A Lot of Squawking!

73 thoughts on “A Lot of Squawking!”

1. ComicBookHarriet,
   You always amaze me. You work full time between farming and your city job, yet you find the energy to post these Crankshaft deep dives.
   I did enjoy your praise to: *our dearly beloved be ware of eve hill…* You are correct, she is.
   If I have this right, Batton speaks twice as much as he appears. If that is true, that explains why we cry, “Where’s Crankshaft!” Those Batton strips seem like they last forever, chronologically and emotionally. 🤨☹️😩😤😨😱🤯

   1. Lay it on with a trowel, why dontcha? 😉😊

      1. That is a beloved statement from our dearly beloved Be Ware of Eve Hill. Said trowel is bwoeh approved, and beloved. 💝💘💖🫂🌺💐🌹

2. This makes today’s strip oddly appropriate: Keesterman smugly ignores warnings to not fall and break something like how Batiuk ignores advice to stick to his strengths. I remember Jeff’s mom and her blaming breaking her hip on Jeff because raising the possibility caused the fall.

3. Wait a minute, I don’t see any mention of the OMEA strips. I know there had to be a few. This year it will be in Columbus and starts on 1/29. This is the only reason he keeps Dinkle around.

   1. There was no OMEA trip in 2025. Dinkle just had a flashback/nightmare sequence about it for a week.

   2. Batty stopped being invited now that Funky is finished and the skinwalker calling itself Harry L. Dinkle is doing choir nonsense in Crankshaft so there’s no reason to feature it anymore.

      1. I’m not sure that he ever was “invited”; in recent years, I think he just bought a merchandising table/booth like the companies selling band equipment. Even his own photos always show his booth deserted. Maybe he just got tired of schlepping, unloading, and reloading all those books.

         And at this point the majority of the music educators don’t even know who Dinkle is. Most of the ones who used to cut out Funky Winkerbean strips and pin them on the band room bulletin board have probably retired by now.

         1. He might have been asked to stop. Tom Batiuk’s continual presence at an industry convention for academic band directors has become an annoyance, and a waste of attendees’ time.

            I respect Batiuk’s role as the creator of the best-known symbol of their profession. And it’s fun to invite guests like that to otherwise dull industry conventions. But he’s there EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. With his huge stack of Funky Winkerbean Volume Whatevers that nobody on earth wants. Which have almost zero to do with band directing at this point.

            One year, near the end of FW, Batiuk went out of his way to genericise the convention Dinkle and Becky attended. He didn’t smear the OMEA branding all over everything, like he’s MC Hammer mugging for Pepsi in 1991. I wonder if that was a warning shot from the OMEA: “hey, dude, we love you, but this has gone on long enough. We’re denying permission to use our name this year.” The OMEA name later returned to FW, but it would support this overall theory.

            1. That makes more sense than the alternatives.

            2. Back in 2022, Batty made a big whoop-DE-do about Harry Dinkle, the self-proclaimed ‘World’s greatest band director’, appearing in the Tournament of Roses Parade. This year on New Year’s Day, out of curiosity, I checked to see if the Band Director’s Marching Band was a one-off appearance or an annual thing. The band made another appearance in the Rose Parade this year.

               There’s no mention of this appearance on the Batty blog. The relationship appears to be over. I wonder if Batty was able to keep the Dinkle banners that appeared in the parade back in 2022.

            3. I think Tom Batiuk’s only involvement with that marching band trip was sponsoring it.

               As you said, Batiuk acted like this parade entry was a big whoop-to-do about Harry Dinkle. But I don’t think he ever okayed that with anyone, or even asked about it. Batiuk had no discernible creative role. And nobody who did ever mentioned his name or his work.

               The band director group’s relationship with Batiuk felt like one they would have with a sponsor. They were appreciative, and got his brand front and center as much as possible, but otherwise kept him at arm’s length. He had no real say in anything. TV coverage of the parade completely ignored the Funky Winkerbean/Dinkle angle. Neither Harry Dinkle or Funky Winkerbean was ever mentioned on-air, except for a split-second where the banners were visible if you knew what to look for. Batiuk sold it like there were going to be F-15s flying over a laser show about The World’s Greatest Band Director, while Freddie Mercury rose from the dead to sing in his praise.

