Hi, folks! The Crankshaft Awards are still under construction, due to some nasty cold here in the upper Midwest. (My hometown was minus 6 degrees on Monday.)
So in the meantime, I want to document the entire Batton Thomas interview. Boring, I know, but I really don’t know how else to respond to it. I can’t use Batton to mock Tom Batiuk, because Batton already does a spectacular job of that without my help. And I think we’ve all wailed and gnashed our teeth in the comments about what an inane, boring, self-serving ego trip this all is. But it just keeps going.
I thought the best way to document it would be to put it all in one place, to illustrate how much nothing there is in what has now been nine weeks of strips.
August 5, 2024: Skip seeks Batton to do an interview, so he immediately heads to Komix Korner. Batton saunters in on cue. He quotes Dorothy Parker for some reason, probably to show off his writerliness.
August 19: Skip needs to do another interview for a “longer and more in-depth” piece. He asks “what sparked your interest in comics?” Of course, it’s comic books. Batton traveled to New York and failed to be hired by either DC or Marvel.
January 27 ,2025: Batton sucks at being an art teacher, so he badgers the local paper into letting him draw a cartoon. He meets with a syndicate, NEA, which gives him some advice on how to turn it into a comic strip.
March 17: Batton talks about what inspired him to become a cartoonist. Spoiler alert: it was comic books.
May 26: Batton comes up with the name for his proto-strip Rappin’ Around, and annoys Roger Bollen, the creator of Animal Crackers. Roger says “just because I visited the syndicates in New York doesn’t mean you have to.” Batton immediately announces his plan to do this, rejecting Bollen’s advice right to his face.
July 14: Skip visits Batton in his studio. Batton takes his second trip to New York, eats at Howard Johnson’s, and gets rejected by the syndicates. But he returns home to find an important-looking letter in the mail, despite having spoken to no one. After telling a friend about it, Batton realizes that he is now better than everyone else.
September 1: Skip asks “So what happened after Publishers-Hall offered you a contract for your own syndicated comic strip?” Batton mostly whined about how difficult it was.
September 29: Batton is sitting with Skip for yet another interview when he meets Jeff, his “dopplegänger from the comics shop.” (The umlaut was Batiuk’s.) Ed Crankshaft then rips into Batton over the diminished presence of “Grandpa Wrinkles” in the comic strip.
January 19, 2026: Batton and Skip visit Batton’s first apartment house, Elyria High School, and syndicate president Dick Sherry visits. Batton says Sherry’s was “thoughtful and considerate”, but “it felt like we weren’t on the same page” as Sherry looked at some new strips. This anecdote is never resolved, as Batton talks about the apartment house some more instead.
To be continued, no doubt…
Son of Stuck Funky 
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 3 of Dinkle Week
(The crowd starts jeering Crankshaft and Dinkle with chants such as “You’re the biggest fucking asshole we know” and “you two are the biggest clowns in the entire state of Ohio”)
Yep, that Dinkle sure is a band director!
Minor correction: The cartoonist who was Batton’s/Tom’s mentor was Roger Bollen, not Ballon.
I corrected it, thank you,
1/29: Batiuk doesn’t realize it but he’s become what he mocks: a tiresome bore who is just his job.
The problem is that he’s blind to what other people think of his actions. The cement headed third grader who didn’t get that he looked like an entitled snot grew to the dolt adult who took a mild joke about visiting a place literally to the polite bemusement of a mentor.
Batton really is a self-entitled jackass, isn’t he? A self-entitled jackass who lacks the most basic concept of beginning or ending a story.
Because of another failing: he confuses explaining the premise with telling the story. He’s ten year oldMike Patterson writing the story Sum kids was lost an’then wuz found.
Dinkle’s “Now what?” is a perfect example of Puff Batty’s annoying tendency to touch on an interesting and poignant theme — but just to touch it lightly and then dart away from it like a terrified bunny.
