In Like a Lamb…

Not much to go on for Monday’s Crankshaft, as people in GoComics were guessing, Max and Hannah’s news could be anything from a move to another pregnancy to an official marriage ceremony to make this common-law arrangement religiously blessed. (Bonus points for me if they bring up Covid as a reason they didn’t have a ceremony before)

And bonus points for TrespassersW who guessed yesterday on GoComics.

Love seeing the official Crankshaft comments section popping off like that. It’s the kind of passion and engagement that has Andrews McNeel Universal paying Batiuk the big bucks!

Here in Iowa we were supposed to start off March with 3 inches of snow Sunday night, but instead got nada. The old farmer’s wisdom of my father says that it means the end of March is going to be nasty. In like a lamb, out like a lion.

Speaking of the dramatic juxtaposition of ferocity with helpless infantilism.

Chihuahuas.

In my doggy deep dive of last week for the backstory of Homer II, another pooch popped up. Grandma Rose Murdoch’s pet Chihuahua, Tinkerbelle.

Similar to Homer II, Tinkerbelle’s origin seems to be sometime in the 90’s. The earliest reference I could find was this strip during Crankshaft’s near death experience in Strike Four!.

Grandma Rose staying for a few days was a regular fixture during holidays, and always brought the pocket dog along with for Crankshaft to complaina about.

Tinkerbelle would also have to stay over after Rose had fallen on the ice. Unlike poor Homer chained to his doghouse, Tinkerbelle had the full run of the house.

News alert! Roland/Rolanda wasn’t the first transgender character in the Funkyverse! She was beaten out by decades by a dog who somehow changed pronouns in 2006. Should we chock this up to Batiuk forgetting that he’d once thought it was funny to name a boy dog Tinkerbelle, and regendering it by accident? Probably. Is that what I’m going to do? No. I’m going to imagine that Rose replaced the male Tinkerbelle with an identical but female dog. She seems like the type.

When Rose moved in with Pam and Jeff, Tinkerbelle was also allowed to join the household. She didn’t take kindly to Homer or Pickles, and they didn’t seem too enthused about her either.

Pickles hated her so much that the GoComics coloring monkeys accidently turned him orange.

And boy that first panel’s Pickles looks familiar…

Gotcha Davis!!!

Crankshaft had nothing but disdain for the yappy ankle biter…until one two week arc in 2009.

Did Tinkerbelle’s brave sacrifice mean that Crankshaft would stop hating on the sweet little pupper?

Nope. And Crankshaft’s cold rejection of Tinkerbelle eventually drove the dog to depression.

And finally, in 2010, rumball assisted suicide.

Seriously.

Tinkerbelle’s last appearance is much like Homer’s: ingesting chocolate before disappearing forever.

54 thoughts on “In Like a Lamb…”

  2. As those strips point out, Ohio has timber rattlesnakes and they’re endangered. They’re also only really found, near as I can tell, on the complete opposite end of the state but I guess Batsam wasn’t going to let that get in the way of his cheap attempt at tugging on heartstrings. Of course it could have been a king cobra and or a dimetrodon and it would have been more believable than Les winning a best actress Oscar.

  4. 3/4: Cripes. More bullshit about it not being Pam’s wedding so she has no right to an opinion.

    1. And even if Pam did object, it’s a little late for her to register an opinion! These two have been together for decades; have a 2-to-9-year-old son they created in the back of their own theater; have made multiple stupid-ass career decisions Pam would have been wise to talk them out of; and most importantly, they’re both well into their 40s! This woman does absolutely nothing when What Are You Doing Dad routinely destroys property, kills family pets, puts others in danger, and destroys the family’s finances through his own reckless stupidity. She does nothing when Jeff almost gets himself killed over a stupid 1930s movie serial Tom Batiuk once saw as filler programming in elementary school. When he throws a tantrum over an easily replaceable shirt, she buys him a vacation. She does nothing when her other child Mindy is making an even more stupid marriage decision that it’s not too late to prevent. Now the story is acting like she’s Mom Corleone. Give me a break.

      1. Hannah seems to see her as having personal initiative. She doesn’t realize that she meekly let’s her asshole dad defame the victims of cowardice.

