Say what you want about this week of weird nonsensical garden technology in Crankshaft; at least it has Crankshaft in it. Crankshaft doing something silly, over the top, and perfectly in his established character. It’s like a refreshing breath of stale, canned, hospital air after being locked in a broken morgue refrigerator on a sweltering hot day.
Furthermore, I almost found it relatable. My dad finally got steering assist in his planting tractor this year. And after grousing and bitching about it for two weeks while he was figuring it out, he became absolutely giddy when he realized the GPS and computer positioning along with his monitor meant he could plant after dark. You better believe there were some late nights after that.
So I’m giving this week of Crankshaft a pass.
What about Chien circa 2000? Does she get a pass?
That depends.
We know that Chien will soon be part of a Very Special Storyline on Bullying. But here, we get a clear instance of her bullying someone else for the sake of a joke.
Let us not forget that Matt’s learning struggles and abusive home life had already been mined for drama and Freudian excuses two years earlier.
BARF. But it’s obvious that if Les Moore is feeling bad for Matt and telling him that he lashes out and fails because he doesn’t like himself, that we are supposed to take that as truth and as how we the audience are supposed to feel.
And now Chien is loudly telling Matt to keep his stupid mouth shut because he’s an idiot caveman, and Les Moore doesn’t do a thing.
In the ye’ olden days of early Act I this joke could totally pass without comment. Because Funky Winkerbean in the olden days was cynical and satirical and existed in an amoral world of universal dickery.
And it is believable for Chien, sarcastic and outspoken misanthrope that she is, to say something like this to Matt. I don’t mind that she’s a snarky bitch. I care that the narrative doesn’t seem to realize the double standard. Not to victim blame…but I’m going to victim blame. Matt isn’t an idiot.
In the real world, Matt would be able to tell that Chien has nothing but disdain for him, and his interests. That she completely mentally dehumanizes him, has tossed him in the ‘useless troglodyte plie’, and gets smug satisfaction from feeling superior to him. Why would he ever treat her nicely?
More than that, she’s even snarky and cruel to Mooch. A kid so desperate to be liked he tried to burn the school down.
Ha ha, Les is smiling. It’s so funny when Chien bullies dumb male students. Since Les has labeled her ‘victim’ in his mind anything she does is fine and justified.
Les in this era is at his MOST insufferable to me. Because Batiuk loves to show him teaching and preaching. I much prefer Les crying over his dead wife to this smug, smirking, slimy, nonsense.
Yes. So deep. You should never plan too far ahead when writing. Just kind of hack away at the prose right in front of you without careful consideration for where all of this is going. It always works. Just ask George RR Martin.
Facts.
See. Here we get a more thoughtful, Chien. Once who thinks things through and isn’t afraid to push back against what she’s being taught and ask hard questions. Once again. I’m not against the way she acts, but more how it’s framed in the narrative.
CRANKY CROSSOVER ADVENTURES!!!!!
ohplsohplsohplsohpls pls commit murder live on air les please pls.
HA. HA HA HA. No Notes. Acceptable target. 100 points to Chien.
Son of Stuck Funky 
TV Tropes calls Batiuk’s habit of putting people in silos they can’t escape from aggressive categorism. I call it being stupid, unfair and lazy.
Les crying about his wife, alas, turned into something smug, smirking, slimy in very short order. Still, Act II Les may well be worse if only because the strip’s snappier pacing made its Les moments come at the reader like water from a firehose rather than a leaky faucet. Man, these characters have potential if TB was only willing to frame them all as being even flawed, much less outright bad…
Oh, he thinks he gave them flaws. But they aren’t consistent flaws, they disappear and reappear as the plot dictates. And Les Moore’s preachy grandstanding in Act II is absolutely vile because in Act I he was believably portrayed as a spineless, hapless, self-obsessed, little twit, who treated other people as props to his own fragile ego, and we never get a refutation of that. So who is he to be some guiding light and moral arbiter? Heck Bull and Cindy get better redemption arcs for their Act I dickishness, by having moments where they reflect, regret, and ask for forgiveness.
