First of all.. that Sadie Summers breakdown will go down in history as one of, if not THE, greatest introductory series of posts by a new host ever. Narshe…we stand in line!
Been so out of the loop the last couple months I didn’t even clock that the Ohioana Book Festival had been cancelled for 2026. Anyone else hear about this? Any one else comment about this already and I was so gassed out on rotten silage fumes I blocked the memory?
So I guess Batiuk can scratch 40% of his hard cover book sales for the year. What he’ll do with the surplus three volumes of The Complete Funky Winkerbean that he manages to pity sell to footsore festival goers, I have no idea. But I’m sure some door in his home will need propped open sooner or later.
But the strips were already written and pasted together a year in advance, so Ohioana Book Festival 2026 exists only in Crankshaft form.
Channeling my inner Iansdrunkenbeard…
On the family and farm front, my dad is recovering well. To the point I literally had to throw him out of a cattle sorting pen by pointing at the gate and barking ‘GO ON! GIT!’ at him like a misbehaving dog. Weather has been too cold and wet for planting, but the cows and calves are mostly out to pasture.
Son of Stuck Funky 
5/4: This is leading up to something banal.
An excellent subtitle for Crankshaft these days.
As well as for any other syndicated comic strip.
I cannot bring the entire comics page level with Crankshaft. But I’ll agree on the bank of soap strips that sits on the right side of page E7.
Especially Judge Parker.
Also, without new people to immediately take offense to, Batiuk will probably add another Batton Death March thing next year.
RE: Monday 5/4’s ‘Shaft:
Wait a minute…wasn’t septuagenarian Pmm just having hot flashes yesterday? So, I guess “the playground” closes at midnight?
I cannot imagine a week of Pmm and Jff being “frisky” with one another, so I’m hopeful tomorrow might actually feature Ed Crankshaft appearing and uttering some sort of muddled aphorism. You know, for a change.
On another note: obviously the tradition of authors going by two initials and a surname stretches from e.e. cummings and H.P. Lovecraft up to J.K. Rowling and E.L. James, but I’m not familiar with many who initialize their first name only a la “L. McKenzie.” Is that some sort of cutesy eccentricity on Lizard Lil’s part, or is Davis too lazy to try to fit her full name on a book cover?
A lot of authors who are women try to hide that fact by using initials. I think Rowling was one.
It was common for professional men in around 1900 (particularly in England, and to a lesser extent in America) to use their initials in that profession, while using a given name or nickname only amongst friends. Examples include P.G. Wodehouse (known to friends and family as Plum), W.C. Fields (known to friends as Bill), British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith (Herbert or Bertie to his family, but his second wife hated the name Herbert so she called him Henry), A.A. Milne (Alan), H.G. Wells (known as Bertie to his family — incidentally, he was one of Milne’s teachers), T.S. Eliot (Tom), etc. etc.
Women authors wishing to disguise their sex found this very useful. P.L. Travers (author of the Mary Poppins books), S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), C.J. Cherryh (various sci-fi novels), and D.C Fontana (Star Trek) are some of the better known examples. (Mind you, early science fiction author C.L Moore claimed she used initials not to disguise her gender, but to hide the fact from her employer that she was moonlighting as a science fiction author). And Joanne Rowling had no middle name, but signed her work J.K. Rowling after being advised that boys wouldn’t buy books by female authors.
Lillian is hoping folks will think the books are by her late sister Lucy, so they’ll be hated less than they deserve to be.
Authors who used only one initial rather than a first name include B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). E. Nesbit (The Railway Children) and O. Henry (The Gift Of The Magi, The Cisco Kid, etc.) There are also actors A Martinez and K Callan, and musician J Mascis.
Today is also the anniversary of the Kent State shootings. May 4, 1970.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Pam: Jeff, where’s dad?
(meanwhile in Westview, Ed is being chased by Kara Milstrom, Darin Fairgood, Jess Darling, Mooch Myers and The Ghost of Pop Clutch)
5/5: Another day, another muddled aphorism, another complete confusion.
Oh, I GREATLY prefer Crankshaft’s random lame malaprops to Jeff and Pam being frisky with each other. Especially when the day before was Pam having hot flashes.
Same here. What bothers me is the implication that women cannot make out his meaning because X chromosome.
Thanks, Harriet, for the good news about your dad, the update on the book festival, and the parody strips.
I love me some parody strips!
4/6: Because what he’s wearing isn’t also a problem.
I assume the only reason Funky’s trainer survived the transition to Act IV is because Davis was too lazy to create an original character and just pulled the only notable character listed as “Trainer” from Funky Winkerbean.