ComicBookHarriet

Everyone asks, “Where’s Crankshaft?” No one asks, “How’s Crankshaft?”

I hope all the snarkers out in Nitpickerville are keeping safe and warm. It got juuuuust toasty enough, (20 Freedom Units on the thermometer,) for my dad and brother and I to go wading through two foot deep drifts to put up a stretch of electric fence.

*Not pictured, Night King, tauntaun, White Witch, Snowpiercer.*

Fellow fine blogger, MopMan had a really good question on the last post.

And it’s a very valid line of inquiry. So, for all your edification, of the 206 strips that Ed appeared in, there were 59 where he didn’t have any dialogue. That sounds like a lot, but it’s rather deceiving, as in many of these strips Cranky was still very much the focus. I broke down Cranky’s silent strips as follows.

By The Numbers

Snowmageddon has hammered the farm. Heck, it’s hammered the whole country. Working at the gas station yesterday I had a steady stream of opinions from popsicle people of all ages on when winter was last this brutally cold and massively snowy all at once. We’ve got snowpiles at the end of alleys that keep climbing higher and higher like a Midwest mountain range of misery.

Had a mom saying her kids were sobbing in frustration looking at those tantalizing peaks from their windows, but stuck inside because of how ass-clenchingly arctic the temperature was.

So Cranky Awards season is, unfortunately, delayed. But between thawing cattle waterers and shoveling my way to the gas station, I did manage to whip up the spreadsheety goodness I know some of you crave.

Named Characters in Crankshaft in 2023, by order of appearance.

Slipping Away.

Apologies that the Cranky Awards are late, but Snowmageddon has hit the Midwest.

I hope everyone has been enjoying what seems will be an entire week of Crankshaft lying prone on the sidewalk while zoomers galk at him.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Literally. Though this time the role of Pam was played by the Generic Long Faced Youth.

We used to get hilarious strips of old people slipping and falling on the ice more often, when Rose Murdoch was still alive. For example, back in 2008, when Rose was still living alone in a house based on Batiuk’s childhood home.

The Magic of the Holidays

While I’m undecking my own halls, and putting up with an endless series of Jeff smirks instead, thought I’d give you guys just a little arty stealy nonsense to tide you guys over. Happy Epiphany!

Copy-Pasta

I’m in deep admiration of all the insane comments you guys here and on other platforms have shoveled out to shield us from the madness that is ‘Pete and Mindy Take Montoni’s’. While our gallant Ducky wonders if we’re reaching unsnarkable levels, I feel like this is a fascinating case study in how far the storytelling in the Funkyverse has fallen.