There’s so much to explore here. Dinkle spent his life in his band leader uniform — it was more than a job, it was his identity. What happens to people whose job is their whole identity after they retire?
It’s a question pregnant with dramatic possibilities. Naturally, we won’t ever explore any of them even the tiniest bit.
Which is fine — if this had remained a gag-a-day strip. But as it is, it’s lacking funny gags and stock characters AND also lacking any drama, while attempting both with an embarrassing lack of effort.
To say nothing of the “temporarily going deaf” thing. You’d think THAT would have had some impact on Dinkle. Or that it would have had some impact on Tom Batiuk, and he’d realize that he needs to stop drawing attention to an embarrassing mistake. But Batiuk can’t function without Dinkle. Batiuk needs Dinkle like crackheads need crack.
Dinkle becoming self-aware in today’s strip is a lot less satisfying than I thought it might be. Actually, TB has done this whole “Dinkle’s identity is so tied up in being a band director that he doesn’t know what to do when he isn’t one and it’s kinda sad” shtick a few times before… and every time he walks back from the edge to the comfort of the old band directing shtick after that brief peek… even as it makes increasingly less sense for Harry to be involved in any of the musical endeavors that he is.
The best one I recall was in late Act II where Harriett begged the school district to find a job for Dinkle after his first of many alleged retirements because he was driving her nuts being around the house all day (they obliged). It’s no deep exploration, but it is some relatable and reliably humorous retired couples shtick.
Dinkle should have been mostly retired at the end of Act I. He no longer made sense as a character, except to antagonize future high schoolers. Failing that, Batiuk should have retired him when he lost his hearing and took that job at Bedside Manor. That would have been an honorable end for Dinkle. He can keep doing the one thing he loves to do, and bring a little happiness to a very depressing place. (Have you ever visited a senior care facility? Yeek.)
I thought that was the whole point of making Dinkle deaf; to write him out of the strip. But Batiuk gotta Batiuk, so instead we got yet another “I got a media contract!” story. Complete with interviews, a world tour, and even more ego stroking for the World’s Greatest Band Director. Then Batiuk had to find new ways to foist Dinkle upon us.
No character in the Funkyverse ever truly dies or retires. Batiuk will bring back any character that fits into his latest story idea, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen them, or how little sense it makes. Look at all the Dead Lisa arcs we got long after she died.
He brought Phil Holt back from the dead, after we’d already seen his estate auctioned off by Derwood and his ghost conversing with Lisa’s ghost. Ahem. It is called “writing,” so it doesn’t have to make a lick of sense.
(How a guy reaches his 70s without knowing how the probate process works is a mystery to me, but after all, it’s called “writing.”)
The list of things Tom Batiuk failed to learn before he reached age 70 is a long one.
I think the absolutely most unhinged example of this tendency was the “Becky, who had a Juilliard scholarship waiting for her, lost her arm because of Funky’s drunk driving but wasn’t upset about it and cheerfully, immediately settled into her career as a pizza-place waitress.”
I don’t think TB has the slightest clue how hard it is to get into Juilliard, or how hard it would be to put that kind of effort into learning an instrument and having it all be ended, and your body permanently visibly mutilated, by an idiot’s selfish carelessness.”
“Hey, no biggie! Tell Funky no hard feelings. Truth be told, Montoni’s is better than any boring old ‘world’s most prestigious music school.’ I love how I can’t do normal activities any more and everyone stares at me with pity! That’s why I’m always smiling.”
Note the contrast: Funky gets cataract surgery and acts like Dr Mengele is vivisecting him. Holly breaks a leg and we see a long recovery played for laughs. Becky loses her arm and… doesn’t seem to notice.
TB has the slightest clue how hard it is to get into Juilliard
TB has no clue how hard it is to do anything. Pretty much every single person in Westview went straight to the top of whatever profession they wanted: TV news, restaurant management, pro football, comic books, you name it. Which is exactly what a cartoonist who got too much too soon would think. It’s ignorant, and honestly, pretty insulting.