It’s like my gramma always said, “Preachers can be sinners, but they must be repentant sinners.”
Today’s Crankshaft
the punchline is that Ed is still a fucking idiot
“The public has a right to know!” That’s an extremely shallow answer to Chien’s thoughtful question. I went to journalism school and was taught that “people have the right to grieve”. I don’t know if that’s true in the legal sense, but we were taught to not shove a camera into a grieving person’s face. A lot of the stories you cover have grieving people on-site. It’s interesting when people die.
And “only use one of these six things in the promo” is mind-bogglingly stupid. Cindy comes off as highly ignorant of her own job. Which would be fine if Batiuk was trying to characterize her as the bubble-headed bleached blond who comes on at 5. TV news teams have hosts like that, a role Cindy is well-suited for. But they don’t let them anywhere near a news source, much less send them into a war zone. Especially not when they’re in their 40s, and haven’t learned a single thing their whole career. And the less said about Cindy’s current status as a pregnant 70-year-old trophy wife to this world’s Ryan Reynolds, the better.
The problem is we’re dealing with a man who views the world very simplistically.
And he believes that he holds the right opinion on everything.
And yet look how ineptly he handled Les objecting to the movie. A normal person would actually say what bothered him.
Because Batty (Les) has no good reason. To him, “big Hollywood “ = bad. That is the extent of his thought process.
Because he thought 20th Television came up with the campy sixties Bat-Man to bully him and not to point out how bloody absurd it would be to actually live in a world of comic book characters.
“Doctorow said that writing is like driving at night. All you can see is what’s immediately in front of you in your headlights, but that’s enough for you to make it to your destination. And that’s why you it’s okay to drive around at night, Bull, absolutely nothing bad will happen to you if you do. It’s just like what I told Wally. May I suggest what route you should take?”
Also, I think the colorist might be of the “Chien is Asian” mindset, as she’s colored a slightly more yellowish tint than the other characters, a shade usually used for Asian skin tones. But that doesn’t look to be the case for the Sunday strip, which are usually colored by the regular art team. (Especially for the strips that were done when the strips were only expected to appear in newspapers, so the dailies were made black-and-white and were only colored years after the fact.) Just to confuse the issue even further, as one does.
(Really, though, what was the thought process that led Batiuk to think high schoolers would call her “Chien” because of her collar, and not just call her “B*tch”? Both because of her collar AND the way she acts…)
It’s a quarter of a mile from reality. I could almost see them calling her Lassie but Batiuk reached too far.
It’s like you can see him transitioning from “Gag a Day non-characters” to “Dramatic characters who exist to be miserable” in front of your eyes. I still wonder what he would’ve done with Chien if she was a writer and not a photographer. Published Author With Book Signings means canonization! Post high school Chien’s photos from war zones, taken with her constantly one step from death: MEH. Who cares about bombers, if they’re not blue and from Winnipeg?
CS, 6/6:
Aunty Entity: “Welcome to THUNDERDOME! Two men enter, one man leaves!” (sees contestants) “Umm…One crone enters, another old thing stumbles in….How old are they? 105?! How’s that even possible?” (reads from card just handed to her)
“Okay, we got a guy who fought in WWII at Normandy, on the Sixth of June, versus a…Woman who got a stair burnt! OH YEAH!” (she pauses for cheers. There are none) “Since they are super decrepit geezers who smell like they are, let’s move on! FIGHT!”
Lillian moves in, ready for the kill! “ACTUAL intelligence!” she says to crickets. Crickets begin leaving the Thunderdome.
Aunty Entity: “I swear this gets better! There’s a VW that almost hits them!”
Wow! Instead of writing it using what it actually means, he said ACTUAL intelligence instead!
Good one! ZING!
Interesting that in the strips featuring Cindy even Les and Durwood seem to realize she’s talking out her backside. Yes, the public has the right to know, but that doesn’t abrogate a reporter’s responsibility to be a decent human being.
