Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for September 06, 2024

Today is a day that I actually laughed at a new Tom Batiuk comic strip for a long time.

All the implications. All the build up. And do we actually see this fire? No.

Can we actually see any part of The Burnings©, Tom? Or is this it? Please tell me that this isn’t it. Come on. Comic strips are a visual medium. You’re an artist. This is your moment. This is your craft and passion on the line here. You’ve been doing this for more than fifty years. And is this it?

Hilarious. What a joke.

Somebody torched the Komix Korner? Well, yeah, I can see why that would inspire worldwide rejoicing and the birth of a new civilization. But on to the questions! Did they nail the Atomik Komics cesspit? Is Wayback Wendy now a thing of the past? Was the fire started by the spontaneous combustion of Dead Skunkhead’s never-washed shirt? Were Batton Thomas and Mopey Pete consumed in the conflagration?

“It was the BOOKSMELLER BOOKSHOP THAT SOLD BOOKS! Boy, what a stench! I’ve smelled better dumpster fires! SO—First time you’ve heard about how you’re going to DIE? In a FIRE?!” (looks at phone) “Well, the mob is here with torches! ADIOS!”

Scraping the bottom of the barrel there, billy! LOL…

Wait, who are these people? Is one of them Crankshaft? Maybe they should have some natural-sounding dialogue in which one tells the other who that other person is (as one does). How else are we supposed to know who anyone is?

Why’s Skip the Dip so HAPPY about this? “Elaborate! Maybe some of your customers died just now! Maybe friends and family!” (He’s called Skip the Dip in Westview, because the pinned-up sleeve is fake. He has a left arm, and he’s a pickpocket. “I ask insensitive questions, then loot them while they gasp in shock! Made me a FORTUNE on 9/11!”)

Elaborate? How does one elaborates sometheeng they is just comes to knows of and not knows any details of? It’s called elaborating?

Yep, Lillian did it hoping to get more customers. But was probably Ed’s grill. To bad the whole town did`it burn, too.

Set on fire eh? Ah it no big deal. It must be them firey but mostly peaceful protesters who is just protesting mostly peacefully.

Yes. Be sure to mention we don’t sell banned books here. That was fake news.

Of all the comics I read, Crankshaft has more comments than likes.

Crankshaft is now become so obscure and irrelevant in his own komix that even sometheeng that is getting burning down by fire is not attributed to him.

“Could you elaborate on that?”

Yes, indeed. With a 20-mule team!

Apparently, she doesn’t know anything… But it looks like Batty’s The Burnings™ have begun!

Comics Curmudgeon has linked here today. The Clever people who think “Your SMelley LOL!” is a killer riposte might want to up their game.

Lefty is on to Lil’s plan to eliminate all the competition and leave her illegal bookstore the sole remaining bookseller on the planet!

It sounds like Les taught Fahrenheit 451 to his students, and then one of them set fire to some books. Too bad he didn’t listen to the school board!

Me, yesterday:

Wanna bet that due to Batty’s Rules Of Writing Number 37 and 62, tomorrow Skippy will tell Lizard Lil all about how an angry mob burned down the BookSmeller store because they were providing a forbidden book to Les’s high school class?

Where’s my award?

This has the makings of a terrific arc. I have an MLS from UNT in Denton. The right to read. Les is about to go where few go anymore and challenge censorship in defense of intellectual freedom. A fire at a bookstore; probably the one where his students were to get their copies of Fahrenheit 451, where firemen start fires. When I was teaching English during my Masters studies, I took a course in Young Adult Literature. One of the books we read was Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. This was early 80s when the biggest censors of the day were the Gablers. The school made me buy back every copy of the book, but let me teach it as an independent reading. Today, The Chocolate War is one of the most censored books in America.

Hey, I like this turn. I didn’t know that Les could be such an effective teacher.

There is a big lawsuit that has been filed to fight the censorship of so many major works of literature. Judy Blume is really big news these days.

How can she elaborate? She didn’t know about it.

Arson the end result of banning books.

“Oh my!” is a suitable comment.

How old will I be when I see Crankshaft again???

Ah, now it’s time for the Big Question: recalling how Funky Winkerbean ended, with all of humanity as one nation (or something like that), we must ask: how does Dead St. Lisa’s Story figure into arc?