Batiuk doesn’t realize that when you get out of high school, the competition gets a lot tougher. Whatever talent you think you have, there are a lot of other people who do too. Any decent-sized city has its pool of local perfomers, putting on skillful performances in unglamorous venues for little to no money. I’ve tried my hand in that world, and it taught me humility. I realized that I wasn’t nearly as talented as I thought, and that things like hard work, commitment, people skills, and uniqueness play a big role.
Batiuk never got past the high school mindset of “talent is the only thing that matters.” He doesn’t realize that every single high school in America has a Cindy Summers, a Bull Bushka, a Pete and Darrin, and several Les Moores, every single year. None of whom would last five minutes in an environment where they’re held to any kind of quality standard. And even if any of them did have talent, their laziness, self-entitlement, and toxic personalities would kill their careers dead before they started.
I think this is why he engages in bashing New York and Los Angeles. They bully him by making him live in a terrible world where being a drone living in suburban Ohio isn’t humanity’s nation. If he’s just another person in a big world, his mother was right.
Batiuk doesn’t treat NYC and LA the same though. Everyone in New York City defers to the main characters as if it were Westview. Like when that hedge fund simply allowed Skip to declare himself the owner of their property, and did nothing in response. And I’d pay real money to see Les Moore tell any New Yorker that they can’t sit on that bench because it’s Lisa’s.
As for Los Angeles, Batiuk loves to prop them up as the “profitability, not art” people he thinks he’s so superior to. They’re strawman villains who not only insist on Lisa’s Story being profitable somehow (the horrors!), they reject it for “too beautiful a work of art.” Barf. Then they went ahead and made the movie anyway, eating a loss that Les gloated over.
(PRO TIP FOR TOM BATIUK: The only reason any of your syndicates ever let you in the front door is because you make them money. Somehow. So spare me.)
There’s something else about New York that irritated me: the title character expanded to Manhattan mainly to be a massive flapping anus to his ex. People think Bakugou has an inferiority superiority complex but King Explosion Murder has nothing on Funky.
A gifted kid named Jim Shooter made money for DC and Marvel. The Delicate Genius would tank the business.
NYC really doesn’t do “deference.” I, and most other locals, have many times seen legit movie stars walking around without anyone taking notice. Traffic ain’t gonna stop for Tom freakin’ Batiuk. That’s why he pops in, hits the tourist hot spots like Ellen’s Stardust Diner, and flies back home, satisfied with his sophisticated worldliness, to be safe in the arms of Montoni’s, possibly the only place on God’s green earth that treats him as any kind of VIP. I’ll bet ten bucks that he likes it because he gets to cut the line that apparently often snakes out the door.
He’s not even the biggest celebrity in Akron, FFS! Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and I’m sure a dozen others are far better known and more acclaimed. But within the room that houses the Band Box, Batty is a star. #SAD
Batty treats NYC with reverence because that’s where Marvel and DC were and even if they rejected him it’s still a place he has reason to romanticize. Hollywood, on the other hand, rejected all attempts throughout the years to adapt Funky Winkerbean for other media so it’s undeserving of anything but scorn.
I had a brief convo with Chuck Ayers a few weeks ago.
Minor point, but it was Wally who caused Becky to lose her arm, not Funky.
Hm, but Becky certainly got her revenge on Wally, didn’t she? She had to play the long game, and it included factors she couldn’t have any control over (like Wally being a POW for a decade) (at least, I’m assuming she had no control over that, but one never knows), but she eventually dumped him to be with Skunky John.
Now I’m imagining that Becky, after losing her arm, was consoled by a certain janitor, who told her how things would play out if she “forgave” Wally, allowing her to utterly destroy Wally as surely as he destroyed her. I mean… yeah, it’d be completely ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than the canonical existence of TimeMop in the first place…
UGH, major point, Green Luthor. Mea culpa — I mean, “IT’S CALLED WRITING.” (I’m legit surprised Batty hasn’t given us a character named “Mia Culpa.” Yet.) I work myself into a state of high dudgeon and then forget minor details like the names of characters and who did what to whom — that is to say, “IT’S CALLED WRITING.”
