Author: ComicBookHarriet

So sue me, Crankshaft spending a week hiding under his bed was far FAR from the worst arc of 2025. I daresay that I saw a strip or two that might make the 2025 Awards shortlist.

Is it the best week of a comic strip in bed that I’ve ever seen? Not by a long shot. Pastis had this in bag years ago, with a strip so funny and relatable my mom clipped it out and put in on her fridge.

But Crankshaft this week was perhaps better than the worst of the ‘Garfield in Bed’ strips, which are their own dedicated subgenre with decades of history.

1979

1987

But I’ll say this for Garfield recently. The art may be recycled, but the jokes have gotten pretty avant garde.

Maybe like evolution and natural selection redesigning the crab over and over and over…all strips will eventually become Heathcliff.

Expect the Chien recap to spin back up. I just have to reorient myself with our favorite goth queen.

EDIT!!!!

I am editing this to declare that I had NO IDEA when I photoshopped my joke strip that the next arc would be Batton and Skip. I was just trying to think of the most repulsive thing that Cranky could be hiding from.

I swear. I swear on my two foot high stack of The Complete Funky Winkerbean volumes. I had no concious idea what this week would bring.

Hang on real quick. I’m off to pick the next lotto numbers!

We need an experiment to see if this is general precognition, or if I’m just uniquely cursed to foresee the future of Crankshaft.

Sunday saw a repeat of one of Batiuk’s oldest jokes. The ‘One Leg At A Time’ coach speech. He’s been pulling out that old groaner for more than FIFTY YEARS.

Looks like we are finally, FINALLY, at the end of this summer’s Big Blue Bomb. Thank you to everyone who carefully took us through a play by play of the hideous stupidity in the comments. I can’t wait for next year’s edition of “Batiuk Takes a Tax Deductible Vacation,” when Dinkle is inducted into the Grand Ol’ Opry for being the most authentic country music sensation since Lil Nas X.

Continue reading “A Many Feathered Cap”

I went on a little reference search tonight, just as a treat.

First, the Prince Store at Minneapolis/St Paul Airport.

This one may have come from a Batiuk provided reference picture. I found out that the dangly ceiling garlands are how the store looked as of August of last year.

I’m guessing most of the obviously traced stadium panels were similarly from Batiuk’s private stash of vacation photos. But I did manage to pull in some good ol’ Google slop. Some are only possibly the reference.

Some are a shoe-in.

Statue of Louis Riel.

The Provencher Bridge with Cityscape.

And now, for my favorite.

Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea

And last of all, I believe the lady Mountie was supposed to be a cameo of this poor sweet law enforcement officer, who most definitely didn’t deserve the shame.

Boy Mountie looks OLD by comparison. I mean in art style. Guessing he’s pulled from some ancient Ayers arc of yesteryear.

A very wise man once said, “N’interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire une erreur.“

Unfortunately for all of us, he said this in French, which is a language no one speaks but the French, (who are too snooty to translate) and French Canadians (who are somehow even snootier than the French).

I asked Grok what the saying meant and it gave me this.

“Never interrupt Banana Jr. 6000 when he’s on a roll.”

But I cannot stay silent anymore. I am well and truly sick and tired of this disgusting state of affairs going on in Crankshaft right now.

I’m not talking about the shameless pandering to the Canadian Football League, the city of Winnepeg, Princess Auto Stadium, poutine as a food, or the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.

I’m talking about the eponymous so-called protagonist himself, Ed Crankshaft. The old bastard is too damn agreeable these days. It makes me SICK.

For the first week he sat idly by watching Pam and Jeff angst over damaged sports apparel with the disinterested flat affect of a cow watching CSPAN. Barely got a quip out. And since then he’s been all grins and enthusiasm. Even when he’s ‘complaining’ it’s more Mr. Magoo than Misanthropic.

This is what we have now:

And this is what we NEED:

Humor is subjective. But anger is funny. Anger is energy. Anger is passion. Anger is life.

It is what this strip was built on. It’s CRANKshaft, not GOOFstick.

Get rid of this passive, grinning, empty headed dundermuffin, and give me back a Crankshaft with some spite. MAKE CRANKY GRUMPY AGAIN!

And what is up with this best buddies relationship between Cranky and Jeff these days?

Be-ware-of-eve-hill said it well on the last post.

In the old days Crank and Jeff’s relationship was dynamic, fun, and a breeding ground for jokes. Because they couldn’t stand each other and weren’t shy about it.

Jeff and Ed, the blue-collar bus driver and the white collar accountant, they didn’t understand each other, and were brimming with resentment, and yet sometimes found common ground, or had moments of connection.

Was the old relationship a lazy copy of Archie and The Meathead? Maybe. But stock conflict straight from the trope rack is better than this anemic bland bond built of nothing.

So this is my rallying cry! Make Cranky Grumpy Again! And let him go back to hating Jeff just as much as the rest of us do!