Recently, the comic strip Luann has been irritating me almost as much as the Batton Death March, which begins its 11th week today. Luann‘s tedious story arc is about a “Career Paths” class, which seems to be the only class the title character is taking in her 27th semester of junior college.
I decided to improve both stories, by crashing them into each other.
Text that appears in the standard Crankshaft or Luann font is unedited from the original strip, except for minor rewording, and sometimes being paired with different artwork.
Warning: The parody story text contains lots of foul language.
NOTE: Those are parallelograms, not triangles.
The end.
Son of Stuck Funky 
BJ6000,
That was AWESOME! We need more of this. I never thought I’d say it, but I miss the halcyon days of Les Moore and those simps from FW. If I see one more Batton Thomas aka Tom Batiuk self-flagellation, strip I will puke. Just seeing him and that one-armed creepy reporter (which I just thought of, what kind of infatuation does Bathack have with one-armed people)? makes me want to go out and kick a kitten. FFS.
Also, I noticed on your plaque, with your name, it says you’re from Omaha. Sweet so am I. Well, technically Gretna, but if you live in the area you know what I mean.
Anyways, I love ya’lls work and it always puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step
Bill
Yes, I’ve lived near 40th and Dodge/Blackstone neighborhood for about 15 years.
Removing one-armed Skip from the images was probably my favorite part. It’s amazing how he manages to be just as detestable as Batton.
This is brilliant. Thanks, BJ6K!
Oh, yeah. Inner beauty: a dumb woman’s idea of how to cheer up a homely child
I mean, there’s some truth to it. Most people don’t care as much how you look as long as you’re clean and groomed. They care a heck of a lot more how you make them feel.
Luann makes other people feel bored, nervous, or a wretched combination of both.
What I find most annoying is the entitlement. Instead of the girl next door, she’s a female Nice Guy.
YES. That’s EXACTLY what Luann is. She makes up for her own lack of any positive qualities by inventing this virtue for herself, and acting like it’s everybody else’s fault for not noticing it when it doesn’t exist.
And CBH is also right that, yes, being kind to others is an attractive quality, and people will notice when you do actually have it. The problem is when people don’t actually have it. It becomes self-delusion at best, and a toxic dating approach at worst.
The great big difference is that we’re actively been discouraged from sympathizing with Luann by her creators. They depict a girl with crippling self esteem issues but we’re told she needs to grow up.
I STAND IN A LINE STRETCHING BACK A THOUSAND MILES. BECAUSE I WOULD WALK A THOUSAND MILES TO READ THIS GREATNESS AGAIN.
I’m trying so hard to make these words fit that great Proclaimers song.
This is the greatest mashup ever!
That was awesome!!! Well done, my friend. Well done!
You would think combining Luann and Crankshaft would result in a toxic waste dump of a strip about awful people living cringe-inducingly pointless lives and exchanging excruciating dialogue.
And that’s exactly what happened!
But it’s very, very funny. And the Pluggers cameo was the icing on the cake. On a scale of The Biography of Claude Barlow to Lisa’s Story? This is at least a spinner rack full of Rip Tide, Scuba Cop.
The Pluggers panel is a highlight among an entire post of highlights. Tremendous use of the existing artwork.
Much as we all rightfully despise Batton Thomas and every panel he appears in… we don’t get this brilliance without him. To quote Crankshaft, truly there is a silver lining behind every clod.
I stand in line!
Fabulous. The Luann arc is both boring and stupid (as opposed to Cranky that is stupid and boring). That assignment is something that might be done in high school–in Junior College or University that assignment would involve interviewing professionals in the student’s intended profession.
Coincidence that the jerk in Luann is named Les–or homage?
I’m guessing the gun in Luann being named “Les” is just a coincidence, though that may be because I have difficultly imagining anyone being inspired by anything Batiuk’s done. Honestly, I think they’re both cases of names being chosen for wordplay purposes: “Les Moore” is pretty obvious, and the Luann character is “Lester” and he’s generally an annoying douche, i.e., a “pest”. (If any character from Luann was inspired by Les Moore, it’d probably be bespectacled weenie Gunther.)
You might be onto something. Gunther also has a Black sig ot, but Bets isn’t the doormat that is Cayla
I have to tip my hat for the latest post. Combining the insecure self-centered Luann, the astonishingly self-congratulatory in-strip avatar of Batton Thomas from Crankshaft, and then tossing in a Pluggers cameo for good measure… that’s quite a hat trick.
It takes a special kind of talent to wrangle that particular assortment of comic-strip irritants into something genuinely entertaining. Turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse is not a skill everyone possesses, but you managed it with style.
By the time *Pluggers* wandered onstage, I was mostly admiring the craftsmanship. It’s not every day someone can juggle that much material and make it work.
Well played. Bravo. Posts like this are exactly why I keep coming back to the blog.
Somewhere out there is a line, and we’re all standing on it.
Thanks to everyone for the kind words! I’m glad it was well-received. The story started with the question “what if you really had to interview Batton Thomas, for something that had a clear purpose?” You’d go insane and scream at Batton to get to the point, like Luann did. While he’s chewing your ear off and expecting you to buy him lunch.
I started with “you’re paying, right?”, and the great shot of Luann losing her mind, and wrote towards the middle. The story was basically already written for me, in the form of the actual interview. All I had to was reconstruct Batton’s own life story, and his obliviousness about how much of a self-centered prick he is, while Luann slowly gets exasperated at listening to it. I wish I had more time; I would have made it even more Space Madness-y.
I’m glad everyone liked the Pluggers cameo. That was a lot of fun to make, because that strip annoys me too. There’s only so many jokes you can make about it, but it’s great for one-off purposes like this.
My favorite part was the Ed Crankshaft cameo. I genuinely enjoyed making him the foul-mouthed voice of righteous fury. He’s a strong character, if Tom Batiuk would ever use him correctly.
“Annoying little shit” is exactly what I think happened at Batton’s DC and Marvel interviews. The man had the talent for the job. I just think he was so damned overbearing and full of himself that he turned off anyone who might have given him a shot. And to this day, he has no idea why or how.
The Saalfield Building still stands just south of downtown Akron, but the sign has been removed.