And I also just realized that I called Luigi’s “Montoni’s” in my post above. Whoops, but then again, “ICW.”
Sincerely,
Mia Maxima Culpa, Esq.
If it’s any consolation, you probably have a better recall of names and events than Batiuk does. (Okay, that’s probably not much consolation.)
The thing is that Becky being relatively okay with what happened could have been completely fine but as usual, Batty underwrites the actual important stuff while overwriting the unimportant sludge. Becky wanted to go to Juilliard… but did she really? So much of what her life had been up to that point had been pre-ordained for her by her controlling and overbearing mother so how much of going to Juilliard was because of genuine desire on her part and how much of it was her doing it because that’s what was expected of her? Those aren’t mutually exclusive things and it could easily be a mix of both. And maybe, after some time, Becky sees the silver lining in what happened in that she was free to start over. Yeah, it’s hard but she has the ability to decide what she wants for herself without having to go down the path somebody else had already laid out and decided she would go down.
But see, that requires actually thinking of Becky as a character who has wants and dreams and having an actual level of complexity to her. But Becky was not that because nobody in Funky Winkerbean is allowed to be that. In her first few years Becky was nothing more than a punchline to highlight Roberta’s over the top stage mom nature that allowed her to stand toe-to-toe with and confound Dinkle. She didn’t become a real (by Funky standards) character until Wally got a crush on her and wanted to take her to the prom; and that of course came out of nowhere because I don’t remember them interacting at all prior to that point. Why did she agree to date Wally? Dunno. Why did she agree to drink and start making out with Wally while he was driving? Dunno.
Doesn’t matter because Becky is nothing more than a prop. She exists to show how absurd Roberta is, then she exists as an object of guilt for Wally, then she exists as an object of desire (and eventual reward) for John, then she exists as a sidekick for Dinkle. Never in the decades she was around was she ever an actual character in her own right, she exists for the benefit of other characters and is never really treated as someone who has any sort of real independence. She exists for X or Y reason and Batty is completely incapable of thinking of her in any other way.
It exists with just about every character and is especially bad with the various females. Batty holding a grudge against Sadie and eventually getting rid of her because of his own misguided reasons for creating her for example. Rocky just being arm candy for Corey (I seriously wonder if she has more than 20 lines of dialogue in all of her appearances). Donna’s tomboy geek traits getting dropped because they were only there to provide a reason for her hooking up with Harry. Susan only showing up to cause problems for Les. Just on and on because Batty doesn’t, and never has, thought of his characters as having any real complexity. All of them gradually had anything interesting or amusing beaten out of them if the characters weren’t exiled, but it’s a lot more egregious with the female characters because they all exist as props for the male characters while the male characters exist more independently. Even Cindy, probably the most independent of Batty’s female characters, falls into it after getting married where her role goes from journalist and documentarian to Mason’s Wife.
You reminded me of Emilio Estevez’ character in The Breakfast Club. He was a jock who didn’t really want to be a jock, was pushed into it by an overcompetitive father, and privately hoped for a career-ending injury.
Becky rebelling against Roberta’s choices for her would have been a interesting way to tie up Roberta’s existence in the Funkyverse. It also would have justified why Becky was so nonchalant about being dismembered. She could have said something like “it’s horrible, but after my mother said she doesn’t expect anything out of me any more, it’s actually kind of a relief.” That could been hard-hitting, and cemented Roberta as a permanent failure. It would also be a much better ending than we got, with her climbing the band tower and never coming down.
Roberta is a good example of how Tom Batiuk only deals in the superficial. Roberta’s a tailor-made antagonist whenever he wants to tell a “Karen” story. But he’d never show her family pushing back against her crap. Even her divorce happened off-camera.
Yes, there were so many interesting ways he could have gone with the Becky story.
