Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for October 16, 2023

“Hey! What’s with the gray hair and jowls? Yesterday you were blond and young!”“Yesterday I didn’t have to watch Crank TV!”

And we’re off and running…….

HIS Eagle Will Soon Soar Again! One Nation Under GOD! GOD Bless America!

And you’re not watching the grill when Ed lights it. oh, wait, they have Lillian watching him for that.

I guess it’s just me, but “And now, here is the part where I may or may not tell a joke, sometime in the future!” just really isn’t funny.

“No, fire department person, I do NOT know why the chicken wanted to do that! Please take all week to tell me!”

At some point early on, the fire department would probably start charging Crankshaft for their responses to the endless fires he sets. His homeowner’s fire insurance premium would skyrocket to the point where he could no longer afford coverage. Once he injures someone or damages a neighbor’s property it’s likely he would be arrested and, most likely, held for involuntary psychiatric observation, followed by a hearing to have him committed. None of this would be funny but it would all be fun to see.

After so many years of this it finally dawned on me: there’s nothing funny about fire.

Lock him up!

…..an ounce of prevention………..

Just the fireplace? The way Ed seems to set things on fire, blow things up, you’d think that there would be cameras all over Pam’s house.

Let’s see, Ed regularly starts chimney fires. He blows up the grill a dozen times a year. He has set a tree on fire, cut one down so it falls on the house, flooded the house from the attic, destroys the gutters most years…

If it’s somehow possible that they have home insurance, their premium must be $250,000/year.

Come on O’Mally, enough is enough. Took your “cranky pill” today I see. My mother always said “If you can’t say something nice…say NOTHING.” You have never even once EVER said anything positive. I can see why you have no friends.

At least a week about Ed’s setting fire to things is not a week about comic books. (Unless he burns up his great-grandson’s comic book collection.)

maybe ed should carve a pumpkin with a chainsaw

From “It’s Called Writing: the Batiukverse Guide to Comic Strip Storytelling,” page 103…

The Joke consists of two parts: the humorous Premise and the setup-punchline Delivery. To avoid having one’s High Comic Art mistaken for a Lowbrow Gag, it is essential to omit one or the other of these parts when putting a Joke into the strip.

For instance, consider this Premise: the protagonist has started so many chimney fires that the local fire department has installed a surveillance camera in his living room, so that they can arrive as soon as he strikes a match. Revealing this premise through a Delivery (for example, he finds the camera and eventually traces where its pictures go, possibly considering other humorous possibilities along the way) would turn it into a Gag. This is to be avoided. Instead, a secondary character such as the fire chief should simply state the premise, in as many words as possible.

Some houses shouldn’t have fireplaces.

A chimney fire is probably an indicator that it needs to be cleaned!