First of all, I want Banana Jr. 6000 to take a big bow. He very politely asked if he could interrupt the ceremony to celebrate Crankshaft’s fictional birthday, and I was pleased as punch to put things on pause for a couple days.
I have a very weird and very personal perspective on Crankshaft being a permanently 65-75 year old-ish WWII veteran born in the 20’s. I selfishly want to keep it. Because that puts Cranky and his cohort in the same generation as my grandparents and I want to live in a fantasy world where they lived forever as the greying but still active pillars of my childhood.
My affection for Crankshaft, as a character, in spite of his creator, is born from how I can see myself in Pam and Mindy (horror, I know) and see in Ed echoes of my own emotionally constipated, obstinate, and odd, dad and grandpa.
It’s a very personal bias that I’m not going to hide or apologize for and I don’t at all expect everyone to share.
But it does mean it’s easy enough to find a handful of genuinely funny Crankshaft strips every year. Even this year. Which kinda sucked.
Your nominees for…
The Best Crankshaft Strip of 2025
Suave for Men
May the Fourth Mayflower Be With You
Chiropractic Cosmic Irony
Going Nutmeg
Famous Last Words
Don’t We All
Acer Insomniatias
Who Counsels the Counselor?
And the winner of the Best Crankshaft Strip of 2025…
Acer Insomniatias
Wait. No. That’s the best Crankshaft Strip of 2017!
No! That’s the best Crankshaft strip of 2004!
Darn, so the best joke was recycled. Eh, I’ll still give it a pass. For me the statute of limitations on recycled jokes for a long running comic strip is once every decade or so.
Still, I can’t believe Famous Last Words did so poorly! That one was far and away my favorite. But once again, my bias is showing.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Chiropractic Cosmic Irony” was the winner for me, although it’s a pretty thin field. “Suave For Men” came in second.
The 2017 version of the last-leaf-on-the-tree gag was probably its strongest iteration. Not that the gag is that good — it’s the drawing of Crankshaft himself, looking like a supremely irritated Charles Dickens villain, that really brings home the laugh. “Last Leaf: 2026 Edition” didn’t have anywhere near that same feel.
I honestly thought most of them were pretty good. I voted for Mayflower, because that was the one I geniunely reacted to the best when I first saw it. I liked the Act I-style absurdity of it. For a brief moment, it brought me back to the Funky Winkerbean I used to enjoy many years ago.
My toughest voting decision was passing on Suave For Men, because Ed is just so darned cute in that one. He looks like a kewpie doll.
Famous Last Words is pretty good too, though it would be nice if it was part of an actual story, like the “Ed forgets to water Lillian’s plants” sub-plot of the Lucy Dies arc.
2/24: And here we go with the whining about ownership and being bullied by the publishers.
Hey, have you noticed what Batton Thomas never talks about? Drawing a comic strip.
Thr one thing people might be interested in is the one thing it would never occur to him to talk about.
On the plus side, we get Davis tracing an earlier drawing of Skip holding a handheld recording device and replacing the device with a slice of pizza held as awkwardly as possible.
An early award contending panel, I would think.
both Yesterday’s and Today’s Crankfuckery
Day ???? of The Interview from HFIL, 2025 Edition
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU (Batton Thomas) TALKING ABOUT
My version of Acer Insomnitas:
CBH, I’m with you sister. I actually like Crankshaft. It’s not always funny, but it’s rarely preachy like FW turned out to be. And some of his strips, especially if Ed is in them, are funny. The shampoo volumizer and pumpkin spice ones were actually funny and made me chuckle. The mattress one was as well, even if it has been used before.
I think we all need to thank are lucky stars, that Crankshaft hasn’t gone the way of talking down to us, like FW.
If we could just kill off all the comic book self flaggelation with skip and Batton we’d be set.
Recycling gags? Batiuk will soon receive a stern Cease and Desist letter from Little Daddy Jef Keane.