               I think Batiuk bought the sponsorship, didn’t read the contract, didn’t discuss what he wanted with anyone, got butthurt when they failed to read his mind and do exactly what he wanted, then took his ball and went home. (SEE ALSO: Moore, Les; defining traits of.)

               Then Batiuk used the Funky Winkerbean story to spell out how he expected to be treated, as he often does. Dinkle wants an award, applies for it, wins it, and then gloats. (Even though the real-life parade entry made it clear that selection was not merit-based.) Dinkle’s wife congratulates him, and goes all the way to Los Angeles to watch him perform in person, even though he would only be visible for a few seconds in one of a hundred parade entries.

               Then Batiuk never mentioned it again, except to say that all the participants signed one of his Dinkle banners. Which is exactly something a sponsored group would do to thank its sponsor.

               I’m glad that group has been going every year; it is a pretty ambitious parade entry. (In 2022 it was the only one that was both a marching band and a float.) But it looks like Batiuk’s not interested in sponsoring them anymore. I wonder why.

            4. I knew if I grooved one down the middle of the plate, you’d knock it out of the park. The F-15 laser show crack and the Les defining traits reference were hilarious. (Chef’s kiss)

               There’s a video on YouTube of this year’s Band Director’s Marching Band performance at the Tournament of Roses Parade. Like 2022, the band marched up to the grandstand and parted down the middle to let the float pass through. The float was new; the band wore red instead of navy, and played “When the Saints Go Marching In” instead of “Seventy-Six Trombones”. There were no banners in the back. There were a few horizontal banners in the front. The main one for the band. A smaller one for the Michael D. Semple Memorial Fund. And finally, one saluting America’s band directors.

               https://youtu.be/obNafD9SYVY

               I wonder what happened to those Dinkle banners. Did the marching band keep them? Does Batty have them hanging in the studio of his “comics castle”? Adorning the walls in the foyer of his home? On a flagpole in his front yard? In a snit did he burn them in the backyard like Crankshaft burning the family Christmas trees? Did he lose track of them?

            5. Kent State University Press is listed as an exhibitor for the 2026 convention in Columbus. Certainly Dinkle has been a fun mascot of sorts for the Band Director community, but I seriously doubt any modern band director has read the strip or even cares.
               But Batty being Batty he still shoehorns in something about the OMEA every winter.

4. No strips of Les? Shocking! I tell you just shocking!

5. Today’s Crankfuckery

   (Keesterman then notices Ed drive into his mailbox, causing Keesterman to sprint back into his house)

6. Thank you for the hard work on running the numbers, and may you all have a happy new year! The stats do track with what I can generally recall about the strip through 2025. I also believe that there was a similar downturn in voiced negative criticism of the strip, but that’s just my hunch.

7. You’re right that Batiuk changed his behavior while pretending he didn’t have to – that’s a great observation. But sheesh, why can’t this guy realize when he’s undercutting his own point? He threw a tantrum about “comics don’t have to be funny”, and then gave his audience what they wanted anyway.

   1. Because he’s the little kid not wanting to admit comics aren’t everything.

      1. Umm…. I guess I’m not seeing what this has to do with comic books.

         1. What I’m talking about is that Batiuk was probably raised to believe that real men never admit to fucking up or giving in.

8. The annual stats are sure interesting to read. We may’ve gotten Crankshaft back, but it’s not exactly Classic Crankshaft, and there’s been less to snark about with light plotting. Still, the Batton presence is felt, and the few stories we do get sure get the eyes a rolling. Altogether could be worse.

   Though as far as looking towards that nebulous, scary future of Crank (among other things), Batiuk has given us a tease of what’s to come with his Pipeline blog post, namely that “eventually (I said it was deep pipeline)” we’re going to… get a robot in the strip? One that appears to be able to carry and/or cook pizzas, from the looks of it? At this rate whose to say if it’ll be real or imaginary, and my immediate Google Fu can’t tell if this design was cribbed from stock photos at first glance, but I guess we’ll figure out whenever this thing shows up. Wonder if it’s going to take another year given how his pipeline works.