Hey, maybe Chien’s okay! It IS nice to see that someone called Les out on something…
Meanwhile, I note that Batiuk’s complete and utter inability to grasp the rhythm of an expanded format Sunday strip apparently extends all the way back to the beginning of his career. Looks like it’s been more than a half-century of pouring three-panel ideas into five to seven panels.
Today’s Crankshaft
(Lillian does the TF2 Schadenfreude Emote (specifically Scout’s) and then suddenly killbinds for no reason)
Pure Comedy
Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: Tom Batiuk’s Homecoming Carol (from 1977)
Holly: Shouldn’t you look like something like the Ghost of Christmas Past?
I wonder what would’ve happened if Cindy and Holly interacted during Act I (I doubt it’d go well for either of them)
If it were Cindy instead if Holly in this situation, Cindy would’ve probably mock them for being less fortunate than her (I think that’s what would happen because it’s in-character for her during Act I)
(suddenly, a near-skeletal figure in a dark cowl approaches Holly, and she freaks out)
“An old lonely majorette who comes to the games and relives her memories”? That’s exactly what she DID become.
Ha ha, true! But these were fun strips and they remind me of why I liked this strip back in the day.
But she ALSO got to turn into one of the Generic Potato People, so… it’s a little different. (Not better, just… different.)
I’m always a bit reluctant posting my GC comments, like the Mad Max one above, unless I think they’ll disappear. Oh, sorry, let me Tom that up for ya: “I’m reticent in voiciferating my opining, as in that Flash comic where his head was super huge, it rearranged my molecules and gave me a boner” oh fuck I’m done writing like that.
If you write a snarky comment and it gets no reaction–Someone has made it invisible. Eve has mentioned this. Some random slob can just throw you down the memory hole? I had a death threat and they did nothing. Who could wield such god-like power to ban those who disagree, and have it happen instantly?
Maybe the strip’s author?
NAH, that’s paranoid! It’s Andy McMeel himself, who invented comic strips! He loves Crankshaft and Mel Gibson, got that Sugar Tits?!
Weary. Every muscle aching, every bone feeling like it was broken, she punched all the buttons. Of course, thought Chien. Of course the damn elevator’s broken again. Well, it’s only 5 flights. You’ve had worse, you damn moron.
She didn’t so much use the guardrails as pull herself up by them. Why do you keep going to warzones, Parks? Yeah, that’s where the photos are. The ones that win awards. Her lip involuntarily curled in disgust. Awards!
She unlocked the multiple locks of her New York City apartment. She remembered when the happy orange cat would greet her–but she was never home. It wasn’t fair to Cheeto, so a friend adopted the little madman. She smiled slightly at the thought of that goofy MyFaceaGram post Mooch had done of her cat, stealing a chicken nugget. What a happy cat! What a…fucking me I am.
She locked her gear up. Always play it safe, and then gave a rueful laugh. You took a photo of a tank firing on civilians 2 days ago. “Play it safe!” Idiot. Glancing in the mirror, she thought “God, you look like shit.”
The phone rang. What time was it? It was dark when she collapsed in bed, still in street clothes, and now it was dark. Did she sleep for 24 hours, or 2? Of course it was her boss.
“Myanmar? I said I would never go back there!…What? …Oh, um, I guess I can do it. For the LAST TIME EVER!”
Jesus. Ever since high school, Chien Parks, Photog and Adrenaline Junkie. She sniffed her shirt, sprayed some Febreze on it, unlocked her photo gear from the safe. She went into her tiny front hallway. The only one with photos. Her award-winning ones. They were there to impress people. They no longer impressed her. She paused, as she always did before a risky assignment, at one that was framed alone. Not one that got any attention from awards. The selfie with that little starving girl, eyes beaming in delight, having her first taste of ice cream. She felt renewed. This is why you do this, dumbass. Not for awards. Because you have to. Someone has to. She didn’t check the elevator, just ran down 5 flights.
