Tag: Crankshaft

Happy 107th Birthday, Ed Crankshaft!

We interrupt the Crankshaft awards to bring you a breaking story in Major League Baseball!

Bill Mazeroski died this weekend. Mazeroski is a Baseball Hall of Fame member, who hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. It was the first ever World Series-winning home run. This has only been done one other time, by Joe Carter in 1993.

Why are we talking about baseball necrology? Because former Major League Baseball player Johnny Lucadello was born on February 22, 1919. Lucadello was also the youngest player on the 1940 Toledo Mud Hens, the real-life baseball team which Ed Crankshaft canonically also played for. (Ed also has a real-life retired jersey number.)

For that reason, I view today as Ed’s birthday, because it’s the latest possible day he could have been born. And I think Lillian McKenzie was in his high school class – because this is the Funkyverse – which makes her well over 100 as well.

Ed’s baseball career, with its early integration experiences, and winter ball in pre-revolution Cuba, fits this time frame. So does Lillian, Lucy, and Eugene being young adults whose lives were interrupted by World War II. So does Pam’s life, centered around the 1970 Kent State shootings. Ed would have been about 30 at her birth.

I want to stress that 107 is the youngest Ed Crankshaft could reasonably be in 2026. The average player in the 1940 American Association, and on the Mud Hens themselves, wasn’t 21 years old: he was 27. If Ed was 27 in 1940, he’d be 113 today. Which would almost make him the world’s oldest man. (Unless Walt Wallet from Gasoline Alley also counts.)

We can’t move Ed’s birthday much later than 1919, because then he’d be too young to be drafted into the military. What if we gave him Joe Nuxhall’s backstory (pitched briefly in the majors at age 15, making Ed’s birth year 1925)? Ed would be way too young to join the military legally, much less be drafted.

Which would have made Crankshaft extremely likely to reach the major leagues, no matter how illiterate he was. MLB teams in 1942-1945 were eager to employ players who weren’t subject to being drafted. And since some were already missing, the standards were lower. A player too young to be drafted, who was also good enough to pitch in AA (the top minor league level at the time), would have been given plenty of chances. Especially on a mediocre team, which the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians (both implied to be the Mud Hens’ parent club at some point) and St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles, who was Toledo’s real-life parent club in 1940) were.

The optimal birth year seems to be 1922. That would make Ed 20 in 1942, which is the youngest that would have been drafted that year. So maybe he’s only 104 now. Which would also make him extremely young for AA baseball, and by definition a phenom. But let’s solve one problem at a time here.

So how many inches from reality is Ed Crankshaft’s life?

Out of 35 players on the real-life 1940 Toledo Mud Hens, only two lived to see 2003! They were Jake Wade (1912-2006) and Harry Bailey (1918-2014). Six others made it to the 21st century: Armond Payton (1917-2000), Daniel Scudder (1916-2000), Tommy Criscola (1915-2001), Lucadello (died in 2001), Hal Spindel (1913-2002), and Robert Jones (1916-2002). A ninth player, Harry Kimberlin, died on December 31, 1999 at age 90. Kimberlin was the last former Major League Baseball player to die in the 20th century.

Bill Mazeroski’s famous home run was in 1960. He was born in 1936. He was 89 when he died this year. Ed Crankshaft is 15-20 years older than all of those standards. Look at the photos of Harry Kimberlin and João Marinho Neto in the above links. That is what a very old man looks like.

On top of that, Ed is absurdly active. He still works as a bus driver, bowls regularly, goes out to eat with friends, portrays Santa Claus, sings in a choir, gets into arguments with cartoonists, goes to the fair, has traveled to New York, Winnipeg and Columbus, performs frequent physical feats, and builds an AI-powered smart garden. Very few people on earth have the expertise to build an AI-powered smart garden. And few centenarians on earth have the ability to do any of the other things.

So, Ed, since you like gardening so much, why don’t you dig a 6′ x 3′ x 3′ rectangular hole in the ground? I’m sure we’ll find something useful to do with it. Oops, I mean “you’ll” find something useful to do with it. Happy birthday and many more!

We now return you to the Crankshaft awards!

Over Yonder

Voting for the 2025 Crankshaft Award is Still Open!

The Funkyverse has a new corporate sponsor: Yondr!

I previously called this kind of product placement “egola.” It’s like plugola or payola, except that you get paid in self-actualization instead of money. Usually, these are about Tom Batiuk’s weird fandoms (The Phantom Empire, Chad & Jeremy); events that met his ludicrous standards for treating him like a big shot (Ohioana Book Fair, Comic-Con); or both (Winnipeg Blue Bombers, “Montoni’s” pizza).

