Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for May 07, 2023

If Batiuk thinks I’m risking my neck vertebrae to read another day of this, he can talk to my chiropractor!

Dimorphos is about to leave our solar system? That means it won’t be anywhere near earth again. And wasn’t it yesterday we were told it would hit earth in ten thousand years? I almost hope this one drags out another week, just so we can see more of Batiuk’ comic-book science.

Love this. Very funny. This has been your early early morning positive comment!

Why bother with the arrows? This makes no sense no matter what direction you read.

A Word to the Wise Guy Dept.: Evidently, just mentioning the title of a certain men’s publication is grounds for having one’s comment wished to the cornfield. So, be sure to write “Top Floor Luxury Apartment” magazine, instead.

Looks like Ed is taking a trip to Dimorphos.

Outcome: “Journey to the Center of the Earth”

No, not this time. I get dizzy trying to read this sideways. I wish comic strip writers would STOP DOING THIS!

Does Space X need a consultant?

I already called this Cosmic Pool

I wonder if Ed is any good at playing pool

Wait, so… the asteroid is still heading toward Earth… but will also be leaving the solar system? And they can’t get another craft ready in time to intercept it before it leaves the solar system, even though it won’t hit Earth for another ten thousand years…?

So it’s going to leave the solar system yet somehow come back? (It can’t be in an orbit around the sun, or else it would still be part of the solar system.) And there’s not enough time to put up something to intercept it, even though they already hit it with a previous craft (not counting Ed’s grill), and there’s still ten thousand years (i.e., about the entire span of human civilization to date) to do so?

This makes no sense, even by the low, low standards set by the previous strips this week.

I hate it when Batty does these “rotate the page to read it” editions..

I get it. Breathing in hot petroleum vapors eases the pain of getting hit by an asteroid.

Why is this sideways. I can’t read it sideways!!!!

Oh, my, this does not bode well.

Here us the stand alone comic. If you have a browser addon that will rotate images you can use this.

https://assets.amuniversal.com/28e1d740af9b013befa4005056a9545d

Anybody else notice the weird shift of perspective near the bottom of the launch tower (right about the level of the water tower)? Looks like somebody was copy-pasting the latticework and suddenly found themselves with lines not lining up. Rather than going back and changing each of the lines, they just misaligned things below that point and called it a day. Hey, those 1pm tee times are hard to get!

Now it’s just getting dumb. Wait… it started that way.

A newspaper or comic book can easily be turned sideways. But, I’m viewing online. And, at my age, I’m not going to turn my neck sideways or turn my monitor. Neither am I going to save the image, open it with other software, and rotate it. Note that GoComics disables the image save feature, anyway.*

This is a web page. How difficult can it be for GoComics to have an option that allows the image orientation to be specified in the first place? Or, how hard can it be to have something that will allow viewers to change the orientation?

There are workarounds. The point is that GoComics doesn’t want us to save images.

Wow, I called it! Not that it required Nostradamus-like talent to do so. And probably dozens of others did too. Of course the way he wrote it ended up being way more ridiculous than you’d think.

I copied the image then I opened a spreadsheet, the XL one, and pasted the image. Upper middle above the image is a Rotate Image arrow. Mission accomplished.

NASA is smarter than we think….

I hope that NASA installed flame diverters.

Who needs Elon Musk? We have Crankshaft!

Haha! XD

This is what it says:

P1: NASA has announced plans to move the asteroid ‘Dimorphos’ off of its new collision course with the Earth.

P2: NASA wants to move the asteroid away from Earth’s orbit while it’s still in our solar system…

P3: But won’t be able to get another ‘DART’ spacecraft ready in time…

P4: “So alternate plans have been made for what’s being called a ‘Down and Dirty’ launch attempt.”

And the last panel is a pic of Ed preparing to launch another grill into space.