She feels relieved, and then very conflicted about that.
She struggles to learn to do ordinary activities with only one hand/arm and we watch her learn and overcome.
She curses her fate and then meets with other people who’ve suffered similar injuries, perhaps war veterans, and that helps her reconcile herself to her new state.
She becomes a disability activist.
She becomes an anti-drunk-driving activist.
I could go on and on. And most of these would make great Very Special Arcs, complete with PR releases and fawning interviews from the usual outlets.
But again, he touched on a topic with endless possibilities for drama, poignancy, tears, and triumph, and jerked his hand away as if it were a hot stove.
I’ve been without a functioning left arm three times in my life (two broken arms, one stroke) and it’s pretty difficult to adapt to. Things you don’t think about, like tying your shoes, become a challenge. To this day, I own way more velcro shoes and non-buttoning dress shirts than I should.
Banana Jr. 6000,
I appreciate you, sir. I enjoyed the testimony. I do not pity you. Oh, hell no! I sure do admire you though.
I cannot even imagine if I was in a situation where I couldn’t wipe my own b*tt. Well, other than today. Wives sometimes get the sh**ty jobs, but that is a long story. You are a good man. Stay healthy my friend. Have a *Dos Equis* on Be Ware of Eve Hill.
💝🍺 💖🫂🌺💐🌹
I’m sorry to hear that, BJr6K. And yet, that’s a perfect example of a strip that practically writes itself. We see Becky cheerfully serving at Montoni’s; patrons remark approvingly that she sure is adjusting well, can’t keep ‘er down, what an inspiration.
Then we see her at home, struggling to do an ordinary activity — washing a glass in the sink, getting dressed, tying her shoes, even driving a car, when she realizes she has to take her hand off the steering wheel in order to signal a turn — and breaking down because the simplest, most mundane things are now near-insurmountable challenges that confront her endlessly, dozens of times a day, and she can’t cry in front of anyone else because she doesn’t want to be an object of pity.
Thank you for your concern, Sorial and Drake. I recovered almost 100% from all three injuries. The broken arms had no permanent effect, but the stroke did (though the broken arms were at ages 12 and 38). I don’t type as fast as I used to, and I can’t play WASD games anymore (goodbye Minecraft and Rimworld), but what didn’t kill me made me stronger.
Re: Becky and her meddlesome old bag of a mother. BatYam seemed to be going in that direction, and it appeared it was all coming to a head. But then, as he’s wont to do, Batty just dropped it, never revisited it, and that was that. Becky was a lot like Cayla, or even the Fairgoods. They were kind of like charity cases, who Batom kept using out of a sense of guilt. He couldn’t lop off Becky’s arm for cheap shock value, then abandon her, so he found a dumb way to cram her in there somehow. She sure was fun to snark on, though. The Lefty/ juggling gags never got old, at least not for me.
I assume Roberta eventually died on that scissor lift, which is probably all rusty by now. I believe she may have appeared during one of those moronic “Dinkle sells shit” arcs, but we never fully confirmed it was actually her. It’s more fun to think she just slowly withered away up there, never to be seen again.
Melinda Budd is the meddlesome old bag I can’t get past. She badgered Holly into doing a cheerleading show she had no business doing, and which Holly, Funky, and the high school all should have vetoed. Holly got seriously injured, at an age when broken ankles can be very serious, at a time when a recent home renovation and Montoni’s “thin crust profit margins” were already stretching the family’s finances. And what was Funky’s reaction? He never had one. As far as we know, Melinda moved to Florida with them, and continues to live with them. People have disowned or cut contact from their parents for less.
Are there *any* kind, loving mothers of the main cast in Act II and beyond? Serious question — I don’t have the breadth of FW knowledge that many of you guys do. I think TB has never gotten over the mean things his mommy said about the Holy Marvel Books.
@Drake Of course: Holly went to all the trouble for collecting Starbuck Jones comic books for her son Corey! Which we all know is the greatest thing a mother can do for her son!