Yondr doesn’t appear to be any of those things.

Interestingly, Batiuk describes the product correctly. You define a phone-free zone, and instruct visitors to put their phones in the special pouches. The pouches can’t be unlocked until you leave the area, or use the “unlocking base.” You can still hold the phone, hear it, and see it well enough to know if the screen lights up. You can understand why certain institutions, like schools, would use such a thing.

But why would the famously anti-technology Tom Batiuk, fresh off a week of trashing the long-established standard of online payments, portray a technology product in a positive light? Especially one that hasn’t stroked his ego, as far as we know?

I think this image from Wednesday’s strip is the key:

I hid the text, because it’s not important. Look at the child’s face. Compared to the usual faces in the Funkyverse, that child is very upset. This isn’t the devil-may-care smirk or the resigned acceptance we usually see. That is the face of someone in mourning. Even Ed Crankshaft is going above and beyond in this shot. He looks genuinely irritated at this behavior. And unless I’m way off base (which I often am), these are both new drawings.

Why would Tom Batiuk be excited about a product that lets parents take cell phones away from children? Does it maybe… relate to his life experience, somehow? Oh, yes, it does. And we all know how.

This is Tom Batiuk telling the world he’s still upset that his mother tried to take away his comic books. It practically screams “See? See what it’s like when mean grownups take your precious thing away? Let’s see how you enjoy living without your precious phones!” He gets to make that point again, and slam something that didn’t exist before 1991!

And another thing: Ed is totally the wrong character build a Yondr arc around. What Funkyverse character (1) has a job where it’s reasonable to ask children to put their phones away, and (2) demands to be the center of attention at all times? Come on, you know who it is!

The star of Yondr Week should have been Les Moore.

Batiuk pulled Les out of mothballs to make him the star of The Burnings, even though Les almost single-handedly caused the entire problem. So there’s no real obstacle to using him here. Having Les – or at least, a teacher – be the ringleader of the Yondr Enforcement Team makes much more sense than having bus drivers do it.

Using Les in this role would (1) fit his long-running characterization, and (2) poke a little fun at the character, something the Funkyverse desperately needs.

The Funkyverse is full of unsympathetic comedy protagonists, but it doesn’t use them properly. Characters like Les Moore and Ed Crankshaft need to get pushback every once in a while. A week about Yondr is a perfect opportunity to take Les down a peg. Not in an overly mean way, but in a way that tells readers “okay, I get it, this character is a little overbearing sometimes.” And other characters get to acknowledge it too.

But Tom Batiuk is so enamored with his interpretation of Lisa and Les as The Greatest Tragedy In Human History and Her Long-Suffering Heroic Disciple that he’s blind to things like this. But here’s what I’d do:

Monday Panel 1: Principal Nate: “The school board is mandating we use Yondr, which requires students to put their phones in these special pouches during class. We need volunteers to help us with the roll out.” Panel 2: Les, in a group of bored-looking teachers sitting in meeting room chairs, enthusiastically raises his hand. Panel 3: “Okay, I think we all saw that coming. Anybody else?”

Imagine if Les got to deliver the “we have our ways of finding out” line.

It’s not hard to imagine a situation where Les is a little too overzealous about enforcing the rules, or enforces them in selfish ways. And the kids call him out on it. Here’s what I would do with the above panel:

Now that’s a quarter inch from reality.

The Cardinal Really *Was* Lisa

So Tom Batiuk’s version of Calvin’s raccoon ran in the last full week of 2025. And it went like so many other stories do in the Funkyverse:

  1. Poor, innocent, helpless creature gets injured.
  2. One of the Funkyverse’s designated heroes notices.
  3. The designated hero makes a big show out of helping the poor, innocent creature.
  4. The designated hero provides little actual help to the poor, innocent creature, and may even subject it to further injury.
  5. The poor, innocent creature gets worse, for reasons that will not be blamed on the designated hero, even when they probably should be. (Optional: the poor, innocent creature may appear to get better for awhile first.)
  6. Poor, innocent creature dies, having suffered more than they probably needed to.
  7. Designated hero congratulates themselves while smirking. Never once do they ponder their own role in the death of the poor, innocent creature.
  8. Tom Batiuk starts checking his mail for Pulitzer nominations.

