Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for April 11, 2024

Now watch Ed drop it on the way home. Or maybe Mitch will swallow it.

Usually, they’re packaged many places, but I still get several, probably will need/ find a use for multiple.

“A SCREW? What good is that?! Where’s the stuff that civilization was built on? Like FLASH #177, and his super giant head? THAT”S where I spend my money!" (20 SECONDS AGO) “Oh wait, random child…I was asking about where the bathroom was.” (5 SECONDS FROM NOW, shaking something from pants leg) “Umm…Never mind!”

Been away for a couple of days, and I see we are plunging once more into a “local mom-and-pop institution stops being used by its customers, who then wonder when it goes away” storyline that is supposed to make readers think wistfully about vanishing small businesses, movie theaters, print newspapers, etc. in our own lives. Sorry, not happening.

Also, whoever the friend of Batiuk or Davis is that was the model for the store clerk in today’s strip, I hope you liked it.

They’re both screwed, turns out.

Coincidentally, Ed’s policy of purchasing only one screw at a time is the same reason that Centerville’s oldest continually operating bordello is also going out of business.

All hardware store owners look like that

What’s with this confusing format of the second panel now being “XX seconds earlier”?

Ya knows there a reason why punchlines is always come at the last panel. It no make it any better to screw up the order of the panels.

Crank is as pleased as punch, with his purchase of a single screw. How exciting!

Because you only buy one screw at a time.

I like how Davis has everybody facing one direction so that Ed can look us all in the eye to deliver his ‘punchline’, that he’s emphasizing to us all that, “Yes, I’m Ed Crankshaft, and I’m an a**hole.”

They SELL one screw at a time?

Anyway,if Ed made a large purchase the st ore owner would phone warnings to the neighbors about a disastrous home improvement project that would start soon.

Don’t that beat all!!!!!

This is why I support local, small businesses whenever possible.

hardware humor is a big trend in 2024

P 3: [20 seconds later] – “…one screw? …you can just have it, now get the **** out of here and don’t ever come back, ya’ cheap b*****d….”

These days screws come in packs of 25 or more. The days of a barrel of screws sold by weight is long gone.

Ya’ll remember the day? Our town had Martin’s Lumber Co. and Cramlen’s Hardware. Nothing was sealed in hard air-tight plastic. You could buy just a few nails or screws if that’s what you needed. If a kid went in to ask for one screw about yay long, the clerk would help him find it and probably give it to him no charge. Don’t tell me the old days weren’t better. Sure kids would fight but only until one gave up. The fights didn’t end in stabbing or shooting.

The expression on the man behind the counter says it all about Ed’s question.

Maybe if he didn’t order everything else from the ’Bean’s End’ catalog, the local hardware store wouldn’t be going out of business.

Never seen where I could buy just one, at least at the big box stores. They also seem to come in odd numbers, like a pack of five when you needed six.

Cranky, you’ll need to buy more than one screw at a time to save the hardware store; you’ll need to stop patronizing the online stores for what you can buy (without shipping) in the local stores; you are missing more than one screw.

It’s not a random child. It’s his great grandson!

If we’re seeing the exact same characters from essentially the exact same angle, why are the backgrounds in both panels so drastically different? (I mean, yesterday, one could assume that Ed and Rictus Humonculus had walked past the store in panel 2 and only then saw the sign that the hardware store was closing in panel 1, so it at least made some sense. But here… even if we assume they moved to a different part of the store… WHY would you structure the comic like that? Especially since Davis recycles at least 90% of the artwork anyway, so it would make more sense to have the same background in both panels.)

That’s what happened to Radio Shack. Both amateur and professional designers would run to Radio Shack for a part they didn’t know they would need. But you can’t pay the rent selling a capacitor or a pack of resistors or an LED. That part might go into a big time project, but that didn’t make any difference to Radio Shack.

It is a shame we are loosing the neighborhood hardware store like ACE and are left with the big box stores. Where else can you buy one screw rather than 19 more I don’t need. I have piles of nuts, bolts, screws, and nails cluttering my workbench but never the one I need.

Seems to be the way of it … A lot of places I loved to shop at ain’t there anymore for the same reason depicted here … “Interesting times”, eh?

Unfortunately we have reached a point where this is becoming increasingly inevitable. Previously the big boxes and malls were killing the downtown stores. Now even the big stores carry limited selections with many options available only online. Used to have a large grocery store downtown within walking distance was convenient and enjoyable walk . Then a new store was built at a mall at other end of town. Yes it is newer and bigger, i would not say better and more convenient. Of course the mall continues to grow so they are serving the larger community which I understand. Meanwhile the corporation is willing to allow the old store to sit vacant, decay and become an eyesore rather than allow someone to use a prime downtown retail space to become their competition.