None of the other main cast members who are also moms, like Hannah (of Mitch) Jessica (of Skyler), and Pam (of Mindy), were ever intentionally portrayed as being awful to their children. Emphasis on “intentionally.” Jessica should have put a stop to that stupid gun toy story, and that “clothes aren’t presents!” week reeked of a court-ordered supervised visit.
It seems to be a generational thing in the Funkyverse. The main cast’s moms were all awful to them, but the next generation of moms seem to be trying to avoid this. They openly indulge, or at least tolerate, their childrens’ childhood interests. Though this may be a natural consequence of having to tolerate their husbands’ childhood interests after ther refused to outgrow them.
You’re right, and I now realize that my question was totally garbled — I meant the moms of the characters in the OG cast, and anyone of their age group.
Holly is of TB’s generation, so of course she’s a good mom, as defined by the #1 heuristic of Good Moms: She likes comic books.
@BJ6K, I like to think of Funky and Holly hauling Melinda to Florida with them was revenge for the broken ankle… given that Melinda moved in with the Winkerbeans to begin with in a desperate attempt to escape Florida. Perhaps the last time TB didn’t write “dimate clamage” instead of climate change…
While Batton Thomas rightly gets hammered here, let’s not overlook the crucial role played by Skip The Enabler in allowing this interview to continue for literally a year-and-a-half (and counting).
Skip’s only saving grace: Batton Thomas would almost certainly natter on to ANYONE about his life story, without prompting (or even any signs of evident interest). By monopolizing him for this endless interview, Skip is at least saving other residents of the Funkyverse the experience of spending one-on-one time with Batton Thomas,
Which means …. hold on a second. Would this potentially make Skip the Funkyverse’s greatest hero?
I view Skip as having no say in it. Batton writes all his dialog and actions.
Many thanks to BJ6k. Life continues to get in the way of the Cranky Awards. 😦 My bestie’s dad fell and broke his arm requiring surgery at a hospital a couple hours away. Since she’s an only child I was her emotional support human in the hospital for the last few days.
I think I speak for all of us, CBH, when I say that we understand! We know how much time and energy it takes to put your posts together, and we’re happy to see this totally free content whenever it comes. So attend to real life first, and come over and play with us once you have some time. Hope your friend and her family are getting better!
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 4 of Dinkle Week
(Dinkle is then jumped by a group of former band students of his)
What galled him were words like generic and unlikable.
In today’s installment of “I’ve tried nothing, and I’m fresh out of ideas”:
Dinkle bloviates about how he doesn’t miss fundraising for bands.
Yet within the last few years, we’ve seen lengthy St Spires fundraising arcs. Because fundraising was a good gag that went over boffo with comic readers when Carter was president, and like an old dog, Batty can’t learn new tricks. “I used to get treats every time I’d stick out my paw to ‘shake hands.’ Maybe I can just keep sticking out my paw and the treats will come?”
You’d think Harry Dinkle, a profilic fund raiser with a fundraising medal from Belgium he shows off at inappropriate times, would have a more interesting response than this. The second panel is actually more promising; the list of insane things Dinkle has sold door-to-door would be surpring to your average band director. And it’d be a nice callback. But Batiuk uses this promising scenario to make a stupid Bitcoin joke. Take that, 2017.
Also, when did the Ohio Music Educators Convention become the Old Retired Band Directors Who Can’t Leave It Alone Or Shut Up About It Convention? Why is another old, retired band director spending any of his remaining time in an industry convention?
How many times has Tom Batiuk attended the OMEA convention? Clearly, the real-life OMEA has no guidelines or expectations about attendees having to be an educator, or musical, or relevant, or of even the mildest interest to anyone. Pay the fee, and you’re welcome!
I just got a wild idea: “Ohio Music Educators Association” is the name of Tom Batiuk’s real-life secret fan club, and the Convention is their Comic-Con. If any of us actually tried to go to the OMEA in real life, we’d walk into a fan convention that would shatter our perceptions of reality.
