Author: ComicBookHarriet

Crankshaft Awards 2025, Day 2: Seeing Double.

Today’s award had the most nominees, but that’s because I’m an egotistical jackass who wanted to show off my google-fu skills at finding reference material. Deal with it.

You nominees for the….

Dangerous Dan Award for Best Tracing

Black and White Warbler

Captain Ez Confectionary

Greyhound

House Under Construction

Howard Johnson’s

Jason Miller

Mayflower II

Napoleons

Scaffolding

Pickleball

Table Tennis

Twistee Treat

Winnipeg Skyline

Mike O’Shea

And your winner is…

Mike O’Shea!

The head coach for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for the last 12 seasons, Mike O’Shea, has many awards and accolades under his belt: Two Grey Cup Championships as a head coach, two time Annis Stukus Trophy winner for best CFL coach, three Grey Cub Championships a player, CFL Hall of Fame, five time CFL All-Star, and the second best Rookie of the Year of 1993, (the best being the Gary Busey sportsball movie)

And to all this…he can add one more feather to his headdress!

Crankshaft Awards 2025, Day 1: Like Talking to a Brick Wall!

We are pleased to bring you, at last, finally, and without further ado, Crankshaft Awards Week!!!

Sponsored by Yondr!

When reviewing the year 2025, one thing unexpectedly struck me.

Bricks!

We here in the Funkyverse Monitoring Community have long kept notice of panel after panel of lovingly rendered or slavishly copied establishing exterior shot, but the carefully plotted rows of masonry were especially chatty this year, leading me to inaugurate a new award.

Outstanding Performance by a Talking Building

Your Nominees…

Unenthusiastic Bedside Manor

Acquiescing Village Booksmith

Investigative Montoni’s

Reminiscing Dale Evans

Public Address Princess Auto Stadium

Depressed Bus Barn

Revelatory Apartment

Home Shopping Home

Sympathetic St. Spires

And the winner….

THE BUS BARN!

I’m pleased as plaster to affix this award to this storied old building, which has seen, sheltered, and said so much since the very first year of Crankshaft.

And while hours of searching has failed to turn up whatever building you were originally based on, while your graffiti has been painted over, some garage door windows lost, and you’ve been lying about your age for at least 25 years…

You remain iconic. Whether your cornerstone was laid in 1921, 1925, 1927, or 1929. Whether you’re tan or red or covered in snow, you have nothing to be depressed about. Take a bow!

Out in the Cold

If any of you are wondering where the heck the Cranky Awards are, blame the ghost of WP Sullivan who died in my bedroom in 1929. He hexed the boiler in my elderly house causing a total meltdown in subzero temperatures. The freezing cold fallout left my roommate and I playing musical chairs with the circuits on our fuse boxes to see how many heaters we could plug in before the finest electrical wiring provided by the post-war, pre-moon landing era completely exploded.

See children…this…this is called a fuse box. Our ancient ancestors used to slot pennies in these to burn their houses down…

In that shuffle, computers took a back seat to more pedestrian concerns. Like making sure our toilet didn’t freeze.

But now we have a boiler again. And I have a vicious head cold! So Cranky Awards should be appearing shortly!

Just as soon as I get done cuddling my cast iron radiator like a recently resurrected lover.