Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for August 25, 2023

This strip answers the question "Which came first, the Crank Canadian wildfires strips, or these Lamer Ones? I have NO idea what the punchline means, but I know that it’s not really football season until tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the Arcamax “Spock Has A Beard” Crankiverse, Ed admits he cooks his burgers over rotting food and burning tires. No…he really does.

I can run a forty, I think

How many rest stops am I allowed?

Dan Davis: “And this strip goes out to all of you OnlyFans who linked to my ‘Bored Middle-Aged Man Wearing White Tube Socks’ fetishists page!”

Must be Bob Uecker as the announcer.

4-ever? OK, not too bad. The usual snark is "They timed him with a sundial?

That chipped corner on the TV bugs the heII out Crank every time he watches.

Two zombies, sharing their stench.

So Jefferson is a “hands” receiver, like Tom Waddle, ex-Chicago Bear, who could grab, and, hang on to everything he could catch.

4 ever is a long time…….trying to say he is slow in a nice way.

Who knew Henny Youngman was a Football fan?

Those two look like they’re in a coma. Some effect of the massive hairball they’re sitting in?

Huh?

Something is lost in the translation………

how do you know there not watching Canadian league football ?

So let me speculate for a bit here:

If we assume that Arcamax is running the strips that Batiuk actually intended for this week, then perhaps GoComics found the “out-of-control wildfires are funny” strips to be in bad taste and simply ran the next week of comics (this assumes that GC re-dated all the comics, which does seem problematic—but ignore that). This would explain the issue of a football strip one week ahead of football season. It would also mean that (assuming the wildfire arc is only one week long) that Arcamax on Monday will be posting the strip that GC posted this past Monday.

So when do they get back in sync? Perhaps the editors at GC are busily finding a week of re-run strips to run next week. That would do it. But the difficulty there is that GC does not have a big archive of strips to choose from. While CShaft has been around for ages, GC has only had it for, what, less than a year? But it is not a workable solution for GC to constantly be one week ahead. If nothing else, “holiday” strips would stick out like a sore thumb.

Of course, GC could just simply re-run this past week of strips next week. They have all been pretty forgettable, so great harm would be done by instantly re-printing them.

There’s a completely different Crankshaft arc the last few days on Arcamax. Can anyone explain?

Andy Fantuz/Westin Dressler type. Not the fastest guy, but can get open and has good YAC.

This strip becomes funnier if one views Panel 2 literally, as if a football player in full helmet and pads is part of the broadcast team and is raising his arms to yell the statement.

Haha! XD