Any of us could probably pay the admission and waltz right in, but it does surprise me that they don’t screen exhibitors — but then, who in their right mind would pay for a table at OMEA to sell endoscopes, or NY Rangers memorabilia, or arc welding supplies, or something else that’s totally irrelevant and wouldn’t reward their time and effort?
No one. No one in their right mind, that is.
As someone who performed at an OMEA event as a high school student, the concert events used to be open to the public. I performed as part of a percussion ensemble. The exhibit hall and clinics are surely restricted to music educators. Batty gets a part of a table due to KSU University Press being an exhibitor.
I’ve been trying to figure out who that person with Dinkle is in this week’s strips. I believe he is based on a band director—possibly a retired band director from the OSU band.
Maybe it’s Jonathan Waters. Tom Batiuk really is that tone-deaf.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 5 of Dinkle Week
(ZZZZZZZZZ)
1/30: To quote Joe Kenda, “If you’re going to lie to us. at least have the decency to be good at it.’
1/31:He would envy a car like that.
Yesterday, Dinkle said, “I’m glad I got out before band Bitcoins.”
It takes a mind like Puff Batty’s to say, “I’m sure glad I wasn’t into Bitcoin in the early years. God, imagine if Dinkle had been peddling them in 2012, 2013, what a fiasco that would have been! Band mattresses: THAT’s the place to put your money! Safe and sound between the coils and the cushioning.”
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 6 of Dinkle Week
Dinkle: WHY ISN’T IT CALLED THE DINKLEMOBILE!?
Band Director: Your ego would’ve gotten so big that a black hole would show up.
I think Dinkle would have a valid point. That stupid tinpot dictator hat is much more of a symbol of Dinkle than of band directors in general. No band director wears that hat unless it’s part of the band uniform, or unless they’re cosplaying as a paramilitary rebel leader.
Then again, does Tom Batiuk even know the difference anymore? Batiuk is convinced that band directors revere Dinkle as some sort of icon, but has so little actual interest in what band directors actually think, that he’d draw something like this. He thinks they’d embrace Dinkle’s peculiarities as a reflection of their own. “Heh heh heh, that crazy Dinkle made his hat into the front of a car! I should get a car like that!”
Dinkle reminds me of Gearhead Gertie. She really loves NASCAR and… that’s it. There’s nothing else. There isn’t a shred of insight into the sport, the fan base, the controversies, the participants, the strip’s characters, or anything else. And that kind of humor can be done well. There’s a ton of YouTube channels that poke fun at sports fan bases, or different types of players in various popular video games. Gearhead Gertie and Dinkle are very much not that.
Besides, the best part of any joke about a psuedo-Batmobile is what gadgets it has. “Activate the Bandmobile Door-To-Door Sales Assistant 2000!” I imagine something with K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider‘s voice, whose job is to be the bad cop to Dinkle’s good cop when he knocks on someone’s door. Dinkle: “Hello, we’re selling band turkeys to raise money for the Westview High School marching band!” K.I.T.T.: “And you’ll buy one for all your friends and family, if you know what’s good for you.”
By the way, the voice actor for K.I.T.T. was named William Daniels, and he’s still alive. In 2025 he got a shout-out on Dancing With The Stars from contestant Danielle Fishel, who she remembered when they were both characters on Saved By The Bell. And at age 98, he’s still almost a decade younger than Ed Crankshaft.
Batiuk doesn’t even seem to be aware of what having the bill cover his eyes even means. To me, it means that this person can’t see the real world.
The show where William Daniels and Danielle Fishel were both among the main cast was “Boy Meets World”.
Dang, you’re right. But those shows all run together for me. I almost said DeGrassi High.
William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett — both still with us — will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in June. If you can believe it, they were married when Harry Truman was president.
Or how about this: Daniels, already an adult (well, 18), made his Broadway debut in 1945, in what is to this day longest running non-musical in Broadway history (Life With Father). And he then continued to work in theatre, film and TV for the next 80 years. Just an amazing life and career.