        1. Yeah, I can’t suss out what Batiuk’s woman-bashing point is, except that I’m 100% certain it’s woman-bashing. Pam has zero authority over anything, and a daughter-in-law would quickly realize this. The story seems to be trying to impose some kind of wifely authority over Max, by making him submit to motherly authority for no discernible reason. They’re adults and they can get married if they want to. Meet the new mommy issue, same as the old mommy issue.

          1. Pam’s role has pretty much always been wet blanket, so TB by nature is going to try and find wet blanket setups for her. And it’s 2026, so of course the setup is a long as TB can possibly make it.

            Maybe he’ll subvert our expectations this time, but I doubt it. Of course, if Max and Blonde Woman #328 are planning to have a John Darling-themed wedding or some such baldercrap, I’m siding with a disapproving Pam all day every day.

          3. “Ineffectual wet blanket” isn’t a character type that needs to be written for, and it certainly isn’t one other characters need to defer to. “So how do you think your mom is going to react?” Who fucking cares? She can’t do anything about it anyway! Max and Hannah are grown-ups. They have their own home, business, and child. They can just ignore her and do whatever they want, just like every other character in Pam’s life does at all times. What are even the stakes here?

            And what the hell does “Pam everything her way” even mean? Pam’s defining trait is not being able to influence anyone at all for any reason. She’s No Respect Guy, right down to the line “their role is to suffer to keep the humor rolling, even if the audience finds them sympathetic.” Now all of a sudden we’re supposed to think she’s Mom Corleone. (I like that one.)

            I think there’s something insidious and manipulative about Hannah making Max worry about his mother’s reaction, when there is absolutely zero reason to do so.

            This is one of the more jarring examples of what I called Schrodinger’s continuity. Batiuk’s hatred of his mother is apparently so extreme that he’ll make monsters out of mother characters who’ve done nothing to earn that reputation. At some point, the man just needs help.

          4. I think it goes deeper than just hatred of his mother. There is also the mindless worship of a father who felt threatened by Rosie The Riveter to be considered. How dare his mother not mindlessly respect a GI.

          5. Given that the mommy issue is objecting to being reminded that she’s a non-factor, the ick hath been doubled.

  5. So trying to predict Batty’s plot goes, the obvious one is a Mopetoni’s wedding where we’ll see some old pals (?) return. What could we see?

    • Mopey and Mindy are also getting married so Batty can do one of his beloved double weddings.
    • Mopey and Mindy are also getting married but their ceremony will be at the Valentine “where it all began.”
    • Bio-Dad returns having learned of the Murdochs’ role in sheltering St. Lisa so he’s going to make a “doc” about their kid’s sleazy strip club turned theater.
    • Wally appears sans Rachel; “Things have been tough since the divorce.”
    • Funky appears sans Holly who died suddenly in the intervening four years.
    • A long lost character is pulled out of mothballs, bonus points if it’s a dead one like Livinia.
    • Les somehow ends up married to Butthole Surfer and Centerville Blonde.

    1. Yeah, he’s trying to set up some tortured idea of “heartwarming.” But his overall work is deteriorating so fast that he’s resurrecting long-forgotten pets for stories that don’t even need them. Are we entering the Apartment 3-G era of Crankshaft?

        1. Considering how bad Apartment 3-G got, that’s a big no. If Crankshaft ever got that bad, I’d be urging the syndicates to fire Batiuk for his own good so he can get treatment.

  6. Tinkerbell saved Crankshaft from a deadly rattlesnake bite? “Man’s best friend” my foot!

    1. I thought Tinkerbell died from that snake bite. Why did I misremember that? Is it because that would have been a better story? Are all my incorrect memories of Funky Winkerbean stories based in a subconscious desire to make them suck less?

      1. As I remember it, Tinkerbell almost died from the snakebite. But in the next day’s installment Ed asked all of us readers who believe in bad comic strip stories to clap our hands, and the dog magically got better…or am I thinking of some other Tinkerbell?

        1. I seem to remember some backyard-fence dispute with Max Axelrod where some small yappy dog bought the farm. Am I thinking of a different incident?

  8. 3/5: As I foresaw, she objected to something normal people would take offense to.