   Speaking of things we got pipeline warning from, how long ago was it were we told that Pete & Mindy’s wedding will be a thing? Wonder if we’re close to a year on that now.

   1. I have a feeling that Pete and Mindy’s wedding will be an endgame thing given that it’s the literal joining of two strips with the nebbish Les figure who’s also now Funky joining with the blood descendant of Ed Crankshaft and not just a by marriage relative like Jessica. But that would make Pete and Darin cousins-in-law and connect all bloodlines back to John Darling, Who Was Murdered.

      If Batty still had scruples ending the strip with Pete and Mindy’s wedding next year for the 40th anniversary to close out the Funkyverse would be reasonably understandable, especially when you combine it with the 11 years that John Darling ran and there’s no a 100+ cumulative of years of this crap. He’s almost 80, likely doesn’t have too much longer and we know he won’t want to pass things off to anyone else so ending it while he still can and enjoying what years he has left dreaming of Barry Allen (the one, true Flash) battling the Top and Heatwave would be the sensible thing.

      Which is why he’ll keep going until he keels over at his desk like the St. Spires organist prior to Dinkle.

      1. I think Tom Batiuk was put on notice: get the Act III Funky Winkerbean crap out of Crankshaft.

         That Batton vs. Ed week was in October 2025. What happened 11 months before that? The Halloween week where they all sat around and thought up silver age comic book covers. And just before that was The Burnings. If the syndicate was EVER going to care about the direction of Crankshaft, that would have been the time to stop the slide.

         The Batton vs Ed arc was Batiuk’s idea of malicious compliance: he put the syndicate’s criticism of him into the mouth of a book signing visitor, who we’re supposed to see as obviously wrong. (Even though he’s the strip’s main character, which means it still works as a petulant way for Batiuk make his point.) But since then, the strip has been Crankshaft Lite, as Andrew suggests. We just saw Pickles the cat for the first time, and now George Keesterman has been brought out of mothballs.

         1. Keesterman’s shown up plenty in the context of eating at Dale Evans over the last several years, but this is the first mention of the mailbox gag in ages.

            1. You mean Keesterman is one of those guys that eats breakfast with Crankshaft and Ralph Meckler? I never knew that. Mostly because it makes zero goddam sense. You don’t hang out with someone who’s regularly smashing your property through his own incompetence.

               And even if Keesterman does make appearances, he hasn’t been the center of an arc in awhile. Which it appears he’s going to be this week. So I’ll stand by “out of mothballs.”

            2. It makes as much sense as Les not letting go of his petty grudge against a dead man.

            3. @pj202718nbca – That story really is Les’s low point and a great example of how Batty doesn’t think of his characters as living people within the context of the fictional world that he’s created but, as has been said before, pieces to be moved around as needed for the story as he wants to tell it to work. I get what he was trying to go for with that particular strip, and Les’s inability to get over it in general prior to that. Bullying can have lasting effects and even if you’ve gotten over it, those memories are still going to linger and some times it can be hard to move on from that.

               I can say that I don’t disagree with that either. There was a kid who bullied me in 1st or 2nd grade. He didn’t beat me up or anything but I was an ADHD weirdo and he’d make it a point to single me out and make fun of me in front of other kids and I absolutely hated his guts for it. I ran into him again in 7th grade and he basically acted as if any of that never happened but for me, even 5ish years removed from his bullying, I still felt resentful towards him for a while even if outwardly we were cool.

               But that’s the thing, in the overall span of time it was only a few years; long enough for there to be distance but not so long to where what had happened didn’t still resonate with me on some level. And Batty had already addressed this early in Act II. Bull and Les are coworkers, Bull’s being nice and acting as if they’re old pals but Les feels awkward about it because of what was done to him in high school and it goes until he finally loses it and punches out Bull. At that point, they’re even and can largely move on. But if Bull’s death had happened not long after that, say within the first few years of Act II, then Les still having conflicting feelings at his funeral even after they’ve buried the hatchet makes sense.

               Les continuing to whine about it late into Act III is where whatever point Batty was trying to make about the complexity of emotions and feelings you might have towards a former bully is where the entire thing falls apart. Les still feeling awkward and conflicted about his bully only a few years removed from the bullying? Perfectly understandable. Les feeling that way after the decades of friendship that Bull offered him? After all the things Bull did for him and his family? It’s not understandable at all, it’s stupid and makes Les look awful.