LES MOORE: “We’re here to honor…[CHECKS NOTES] Rachel Dogbreath Parks. What? OH, “Chien,” sorry. She was a student of mine, and I taught her so well she got a [rolls eyes] PULITZER. WOO, how impressive! I have an Oscar for Best New Actress. And–oh, I guess her family’s just going to project on the screen behind me that last photo of her, with her dying to save those little girls. I’ll now talk about protecting little girls. Her name was Lisa. I felt very bad about Lisa, especially as it related to ME, and Hollywood–“
Skip’s one page newspaper the next day: “Two Big Funerals on One Day! Award Winning Photog Chien Parks, and that fuck we all tore apart!”
Epilogue no one requested:
“As per her wishes, Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Ms. Park was cremated. As per our wishes, local douchebag Les Moore was cremated in a dumpster we set on fire. It was a day that began in sadness, and ended in BLOCK PARTYYYY!”
Today’s Crankshaft
(cs grabs a bucket of Jarate and throws it onto Lillian, causing a bunch of Scouts, Demomen, Engineers and Soldiers to tackle her onto the ground)
RE: Sunday 6/7’s FunkShaft:
Well, at least this one clearly wasn’t sitting in Batiuk’s computer file for a year.
Some comic strips (Li’l Abner, Pogo, Doonesbury, The Boondocks) were known for featuring biting political satire. This one merely features political satire that bites.
Can we find out where this is on the “NO POLITICS” rule?
I ask because it’s about politics, and this could go on all week.
Mary Worth has the worst strip today. As for Batty, he certainly doesn’t believe in what that sign says. But yeah, at least he wrote it in 2025.
Guys. I wish I knew where to draw the line on ‘No Politics’ on this one. It’s a shit strip. I don’t want to talk about it. And after a week where Crankshaft was what it is supposed to be… Blarg.
You know what? F**k it! One day only! Make a somewhat political joke as long as it’s not NSFW or a personal attack on another poster. No slap fights. No debates, (except on Batiuk’s incompetence) The downvote button is there to indicate disagreement. Feel free to use it.
New post going up tomorrow to memory hole this entire thing. Even if it’s just an edit of Cranky’s head on the sandworm from Dune.
argleblarglewhaddabargle
I just want to know one thing: did today’s Crankshaft get dropped from any papers?
Only in America could you say “Hey, nice to see ya — we’d like to welcome everyone in, including you!”, and be somehow intensely, controversially political.
Can’t see this strip being cancelled, though, since our ‘heroes’ will just roll over and accept whatever obstacle (in this case, a crippling tariff) the authorities place in their path. The authorities win, and the essential message of Batiuk’s writing is maintained: there is no point in trying.
Of course, typically for Batiuk, it’s a three-panel message larded out to six.
I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut and not make any political jokes/statements
@Y.Knott Keep in mind that villains roll over just as easily. “Oh no! Les Moore organized a campaign where all the citizens refuse to talk to us about Lisa! Better slink back to Hollywood in defeat!”
Today’s Crankshaft
Hey at least we’re seeing Mopey McMopester and Mindull working at Montoni’s
Good point. I think this is the first time we’ve seen either of them doing actual work.
I think this is the first time we’ve seen either of them doing actual work.
For a customer who complains, and then leaves without buying. Remember: Droop Dawg here is the Kevin Feige of the Funkyverse. Why does he run a shitty restaurant? Besides Tom having no idea how the real world works. Montoni’s would’ve gone out of business in the month after they took over.
That diversity poster is probably Wally Winkerbean’s best chance at ever reappearing in a Batiukverse strip ever again.
Has anybody seen the wheelchair ramp lately?
The only response that 06/07 CS warrants is to address that Tom Batiuk did what he always does when addressing a “controversial topic”, which is to say nothing of consequence about it and completely bungle the language behind the topic.
What is the customer angry about? We have no idea. Tom didn’t tell us.
What’s a tariff? Tom Batiuk seems to have no idea, based on the panel.
Regardless, the strip exists as it stands and the rest of us are all played for chumps to project whatever opinions we may have on the subject in response to it. We’re asked to do all the heavy lifting for Tom Batiuk.
