Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for April 15, 2023

The Hindenburg. Ate so many gaseous food before bed, Crank thought he was going to explode.

So you felt like you were being impaled in your sleep?

Is this the end of “Wordplay Week”? I would like to think so, except that it would mean that we’re now one week nearer to the next “comic book” story arc.

How nice of the ‘Shaft creative team to finally give the strip’s titular “hero” a chance to make his own inane and humorless remark this week.

Mr. Malaprop strikes again.

Big Picture…….

The mind boggles…

I’m tired of making fun of these one-off gags. Can we get back to a story line, so I can make fun of that?

If you do picture that you’ll have it forever- – better not even think about it.

Said no one ever.

So… “Crankshaft” now takes place in the universe of “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” (the book, not the movie), where toons actually spoke in readable word balloons? Because the only way this “pun” makes any sense is in the sense that a sloppily-lettered “LI” looks vaguely like a “U,” thereby permitting Ed to miss-state the standard “BUMP on a log” as “BLIMP on a log.”

Of course, Batiuk has done this before: we all remember the classic strip in which Les, fearing his girlfriend Lisa has been blown up in the terrorist bombing of the local post office, runs down the street screaming, “USA! USA!”

How bizarre, how bizarre…

“I was going to say: “I am trying to picture what life would be like if we just dumped him in a nursing home and never went to see him again.’”

“Oh! My mistake! Imagine that as much as you want!!!”

Ed’s had a good year.

Haha! XD