Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for March 23, 2025

Your Aunt Sophistry had two glass eyes, didn’t she? Now did she remember to pat you on the head for coloring inside the lines?

It looks like you were using the 16-count Crayola box, Tom…er, Batton. That means you could have gone with red-orange, red-violet, blue-green, or blue-violet along with the traditional red and blue…or you could have suggested that Aunt Sophie spring for the 64-crayon box to encourage your “creativity.”

In other news…GREAT KRYPTON, IS THIS MALARKEY STILL GOING ON!? And in the meantime, poor Ed is coming up with hilarious “twisted aphorisms” in the last panel and we can’t hear them!

By the by, did anyone notice that in last Thursday’s strip young Batton’s first comic book purchased was a 1955 “Tom Corbett” issue, but in the strip two days earlier his Saalfield Superman coloring book was from 1940?

IS THIS ARC EVER GOING TO END? WILL WE EVER SEE CRANKY AGAIN?

I never knew how funny a joke about crayons could be until today

“Then my auntie said ‘YOU ATE THOSE CRAYONS AGAIN, DIDN’T YOU?’ I said ‘murrrph.’ My tongue look like da FLASH! Then, she made me eat pumpernickel. Then auntie say, TOMMY WIN PULITZER!”

So the moral of the story is that he was really not very creative at all? Yeah, okay. That tracks.

Poor Crankyshaft now a background character in his own komix.

Hey! Look at that! Ed got a cameo spot as an extra in his own strip! Maybe Batty should bring back F.W. and let Ed talk about all his years pitching for the Mudhens and his WW II experiences. It would make for much better content.

there’s Crank!!! eventually he’ll have a speaking roll

“And that’s when I learned how easy it is to fake ‘creativity,’ a lesson I’ve followed ever since.”

did anyone get to read the comment yesterday which got deleted that tom was a hero for following his dream and everyone who doesnt like him is a failure

hey skips ears are back to normal size today !!!!!

Don’t believe Crank is interested!!!…..at lest he is in the picture!!!!

This is disgusting ;)

Ol’ One Arm is rising to leave in the middle of his story. He feels the same as the rest of us!

Credit where it’s due: Dangerous Dan put a little something extra into that final panel. It’s not easy to draw a smirk under a full beard, but Davis pulls it off. Good job!

Cranky just left a comment. lol

Apparently there is only one story line now to this comic. the BORING ONE!!

A week drinking coffee. No wonder Skip needs to use the washroom.

That is not Crankshaft & Company in the final panel. It’s a mural painted on the wall to make it look like Stale Evans has other customers.

Maybe she’s color blind.

This freakin’ goofball sure remembers a lot of random stuff from his special childhood.

I wish I had an entire Air Force Wing of B2 Bombers…. so I could drop hundreds of thousands of pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs right in top of Dale Evans and the surrounding Centerville…. I’d make the firebombing of Dresden look like a backyard bonfire…

This fascinating story will add to the excitement of reading the epic, 12 part story in the Sentinel.

I think it’s pretty lame that Batiuk is fulfilling his “Ed must appear in at least 30% of the strips” requirement by sticking him in the background in one panel.

Well, green has blue IN it. And purple has red IN it.

Hey, old farts! Wave and smile as your daddy goes by.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

My interest gave out quicker than his crayons.

But wait! If you look closely Cranky and his guys are in the booth in the last frame. What a creative way to include them but not really!

It’s too bad that GoComics does not require people to use their legal names. There are lots of very judgmental people who post comments here. I say, “If you hate a comic strip, don’t read it and post hateful comments.”

“And then there was the time I tried to light every match in a big box of kitchen matches, but I couldn’t make any of them burn! They just lay there all over the living room floor! Mommy came in and congratulated me for not setting the house on fire again!”

Yeah, that’s nice.

Hey, there’s Cranky!! :D :D

Hey,leave that poor lion alone!!