    1. Meh. It’s a joke, at least. And if Pam is so goddamned thin-skinned that she objects to being informed second behind a professional they have practical reasons to inform, she can grow up and deal with it. That’s another facet of Crankshaft‘s underlying misogyny: Pam is the only one in the family whose narcissism is ever called out. Today’s strip may be a rare case of a woman being a backpfeiffengesicht nominee.

      And it can’t be ignored that this couple have been together for decades. We thought they WERE married all this time; it’s only Tom Batiuk’s piss-poor writing that even makes this a story. And even if we ignore that, any small-town Boomer parents would be delighted that their children are finally making their aimless, long-term relationships official, not grumbling about it for petty and selfish reasons.

      And look at Jeff with his hand on her shoulder, as if comforting her, like Hal dealing with one of Lois’ crashouts in Malcolm In The Middle. To be fair, she bought him a $2,500 vacation to replace a $30 shirt, so he probably does need to be supportive here.

      No doubt this tortured setup is to make Max and Hannah co-participants in the pizza/comic book/Superhero costume/John Darling/Phantom Empire-themed multiple wedding at Montoni’s that I’m sure is planned.

      1. The key to it all is his worship of his dad. Not dropping everything to appreciatively hover over the sort of brat Willy Wonka subjected to weird punishment as he ate his special cookies and his milk as he dulled his mind with tripe ‘meant’ Mommy didn’t appreciate living in a free country. Daddy and the other old sweats at the VFW said so.

        1. I don’t think Batiuk idolizes his father. I think he’s moved his parents into good cop-bad cop roles, based on how they treated his comic books that one time. Batiuk’s relationship with his father seems more like he only includes him in things so can he exclude his mother from them. I’m definitely on Team Mom at this point.

          1. It’s all about caring if Batiuk looked like a mental patient one late delivery away from a nervous breakdown. Dying of despair because he didn’t know what ass pull Flash was going to use to defeat Rainbow Raider isn’t a good look.

      2. Mopetoni’s and the Valentine will be pseudo-linked as businesses and Masone Jarre will get the brilliant idea to do a little movie about the quaint little town he’s become enamored with that hosts this pizza joint. Les will write the script, Dinkle will write the score, Marianne will play all the women ala Eddie Murphy in The Klumps including Cayla and Keisha.

        1. Well, Summer IS writing that book about Westview that will become Bible II: Electric Boogaloo, so it would only make sense for Mason to turn it into a movie to help spark others to build on it to create a science of behavioral-patterened algorithms that will one day allow us to recognize humanity as our nation or whatever.

      3. If my small town boomer father were playing the role of Crankshaft in today’s strip, his line would be “Married? ‘ Bout damn time!”

  9. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I’m sitting down . . .”

    Um, he can clearly see that you are not, so why would he ask you that?

    Come on, Batty, don’t be so damn lazy.

  10. Considering how easy it would be to just not tell Pam that their tax accountant knows, Max and Watsernaam are clearly and purposefully trolling Pam. They are doing it badly, as you’d expect, but I’d respect the effort if I too was not also concerned about the whereabouts of the candy dish.

    Whenever the candy dish is not in a panel, all the other characters should be asking, “Where’s Grammy’s candy dish?”

    1. Hannah. Max and Hannah. I want to call them Max and Min, but Min(dy) is Max’s sister, not his wife. Which makes sense from a parenting perspective, since parents might give their children thematic names. But it’s dreadful from a storytelling perspective, because gives linking names to two characters that never interact. Min SHOULD be his wife’s name.

      As for the candy dish, there is no candy dish, because that would require a Funkyverse character to care about the needs of any character other than themselves. And that just doesn’t happen. Kid, be happy if your parents fed you today.

      1. He gave Max a thematic name with his sister (Max and Min), but ALSO with his son (Max and Mitch, like “mix and match”). Which makes it doubly apparent that his wife’s name should be Min. But, you know… Batiuk gotta Batiuk.

        1. Which just makes it even more confusing. You can do this kind of thing in storytelling, but the characters have to notice it!

      1. If by that, you mean telling a dead woman that she has no right to an opinion if she’s going to tell him to play outside like a normal person, yes.

