Wand has led me to learning about Skip and Bobby Bittman, which I enjoyed immensely.
(Not as scary, boys and girls, as “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre,” though!)
That said, the reporter from *The Sentinel* is not Skip Bittman, but Skip Rawlings.
Britt Reid had a newspaper called *The Daily Sentinel* in “The Green Hornet” series. I’d much rather talk to Ed Lowry from his paper than to Skip from Centerville’s.
And Clicker Binney takes better photographs than Jessica Fairgood, no doubt because her father wasn’t Action Reporter John Darling,* who was murdered.
*
The integration strips found Darling calling himself that, so I will do the same.
Also, I’m sure the way a journalist typically finds a subject he’s looking for is to go hang out in stores where the guy supposedly hangs out.
Remember all the praise saying Batiuk has his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist or something? In actuality, the guy can’t create a normal human course of action if his life depended on it.
If Tom Batiuk’s life depended on creating a normal human course of action, he do everything BUT that. But not in a way where the failure is the point, like in Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Batiuk would completely fail to respond to the threat.
Because trying not to die *is* a normal human course of action. That’s how he bad he is at it. He wouldn’t make the correct storytelling decision even when circumstances force him into the correct storytelling decision.
How did I fail to notice the ridiculous overuse of ‘Jazz Hands Lillian’? That’s hilarious (in a sad and pathetic kind of way).
Did Dan Davis like playing with paper dolls as a child?
Dan Davis: Maybe someday I can make a career out of my love for paper dolls.
I decided to watch a video, specifically this one:
Crankshaft shows up at 1:53 and again at 4:36.
So Sharron McAllister, the woman who made the real quilt, is – get this – a retired school bus driver. Does Batiuk have some very specific Google Alerts set or something, maybe?
Anyhoo, at least Batiuk will gladly steal from anyone, whether they be retired school bus drivers or small children. That’s Our Tom!™
I think someone should email Tom and ask him if he knew that. I know Tom has replied to CBH’s emails.
I guess Batton does have some Joni Mitchell 8 tracks in his car…
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Two Of This Shit, And I’m Sick Of It Already
Related to the Batiukverse: Even more stupid FW/CS edits
What Summer shoulda done to the Lisa Tapes
“insert overdone sequence where Cindy turns into a massive blueberry and explodes”
Les eats shit (literally)
The Meddlin’ She-Devil meets the Centerville Manbaby
Let me guess. Tomorrow, Skip will offer to host a revival of “Three O’Clock High” in an actual newspaper (his) and will offer him complete control of the editorial page and all the money he can spend.
Batton will develop a prize-winning (of course) comics page, with contributions by long-retired comics masters Charles Shootz, Gary Loosen, Bill Waterboy and Chester Ghoul.
“Chester Ghoul” reminds me of “Hector Ghoul,” who created the *Nick Stacy* strip in a *Spirit* Section devoted to the apparent murder of Al Slapp, who mocked it with *Fearful Fooznick* in his *Li’l Adam” feature.
Slapp’s mockery of *Nick Stacy* all but ruins Ghoul, and he begs him to turn his satiric gaze on *Little Homeless Brenda,* but by then the damage is done,
Strangely, Chester Gould’s *Dick Tracy* is still with us (indeed, it took in *Little Orphan Annie*) while Al Capp’s *Li’l Abner* ended in 1977, two years before its creator’s death, and *The Spirit* concluded in 1952.
“Plaster of Paris is the toast of Montmartre/she’ll stick to her man/until death do them part…”
I got the references to Bill Watterson, Charles M. Schultz, Gary Larson and Chester Gould
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
I think the Stupid meter went from six to eleven
It’s a new drawing of the Montoni’s sign, isn’t it? I don’t recall seeing that particular one before. Seems odd that there wasn’t a previous version to copy & paste.
Is Skip trying to interview Batton, or propose to him? Christ, this is needlessly elaborate. I’ve never seen a journalist work so hard to interview someone who desperately wants to be interviewed. These two should just get a room already.
You’d think a man who was the only employee at a newspaper for years would know how to schedule an interview. And would have some concept of deadline pressure. Especially when he only has one arm! How does this fishwrap ever publish an issue when it takes this much work to do one puff piece on a person who’s begging for attention?
Elderly breasts drooping to her waist.
And I think we’ve got the most mentally-scarring sentence in all of SOSF history
“The playground is closed for repairs.”
The wordless panel where Les and Cayla had (implied) rainy day sex is way up there too. And Les making out with Ghost Lisa at a New Year’s Eve party broke a small part of my brain.
Lisa’s video for Cayla (aka “the other woman”). “When he calls out my name – and he will…”. Not enough brain bleach to purge all the horrendous images that one conjures.