This isn’t just the cardinal story we just saw. It’s also Lisa’s story. In some ways, it’s Bull Bushka’s story, Becky’s story, and other pointless tragedies in the Funkyverse. And some of you picked up on this in the comments:

  • “The actual miracle will be surviving with a broken spine.” – pj202718nbca

This is closer to the truth than you’d think. Most bird-window collisions result in the death of the bird, eventually if not immediately. Pam and Jeff made no attempt to ascertain the bird’s injuries, or take it to someone who could treat it. Though to be fair, most people wouldn’t know what to do when presented with injured wildlife. Which was part of the point of the Calvin and Hobbes raccoon story.

Calvin’s mom admits to Calvin that the raccoon looks badly injured. She also admits to Hobbes that she doesn’t really know how to help.. This concept was explored more in the story where Hobbes went missing after a break-in at the family’s home. But it’s nice to see it acknowledged here… because it’s something you’ll never, ever see in Funky Winkerbean. Characters like Jeff Murdoch and Les Moore are not allowed to acknowledge their own mistakes, must less admit them. Even when their mistakes are blatantly obvious to readers.

  • “I had predicted a ‘Christmas miracle’ with the bird getting miraculously better on Thursday. But it actually got better on Friday, albeit with the ‘Christmas miracle’ as the actual punchline.” – Green Luthor

This speaks to a huge problem in Tom Batiuk’s writing, and that is: his attempts at humor, and even ordinary banter, undermine the seriousness of the situation. Pam and Jeff stored the injured cardinal in an oven warmer when any box would have worked, which made it look like they were planning to cook it. The partial first week of 2026 has been a celebration of football helmets, after a football helmet was the symbol of Bull Bushka’s stupid death and his even more stupid life. And we saw “costs an arm and a leg” jokes in CBH’s reposted Christmas story, thankfully out of earshot of Becky. Has Tom Batiuk never encountered the concept of “too soon“?

The raccoon story has jokes in it, but they’re not at the expense of the injured raccoon. Nor are they at the expense of Calvin’s emotional investment. But this happens quite a bit in the Funkyverse.

Bull Bushka’s CTE death arc started with Linda and Buck Bedlow cracking wise about Bull’s need to do laundry – a common symptom of his condition. Similarly, Mort Winkerbean’s dementia (before it was magically cured off-panel) was played for laughs in a Sunday strip where Funky observed him repeating himself.

Though this doesn’t happen in Lisa’s Story, nosireebob. Lisa’s death is the greatest tragedy in human history, and must be treated with complete seriousness at all times. Everyone in the Funkyverse must adhere to Les Moore’s inscrutable standards of “protecting Lisa.”

  • “I can’t shake the dread that something bad is gonna happen to the cardinal even if yesterday’s strip turned out to be a cop-out.” – csroberto2854

He was right – the cardinal immediately bashed into the window again. Which was played for laughs. Which reinforces all of the above criticisms, and then some:

  1. Relying on ambiguous art to make a joke work. The artwork in the above strip suggests that the cardinal flew through the open window, and then immediately doubled back, as if wanting to return to the house. However, if we assume Rule of Funny is in effect, it’s arguable that the cardinal was just being drawn from the more comedic angle.
  2. Making the joke at the victim’s expense, again. Crankshaft hilariously says “Birds just don’t get glass!” Well, that’s exactly the problem, Ed; birds don’t perceive glass as an obstacle. If they see natural habitat on the other side, they will try to fly straight to it. This feels like mocking blind people for bumping into objects.

    Contrast: Richard Pryor. Richard’s Pryor comedy material was about poverty, racism, broken families, prostitution, gang violence, substance addiction, and other awful things. But he never once trivializes those things, or mocks anyone for being affected by them. That’s how you combine tragedy and comedy effectively: by not letting the comedy undermine the tragedy.
  3. The pervasive gloom of the Funkyverse. We initially see the cardinal recover, which threw off Green Luthor’s mental timeline for how the story would play out. But pj202718nbca turned out to be right: the recovery was a temporary respite, so Batiuk could prop up yet another tragic ending. Even though the tragic ending was going for a laugh this time.
  4. The pervasive indifference and incompetence of the Funkyverse. Which are hard to tell apart, really. Tom Batiuk wants to sell his world of noble, caring, small-town Ohio people. But their actions bely this at every turn. Pam and Jeff ultimately did nothing to help the bird. Ed laughed when it got injured again. Les had little interest in keeping Lisa alive, and great interest in leveraging her death into the writing career he thought was his birthright. Becky didn’t even care about losing her own arm.

