Crankshaft – Page 6 – Son of Stuck Funky

Back To The Future

For the first time in awhile, this week in Crankshaft wasn’t straight-up Funky Winkerbean Act III. It starred Ed Crankshaft and his family, in a staple Crankshaft story: Ed’s barbecues causing a major disaster. But it was a great example of many things that are wrong with Tom Batiuk’s storytelling in general, and invites commentary for that reason. It’s going to be a cavalcade of TBTropes, some old and some new.

The week started with Mindy informing Pete that he’s “not really dressed for a grill-out” at her house. The suggested gear is, of course, protective gear against fire and explosions. Yuk yuk.

How does Pete not already know of Ed’s grilling misadventures? He’s been dating Mindy since 2017, and the “engagement tiger” incident was in 2019. They’ve been on multiple trips together.

On top of that, Ed’s grill-outs have resulted in criminal charges of destroying the earth! You’d think Pete would be aware of that incident. If the earth was destroyed, where would Pete get his comic books?

So What Does It All Mean?

This week, Tom Batiuk gave us a classic Funky Winkerbean story. Also, he posted some nonsense on his blog about Harry and Donna going back in time to play “Defenders” again.

This week’s Crankshaft is once again worthy of comment as an extension of Funky Winkerbean Act III. It gave us a Funkyverse staple: the “young people just starting out” story. Tom Batiuk loves this story, as he loves any story where he can just walk the characters through the procedure again. Even when it doesn’t make sense for the character, as it doesn’t with Pete.

Continue reading “So What Does It All Mean?”

Within 11 Months

The DVD version of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has a 75-minute feature called Within A Minute. Its purpose is to illustrate how much work went into producing one minute of the finished movie. It starts with the statistics: 910 people put 70,441 man-hours into this one minute. Then it shows a huge, three-dimensional chart of the hierarchy of these people. It reminded me of the “code” scene in Wreck-It Ralph.

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A Very Funky Week

Welcome to the second installment of This Week In Act IV. This Crankshaft arc had no characters or overt ideas from act IV. But it was still a cavalcade of everything that sucked about latter-day Funky Winkerbean, and how that suckitude has infected Crankshaft.

Let’s start with Monday’s strip. The previous week was about Ed Crankshaft soliciting Montoni’s to sponsor his softball team. Ed told lame jokes for a week, then it ended with Mindy and Pete at the softball game, meeting the detestable one-armed news reporter Skip. I ended last week’s post by calling this “undue attention from the local media.”

I undersold it. Because now there’s a frickin’ TV reporter at the game! Are they broadcasting live? Is it viewable on my ESPN app, between kabaddi and the New Zealand pro basketball league? Can I bet on Summer Silver Senior Slowpitch Softball Society games on DraftKings? Did they really need two media outlets to report on a 93-year-old softball player turning 94? It’s like something out of The Onion. “Local Old Man Is Now Slightly Older.” How much media coverage does this small town need? Especially when 60% of residents are content creators themselves?

The Story About May 4 Was The Best Funkyverse Arc in 25 Years. Here’s Why It’s Awful Anyway.

Last week, Tom Batiuk’s blog re-ran his five-week story on the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings. This is probably his strongest story after Act I, and is well-regarded even by readers of this blog. It has a few problems that are too big to ignore, though.