Eventually, we learn the fire was in fact a classic case of spontaneous combustion caused by a deed rubbing up against an insurance policy. Authorities get suspicious when they notice that just a month ago, the owner took out a policy including double indemnity in the event the store is torched by a mob trying to censor high school reading lists. Under intense interrogation by police, the owner confesses and says the store was deeply in debt and failing badly. “I guess ‘Village Book Smeller’ wasn’t the best name for a bookstore,” he says tearfully. “It’s almost as bad as choosing ‘Funky Winkerbean’ for a serious comic strip!”

Books are not rated “R” or “TV-14”, etc., and even if they were, Fahrenheit 451 would be permitted to be sold to high-school age readers. The kids in Les’s class would be perfectly free to buy it at the BookSmeller store, and if one did, no one would raise a stink about it. What has in some cases raised a stink is parents’ not wanting the book to be a part of their kids’ school experience, especially being made to read it. So why did the yahoos over in Westview put the torch to the bookstore? They should have burned down Les’ house!!!

Ohio Burnng!

Wow, even the kindly old gent from the local newspaper is trying to muckrake. The days of Walter Cronkite and Huntley/Brinkley are long gone. MSM are basically shills for the DNC.

it says on goggle maps that the booksmeller was the store in the middle flanked by big rhino propane and yankee candle

Sure thing, I ran over there on my spindly old legs, set the place on fire, and then ran back, on those same spindly legs, so that no one noticed. You caught me.

Check for lithium batteries

From today’s Comics Curmudgeon:

Apparently the Burnings referenced in the final days of Funky Winkerbean started when Les Moore bought copies of the banned Fahrenheit 451 for “Booksmellers” to give away to his students. Pretty on-brand that the insufferable Les triggered a civilization-ending apocalypse! Pretty efficient of a censor-arsonist to target bookstores: “Eh, choosing’s hard; I’ll just burn all the books!” And pretty surprising that Lillian’s walkup firetrap survived the blazes.

Or is it? We know Lillian is a spiteful harridan who ruined sister Lucy’s love life out of petty envy, and left her to die alone in hospice care. Is it really beyond her to torch competitors, the [redacted]s, so she can maybe sell a few [darn] books once in a while? Don’t dig too deep, Skip Townes, you may not like what you find!

This all makes total sense. “This book is not approved to be taught.” “Well I’m still going to teach it and will just tell the kids where they can get a copy that I paid for.” Parents find out and BURN DOWN THE BOOKSTORE! Happens all the time.

Said it all …..

Bla bla bla. Talk talk talk. Yak yak yak. Batyuk will drag out the reveal of who burned down the Booksmeller store for days, just like the infamous Linda Lopez-Bushka and Darrin Fairgood letter openings. It’s called writing.

Ah, Batyuk’s infamous “Tell, Don’t Show” has made its way to ‘Crankshaft.’ The comic strip ‘Crankshaft’ has featured exploding grills, crushed, and other assorted calamities mailboxes for decades, but it can’t show one burning building? It can’t show a person or persons starting a fire?

just put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up

Fire caused by Dinky’s unofficial biography hot off the press … Life with a Flaming Majorette

ideological book banning, leading to book burning, and, then to bookstore burning?

I’m sick to death of Skip Rawlings in this strip.

Here is a list of the number of strips a character has appeared in Crankshaft since August 4th.

Skip Rawlings: 15, Batton Thomas: 12, Lillian McKenzie: 8, Jeff Murdoch: 7, Pam Murdoch: 6, Les Moore: 6, John Howard: 3, Cayla Moore: 3, Harry Klinghorn: 2, The Eponymous Ed Crankshaft: 2.

Cayla and DeadSkunkHead, two supporting characters, have appeared in more strips than Ed?

Batty has all but turned the strip into Funky Winkerbean. The main character has been reduced to cameo appearances on the occasional Sunday. Why does Batty hate Ed? Why does Batty hate Crankshaft? Why does Batty hate his readers?

Hey, Batty! Change the name of the strip to Rawlings already. We know you’re infatuated with the character (God knows why).

So Skip hops in his car and drives all the way to Centerville to ask Lillian about a fire that happened in Westview? Typical Batiukian lack of logic?

No! I think there is more to this story than that. Skip is clearly infatuated with Lil. It has to be her Dead-Chicken hairstyle. The coke-bottle-bottom glasses. Her craggy gargoyle-like countenance. Her spindly legs. It’s just like William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in Body Heat!

Skip: Are you as turned on as I am?

Lillian: More!

(Passionate kiss and embrace)

How long has it been since the Booksmeller burned down? It has to be at least twelve hours of so, since it’s even when Skip is talking to Lillian in the evening. Hasn’t she learned about now?

They should rename the strip

Nothing like a juicy crime story.

It was the one-armed man that done it!!!