               But BatTick doesn’t think about it that way, never even sees it for what it is, because what happened between them in high school may as well have been yesterday. He thought it was a cheap way to add some gravitas to Bull’s death and so he does it because the immediate needs of the story he created necessitated that it be so. Les Moore and Bull Bushka were not two middle-aged men who had been so close for so long that Bull asked Les to be his best man. They were bully and bullied, the same roles they’d occupied 30+ years prior because otherwise how is he supposed to show Les having conflicted and complicated emotions about Bull’s death?

               Because Les, Bull and everyone else are not actual characters with histories at least under Batty’s pen. I think time and again, the more I think about it or having essentially read Funky Winkerbean twice over in the last sixish months (more than anyone should read it), this is what stands out as Batty’s greatest writing sin to me. Others will have their own issues, bugaboos and hang ups but for me it’s the casual and flippant treatment of the characters and their histories while crowing about the history and world he’s built.

            4. Much of what we see in Funky Winkerbean could be good stories. But they’re handled so badly, and have so little in common with how human beings actually behave, that they become Wangst at best. Emphasis on “at best.”

               To me, Keesterman is faking it. An ankle injury is completely inconsistent with how we saw him fall, and a genuinely injured person wouldn’t lash out at anyone offering to help. This is every “my mother is a Karen” story on Reddit.

         2. I do think that could also be an indicator of a strip in its relative last stretch. He did the same thing with Funky in the last few years where he suddenly brought back characters like TimeMop and Rita Wrighton and all kinds of other Act I stuff for seemingly no reason only to turn out that oh, actually it’s ending. So bringing back a lot of old Crankshaft stuff could indicate a shift away from it being a Funky Winkerbean refugee camp or it could be an indicator that things will be wrapped up within the next few years. Or it’s just a weird aberration and he goes full bore on the Act IV stuff later in the year.

      2. A wedding was the end game for Lynn Johnston so I can see this finally tying things together in a knot covered in marinara sauce.

9. This is, as usual, so completely wonderful. Thank you, CBH!

   For those of use who want to make percentage calculations, how many total panels were there over the year?

   1. Estimate: 3 panels for weekdays and 7 for Sunday is 25 panels per week. 25*52 = 1300.

      1. Fair. Probably a little fewer than that,though, due to the existence of several one-panel Sundays, a few sideways strips, and the odd single-panel weekday. Maybe it settles down to about 1250 or so.

10. 1/12: Stealing from Sparky isn’t going to change a Flash Fact: when a character does something stupid, it’s never their fault.

11. Today’s Crankfuckery

    (Keesterman then suddenly explodes for no reason)

    1. IF TB was looking to add to his comic strip universe’s body count, Keesterman is the kind of Bull-esque character who would fit the bill.

       1. Ed Crankshaft is the character who needs to die, because of how absurdly old he is. But if it’s true that Batiuk was called onto the carpet about the post-2022 content of Crankshaft, he’s not going anywhere, nor is anyone else. Since Batiuk apparently doesn’t have full power to make this decision.

          And Narshe is right; Batiuk will keep producing the strip as long as he’s physically able to. As much as he bitches about creative freedom, I think he understands who signs his paychecks.

12. That was 100 panels too many for the pox on newsprint that is Batton Thomas.

    1. If I’m right that the syndicate objected to Tom Batiuk’s storywriting decisions, then I wonder if we’ve also seen the last of Batton Thomas. Or at least of his godawful interview with Skip.

       1. I would like to think that the estates of the people who he defamed had a word.

13. Always flattered when one of my off-the-cuff remarks can inspire one of your blogs. I’m not a big fan of analytics, especially the overdependence on them, as seen in the NFL, but I can’t argue with the numbers in your spreadsheet. It appears I’d rather celebrate the fall of Harry Dinkle than the resurgence of the eponymous Ed Crankshaft.