    Maybe that’s why Tom Batiuk cured Mort Winkerbean and Harry Dinkle: nobody in Westview was capable of doing it. Or cared enough to try.

Fantasy Football

Happy New Year, everyone!

This week’s Crankshaft, spanning 2025 and 2026, celebrates a time-honored football tradition: Game Helmet Day! every year, football teams update their playbooks between Christmas and New Year’s, and give out game helmets to fans who make the best suggestions! If you get a game helmet, it is customary to wear it to bed the first night…

…in some universe, apparently.

This story is ridiculous. Even by Tom Batiuk’s standards. At least the Westview Scapegoats more or less resembled a high school football team. Even in Act II, when Batiuk was apparently getting ideas from whatever writers’ room at Disney gives us movies like Air Bud.

Writing the description of what’s honest-to-God happening in Crankshaft felt like this:

Read the first paragraph again, but imagine Ren is calmly explaining it to you, in his “the Prozac just kicked in” voice. Game Helmet Day sounds just as silly and random as Yak Shaving Day, doesn’t it?

Because Tom Batiuk giving himself awards isn’t good enough for the Funkyverse anymore. No, no, no: all awards must take the exact form Tom Batiuk requires. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers already gave Ed Crankshaft an official game ball, instead of having him arrested for barging into a secured area. The team can’t just send Crankshaft a letter informing him of their glorious decision to keep using his play! The rules of courtesy on Planet Batiuk require a second team award, even though he already got one! (Needless to say, phone calls or Internet communication are completely out of the question.)

Tom Batiuk’s writing is about as subtle as a 7-year-old’s Christmas list. It also applies to that dumb Batton Thomas interview, which is probably starting up again soon. That story exists because Batiuk is telling the world how he wants to be treated by interviewers. He expects journalists to sit in rapt attention, and let him drone on for hours about whatever boring comic book-related topic he wants. Oh, and you’re paying for his lunch. (On the plus side, it’s just Luigi’s/Montoni’s.)

Note also that the team caved to Crankshaft’s demand. When Ed asked about having his play added to the team playbook, on August 15, 2025, he was told “not in this lifetime,” as if it was an absurd request (which it was). Now he gets a permanent place in the playbook, and a peace offering, as if he were Genghis Khan. Maybe the team is trying to create a harbinger of Ed’s long-overdue death. I don’t blame them for trying.

Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal Cardinal MUSHROOM MUSHROOM

I miss the early days of the Internet. It was devoid of toxic social media, and full of goofy creative stuff. If you’re not familiar with the primitive brainrot the title refers to, you can see it here. (WARNING: It will burrow into your brain like those Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan worms. If you do recognize the title, it probably already has. Sorry about that.)

This week’s cardinal arc reminds me of Badger Badger Badger. There’s a cardinal, and… that’s it. It exists as part of a larger work that defies any narrative sense. It’s practically trying to be a meme.

I know I’ve joked about the cardinal being Lisa’s ghost, and that’s still the favorite on the odds board right now (-500). But now, dragging out Lisa’s corpse for the millionth time seems too straightforward for Tom Batiuk. He seems to be veering into the avant-garde. As evidenced by this week’s Ingmar Bergman coloring. (NOTE: I initially missed that this effect was borrowed from Schindler’s List. Thanks to Y. Knott in the comments.)

I say this because I was baffled by the December 13 strip that ended “Pizza Box Monster as Santa” week. He gets paid by Lillian, shakes her hand, and then this:

What on earth was Tom Batiuk aiming at here?

Yes, that’s the building where this week’s proceedings occurred, but what is the point of sticking it at the end of the story? The second panel, PBM saying “Pizza on earth!”, is the kind of thing Batiuk would normally use for a punchline. It’s almost like he drew this panel and forgot to use it, so he stuck it here.

Sometimes you can end a story just by pulling back and putting it into its larger context. Like in A Streetcar Named Desire (the stage version, not the movie) or Cameron Crowe’s Singles. But that’s not what’s happening here. This isn’t a scene of people wandering around, enjoying Christmas, or anything else that would lend weight to the story. Not that there was much of a story to begin with.

I think Tom Batiuk is trying to mimic visual effects, and heartwarming endings, he’s seen in movies and TV shows. But he has absolutely no idea how to execute them, or why. That’s what I think we’re getting at the end of this week: an ornately staged, but confusing, ending.

UPDATE (December 19): And with this morning’s strip, Batiuk’s true intentions are revealed: