Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for August 27, 2024

Today’s strip should be benign enough not to ruin anyone’s day.

“What about an editor?”

“HOW DARE YOU BLASPHEME INSIDE A CHURCH!”

We already knew that this arc would be Tom avatars telling Tom avatars how great Tom is, but crimeny. Yeah, Tom, we get it. You’re proud of not having an editor. Those nitpicking editors, always saying “1960s comics? Who cares about this?” “YOU’RE LOOKING AT HIM!” “Um…maybe your readers don’t…?” “You fool! I. AM. TOM!!! NO comic of mine will be cancelled!” Editor: “OK we’re done” (walks away; comic cancelled)

Aww. It DID ruin your day.

Now we know WHY the interweb ….. “crashed” recently!!!

/SHEESH\

“I keep forgetting about the internet.” Yes, of course you do, Lizard Lil. Never mind that it’s been around for the last three decades or more, that you use it to write your own books and promote them and your store, that you have a website and have done podcasts, and so on. You’re just a charming old codger who gets twitterpated at any mention of post-Edison technology. And shouldn’t she have been asking Dinkelberg all these questions the last time he tried palming off a volume of his memoirs on her back in January?

If “benign” has become a synonym for “bland, repetitive and unamusing,” then yes, this is benign.

Sometimes I wish the internet had never been invented.

“What about an adoring public?” ….. “(fume)… As. I. Already. Said….”

Talk about Vanity Press. It’s perfect for someone who’s 99% ego like Dinkle.

Prestige Arc, huh, Batyuk? Two days, two weak jokes. So far this Pulitzer bait is stuck in neutral. Please remind me that I’m supposed to be impressed.

Can we skip Dinkle bombing on open mic night at the improv and get on with the lame pontificating?

Batyuk: “Book banning is bad. M’kay?”

Self publishing and self reading eh. It’s called… You knows what!

Why?

Self everything, that explains why I never heard of the book or him.

By the way, what are you doing tonight, Lillian?

Stale, stagnant, stultifying, stupid.

Uh-oh… if Harry is indeed another author avatar, is Tom telling us that the future of Funky Winkerbean Act IV (I mean, Crankshaft) is as a self-published web comic?

Self made man?

P 4 (Dinkle-Muffin): “…I only had to pay a publishing company $10,000 to get started…”

Yes, Tom, the Internet, where one can self-publish. Persons such as you, who have all these great ideas and such boundless ambition for the comic books that you have wanted to write all your life. The place where you hawk $30 Crankshaft aprons and $40 Crankshaft hats. That place.

You have an audience who will love literally anything you do, you have connections that would allow you to have someone else do all the hard work. The Internet. It’s all there for you. Go for it.

Dinkle is obnoxious. Installment number 7,384 in an endless series.

Thanks, Batty. I think we get it by now.

meanwhile cranky is in cali shrew watching with sammy spotter and then over to the santa roselle pet doctor convention with dr ed and estelle

Can you really SELF PUBLISH hardcover books with professional dust jackets and everything?

He did each one on Shutterfly. They only cost him $84 each. He’s not in this for the money anyway.

He just gave free copies to 8 of the 10 people who might actually buy this book.

Anybody can type out a book on the computer. But putting a good cover on it is the hard part. You know the old saying, “You can tell a book by its cover.”

There is a lot more for you to forget.

Um….where’s, uh…

Harry, the choir is suing you, your agent, and your publisher for defamation of character.

Agent? Publisher? Every writer’s dream.