    I suppose we should be grateful for the endless Batton Thomas interviews. Aside from those and the alleged prestige arcs like “Jeffrey Goes to Winnipeg,” there doesn’t seem to be much to snark about. Just a few years ago, I used to look forward to each day’s Funky Winkerbean comic strips so I could give them the snarky beating they so richly deserved. Nowadays, most Crankshaft comic strips elicit a massive round of indifference, and I’ll move on to the next strip in my favorites. *Yawn* Next! Crankshaft has become just another milquetoast title, like Hi and Lois or Dennis the Menace. Just another title I read because I have been for years. As J.J. O’Malley would say, “Meh.”

14. 1/13: Keesterman….Camera Three? THEY KNOW YOU’RE INJURED, IDIOT! They’re asking how badly.

    1. This is why I don’t respect Ed Crankshaft as a character: he’s never a indifferent prick when he SHOULD be an indifferent prick. If Keesterman feels good enough to berate his friend and his daughter for simply asking if he’s OK, he’s fine. Crankshaft’s response should be “guess you’re OK then! See you later.”

       People who slip on the ice and may have a serious injury don’t act like this. This is comic book writing. This is a superhuman character ignoring something that would send an ordinary human to the hospital.

       1. This is sort of a sore spot for me for a personal reason: I know how a person like that should act because I was in his shoes. I yelled my damn head off when that happened to me but All Spite is being an ass with a sprain.

          1. You live in Canada, so imagine winter weather is an annual concern. If only Tom Batiuk had any interest in Canada.

             1. If it ain’t the football team he identifies with for some stupid reason or a greasy snack food that could have been invented in Wisconsin, that hoser doesn’t care. All he knows is the bullshit stories Yanks tell about saving the world.

       2. On the bright side, the kids in Ed’s bus are gonna be late for school now that he’s checking on Keesterman. So he’s managed to stay partially on-brand…

15. I’ve slipped on ice and fallen for various reasons many times in my life, and rarely did I spring up instantly afterward, even if I wasn’t hurt. It knocks the wind out of you and sometimes you need a sec to orient yourself. And when I was asked if I was okay, I answered, “I think so — can you help me up” or “I dunno, I think I may have hurt my ankle.” I didn’t snarl, “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M OKAY, YOU GODDAMNED IDIOT?”

    But hey, that’s me, and I don’t live in the perpetual assmad, butthurt universe that is the Centerville-Westview metroplex.

    1. Falling on ice is a common winter worry for me (not this winter, though). I often do need help getting up after a fall, because if I slipped on ice there’s often no reliable place to stand. And I’ve broken my left arm twice in my life. Believe me, I was not in the mood to be snarky with anyone. The fact that Keesterman is acting like this tells me he’s not hurt. But Batiuk’s going to spend the rest of the week figuring this out.

    2. We are dealing with a funny book injury and a funny book reaction. Ah, well. At least it ain’t Groyperbert.

16. I do not care for the concept that Keesterman procreated.

17. Comic strip news: Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, died today.

    1. Dilbert really was a funny, modestly clever strip for quite a number of years. It found its zone early, and worked very well within it.

       Scott Adams himself, meanwhile. may be our reminder that as much as Batiuk’s foibles and apparent narcissism frustrate us from time to time, he’s really not THAT bad.

       1. Comparing a comic book geek to a Nazi is like comparing cutting yourself shaving with being disemboweled.

       2. To me, Dilbert was the last great newspaper comic. It was the last one that rose to Garfield/Peanuts/Far Side/Bloom County/Calvin and Hobbes levels of cultural importance. I’m an IT guy, so of course it spoke to me. I was disappointed with how it ended, though not for the reasons you might think.

          1. I should probably clarify that. The racial stuff was 100% vile, and Adams deserved what he got for that.

             i’ll just say that I felt Adams was making a valid satire about transsexuality in Dilbert. I am referring to the story at the time where a character with a job was “identifying” as unemployed, or something like that. I didn’t agree with Adams, but I felt it was in bounds. I’d rather we had a societal siscussion about this kind of thing rather than shouting down the position as wrong. i’m very much on the side of “…but I defend your right to say it.”

          2. I would say that Boondocks has the claim to be the last great one. It came at the very tail end of the medium’s relevance and has managed to have a place in the cultural conscious if only because of the show.