Fuck that and fuck him. The controversy behind strips like these, and The Burnings, and the Racism-Without-Racism fracas, and the CTE Scam, and Funky being “friend fluid” with Roland, and everything else, isn’t that he addresses a topic. It’s that he completely fucks it all up.
Looking at all the pantie-bunching going on in GC right now, I think I’ll not get political here. This strip is pretty weak (tomato) sauce. “Boy, that guy sure loves tariffs and hates DEI, huh?!” If Tom really wants controversy, bring back Adeela and ICE.
It is weaksauce. But it’s also more then anyone else is daring to say publicly right now.
I dunno. Even Zippy is going after the Mango Madman now. Just a few months ago, the Phantom fought Musk! That was awesome sauce!
Really, the most interesting things are the goofy concept, and the fact this must’ve been written after “Liberation Day” just 2 months ago. The concept: So Sign Hating Man has Trump on speed dial, who reacts instantly with tariffs? This is because a rust belt Ohio pizza dump is the important center of the Universe, because TB lives in Lorain county. This is Act I goofy. Maybe Trump found out Bill Clinton ate there!
And he wrote this in an almost normal comic strip lead time. Most comics are written 3 weeks out, not his usual 11 months. Was this burning a hole in his soul, so he had to go tell it on the mountain? Questions abound!
That’s a peculiar drawing style Batiuk had in Act II. What’s up with all the tall heads? Flash Freeman would have felt at home during Act II. You look like a moai! You look like a moai! Check under your chairs! A Moai head for everyone!
Hey, everybody! Why the long faces?
Sorry about that, Keith. I couldn’t resist.
I doubt any paper will drop Crank because of this bland political content. It takes a lot to get a strip dropped. The “ban” on Wiley’s Non Sequitur was over quickly. (It was a scribble that some reader with a magnifying glass found that she decided told Trump to go F himself. It looked to me like a kitten walked on a keyboard of hieroglyphics)
Two strips that instantly bit the dust were based not on the content, but the creator’s…opinions. One was Darrin Bell’s Candorville (gross, dude! Even grosser is that he was apparently turned in a by a family member, so it must’ve been an obvious problem)
And of course Dilbert. Snowflakes didn’t like his white supremacy! But this was years after he blogged “Women are like retarded children.” (Not a paraphrase) That he got away with.
To make this all about ME, I got a death threat on GC and they let her keep commenting. I made a joke on Mad Max and it was disappeared. Twice.
Yeah, crazy stuff about that guy who’s dying now. Are you sure you’ve correctly characterized his comments as “white supremacy”?
So obviously this strip wasn’t done with the usual 11-month lead time. Which raises the question… what happened to the ORIGINAL June 8 2025 strip? (I mean, he had to have had a different strip ready for today, which he subbed out for this one.) Will it run next week? Will it go to the end of the 11-month queue? Will Batiuk just toss it away? (Nah, not that one.) Or was this the original strip, to “celebrate” Pride Month, and Batiuk just changed the punchline last-minute? (Hm… actually, it might be that…)
It’s been my impression on a number of occasions over the years that Batiuk really doesn’t have an issue with bullying. He just has an issue with people like him being bullied. That’s why he thinks that Chien bullying the football player is hilarious, whereas if the roles were reversed he’d show it as proof-positive of the bully’s irredeemableness.
He showed it in his touted “anti-bullying arc” which was nothing of the sort. Owen didn’t decide not to be a bully because it’s wrong and just adds to the misery of the universe or something. No, he decided to drop trying to be a bully because he was so inept at it. He tried to bully tiny Bernie Silver and Bernie didn’t even realize he was being bullied. Batiuk could have told a story where Owen was a successful bully but then realize, from the position of someone who’d been bullied himself, just how much he was pointlessly and cruelly hurting other people, but he didn’t do that.
It just seems like he has nothing against the concept of bullying. He just has a problem with the identities of the bullies and the bullied. If it’s comic book readers ripping on and humiliating football players, or band members making fun of…. football players or cheerleaders, he’s got no problem with it. The world in that case is the way he’d like it to be.