        1. The sad thing is…. Batiuk’s entire life has proven that his mother was right. Comic books really did rot his brain. And strips like today’s prove it.

  13. “Yeah we’re only gettin’ married ’cause our accountant says it, like, makes financial sense and junk.”

    Very romantic but what can you expect when someone’s idea of romance is Batman and Robin costumes, Starbuck Jones omnibuses and non-existant Hong Kong trips.

  14. Would it be possible to have a post on this blog that does a deep dive into Max and Hannah’s relationship? At least the highlights, like when they met, started dating, started living together, and had a baby. Mostly, I’m trying to figure out if we were supposed to know that they weren’t already married.

    Thanks!

    1. By my recollection, Max and Hannah’s relationship is one of the least explored in all the Batiukverse. Not necessarily in their number of appearances together, but in depiction of a relationship actually forming. If I am not mistaken, they met at work at the television station and just kind of started being depicted as together without a whole lot said about it by either of them or by other characters in the strip.

      It’s almost as if we’ve been observing the two from the perspective of an aunt or uncle (not an actual one from the strip, of course, the next time I see Chris Crankshaft or Jan Darling interact with their niece or nephew will be the first)… they just kind of show up together like your out-of-town cousin’s boyfriend does at Thanksgiving.

    2. As Aquaman said to the marine biologist, “Your Fish is My Command.”

  15. Re: March 6 Crankshaft.

    Yeah, I’m sure it did make a lot more sense for you two to get married rather than incorporate the Valentine. Mostly because YOU TWO CHUCKLEHEADS DON’T OWN THE PLACE ANYMORE. YOU’RE ONLY (MIS)MANAGING IT FOR MASON. YOU COULDN’T INCORPORATE IT EVEN IF YOU WANTED TO, AND IT WOULDN’T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO YOU IF MASON DID OR NOT.

    *Ahem* Sorry. Did that come across as kind of angry? Because it was supposed to. Does their accountant know they don’t own the place? I mean, he kind of HAS to, right? Did he look at a list of their assets and not notice an entire theater WASN’T THERE? Are they pretending to still own it so they can continue to write off the losses as a form of tax fraud? Did Batiuk forget that they’re not the owners any longer?

    Ah, yeah, that’s probably it.

    1. Of course he forgot. That way, when Pam points out that they don’t, SHE’S the idiot.

    2. Now, now. They may have meant they they could incorporate themselves as a management company, meaning that Mason would employ their company to manage the theatre, rather than employing them as individuals. There could be tax advantages to that, and I even think Batiuk might have an idea about that sort of incorporation, as he uses his own company Batom Comics to copyright his work, which is then licensed for distribution to a syndicator.

      Okay, yes, fine, I agree that that’s far less likely than Batiuk simply forgot who owns the Valentine. Sure. Granted, absolutely. But I mean, “Batiuk forgot” or “Batiuk didn’t care” ultimately explains 90% of his current work. (“Davis didn’t care” explains most of the remaining 10%.) I was just looking to mix things up a little!

  16. Getting married after years of simply living together is what Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford did in 1997 for similar (economic) reasons.

    Mirren, it should be noted, won an Academy Award for “The Queen” (a 2006 picture, which means that she received it in 2007, the year that Lisa Crawford Moore died…hmm…) and did not give it either to Elizabeth II (she would rather have had an iPod, I’m sure) or to Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay (Morgan was nominated for an Oscar, but lost.)

    It’s also what James Joyce and Nora Barnacle did in 1931, after they’d had two children and been together over a quarter of a century.

    Someone whom I suspect Crankshaft has never read wrote this in 1944:

    A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

    — George Bernard Shaw, Everybody’s Political What’s What

    Like Goethe for Sherlock Holmes, Shaw is always pithy, certainly pithier than Ed.

  17. Yesterday’s Crankshaft

    (Pam suddenly killbinds out of shock)

    Today’s Crankfuckery

    Max: Speaking of marriage….When is Mindy’s wedding gonna happen? It’s been almost 3 years since she proposed to Pete.

    1. But three years in the past is the same as seven years in the future, so it hasn’t happened yet! Timemop! The Elegant Solution™!

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