In “What’s Up, Doc?,” a 1950 “Bugs Bunny” cartoon, our favorite wascally wabbit recounts his show business career.
We learn that one project he turned down was Life with Father, as he was convinced that it would never be a hit.
Ah, well, Aunt Mimi told John Lennon that there was no money in playing the guitar.
Oh, we’re the boys of the chorus / We hope you like our show
We know you’re rootin’ for us / But now we have to go…
Today’s Crankfuckery
(Crankshaft pulls out a modified hair dryer, and shoots fire from it, causing his house to burst into flames)
At least it wasn’t blindingly obvious what he was doing this time.
RE: Mon. 2/2’s ‘Shaft:
Marshall Crenshaw? That’s a coincidence. I keep hoping that “Someday, Someway” this strip will be funny.
Also…”Good luck”? Does Pmm honestly think there’s a crushing demand for Marshall Crenshaw concert tickets in 2026, or is she referencing Jff’s inability to remember his “login password”?
Oh goody, Tom Batiuk has found something new he likes that he can stick in the strip! Marshall Crenshaw is still alive and only 72 years old. Maybe this will be the day Batiuk finally gets sued for unauthorized use of real living people’s name, image, and likeness.
I’m sure Marshall Crenshaw’s e-mail inbox must be flooded today with dozens of e-mails … well, maybe a dozen e-mails … saying essentially the same thing:
“Hey! You got referenced in this comic no-one actually reads! Your life is about to … not change at all! You’d best prepare for a completely unnoticeable spike in ticket sales for your Ohio concerts that, as it turns out, you don’t actually have booked for this year anyway!”
(NB: Despite being referenced in Crankshaft, Marshall Crenshaw is a genuinely cool power pop/rock artist worth checking out. Start with the first self-titled album from 1982, and then go from there!)
As he goes on about his life blissfully unaware that Batiuk is still alive, we get stuck with “Old Man Yells At Cloud Storage.”
Today’s Crankfuckery
(Jeff punches the computer and then throws it out of a window)
2/3: It’s the latest iteration of bitching about child-proof caps. For some reason, nothing triggers boomers like safety.
Oh, this strip is UGLY.
Not to mention twenty years behind the times.
Oh, boy, Boomers on the Internet — now there’s an idea just bursting with comic potential, none of which will be realized, of course. That means we probably won’t get to see Jff TYPIN STUPID OPINION’S WITH ELLIDERATE GR,AMMER IN, A LL CAPS.
Or joining a message board and then posting PLEASE STOP SEMDING ME THIS NEWSLETER !!
Or best of all, getting catfished on Facebook by “Scarlett Johansson” after posting on a Facebook fan page about her. She really loves him and they’re gonna be together real soon, she just needs a few thousand dollars because she’s stuck in Kuala Lumpur and her funds are tied up by a bank snafu. Oh, and she needs it in the form of Apple gift cards.
“But Pam, it really is Queen Tika! Just like I told you about after the fire!”
Boomer lens cap stupidity is Batiuk’s nation.
Late to remember to comment, but the thing that gets me the most about that “Bandmobile” is how that’s the kind of classic Act 1 joke that would have the cast groaning at us as much as we would be; knowing this was stupid and sharing the bemusement with us.
But that ain’t the way the strips laugh at themselves anymore: no, gotta have that Funkyverse Smirk ™ to show the cast loves the joke too and how hilariously amused they are in a smug Pulitzer-deserving way. Dangerous Dan’s trace-esque mashup of the Batmobile and a band hat; surely the funniest gag of the year! /s
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 2 of Jeff’s Problems With Tech
(the computer suddenly bursts into flames, causing Jeff to gmod ragdoll out of frustration)
2/4: Someone doesn’t know how to set up PayPal.
2/5: It’s just phone tag, Jeff. Then again, boomers always turn that into the apocalypse too.