             1. Valid argument. I think the TV show was way more popular than the comic strip, though. Most people seemed surprised to learn that’s where Boondocks show came from. Dilbert had a far less consequential TV show.

    2. He didn’t expect to live much longer anyway

18. Today’s Crankfuckery

    Keesterman: CAN THIS DAY GET ANY WORSE!?

    Ed: (smirks) Let’s see about that.

    (Ed gets back on his bus, and then rams it onto Ellie’s car)

    Ellie Keesterman: I JUST GOT THAT CAR!

    (Ellie pulls out a machine gun and fires it at Ed)

19. Off-topic, or rather, related to a topic discussed several months ago… I mentioned back when TB had Batton Thomas slagging the late Roger Bollen during his endless interview that a print of a panel from Bollen’s Animal Crackers strip hung on the wall of the pediatrician’s office I went to as a kid.

    Well, my daughter actually goes to that same pediatrician, and what should I spy at her last visit? Yep, he still has that print, even as his office has moved a couple of times since my youth.

    

20. 1/14: The muddled aphorisms are a smokescreen for a greater stupidity. You’re not actually guaranteed to be safe at home.

21. Today’s Crankfuckery

    Day 3 of The (Literal) Fall of George Keesterman

    If I had a nickel for every time that something bad happened to either Ralph or Keesterman during the winter, i’d have two nickels

    which isn’t a lot, but it’s surprising that Batiuk did it twice (Batiuk ran a storyline in 2019 where Ralph had a heart attack while shoveling outside, and Ed freaked out (luckly for both Ralph and Ed, Ralph survived)

    1. It’s lucky for us too. Can you imagine the ham-fisted nonsense we’d have gotten if Ralph died?

22. 1/15: “I’m angry because I have a severe concussion.”

    1. No, he doesn’t. He’s not hurt. He’s not suffering. He doesn’t need help; he wants to workshop his bad standup material. Just like Funky Winkerbean did when he was put in charge of his AA meeting. Ed should have just left him on the sidewalk. Would be a good lesson to Keesterman’s daughter: don’t sit around and take abuse from toxic Boomer assholes.

       Which is exactly the kind of thing Crankshaft SHOULD be doing, as a character. You can have an unsympathetic jerk for a protagonist, but the audience needs to see him as the good guy sometimes. One way to do that is by having them stand up for people who need to be stood up for, in the face of behavior most people find obnoxious. That’s just wouldn’t be writing, though…

       1. Keesterman is lucky Everett True isn’t there. HE’D have left him on the sidewalk and called him out on his bullcrap.

23. I remember that Keesterman once tried to sue Ed for destroying his mailboxes, using the lawyer Amicus Breef who claimed to specialize in destroyed-mailbox lawsuits, but I forget how that was resolved.

    1. Do you remember when it was? Amicus Breef will, uh, be making an appearance here soon.

    2. Of course, if Keesterman REALLY wanted to get back at Ed, he wouldn’t file a civil suit; he’d report the incidents to the local post office and let THEM deal with it. Destruction of a mailbox is a federal felony, punishable by up to $250,000 and/or three years in prison. For each offense. Really.

24. Midwest Safety (police cam videos) has a Kent State-centric episode today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acIQqjYalXg

    Sheesh, are all Kent State people this self-entitled, and this impresssed with themselves about the number of years they’ve been in unremarkable jobs?

25. https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-230-2/

    New “Match to Flame”! And… well, let’s just say the most surprising thing is that Batiuk admits his glaring weaknesses, except he doesn’t acknowledge them as such…

    I wanted to steer clear of easy crowd-pleasing material, and rather, indulge my own interests and pleasurable sense of storytelling.

    Yep. Don’t give the audience what they want, give them your own inane interests and make them seem as boring as possible. It’s called writing!

    My approach to my writing was changing in a way that would now permit me to deal with greater degrees of subtlety and complexity.

    Hm, pretty sure “subtlety” isn’t a synonym for “incomprehensibility”, nor “complexity” for “inconsistency”.

    (He also talks about Hal Foster and Prince Valiant, yet doesn’t mention anything about dropping a huge Cleveland Steamer on his grave.)

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