Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for May 22, 2024

Hey, all you “Crankshaft” fans out there from the days when this was a comic strip about a curmudgeonly school bus driver…are you enjoying this?

MONDAY: “Hello, is this 1950s tract house where me go? My car sure shrinked!”

TUES: MASON: “Hello, Man! I myself am also me!” DANKLE: “Yes, I am the man for which you look [BIRDS FLY OUT OF HIS MOUTH]” MASON: “Man—you head look diff! What Give?!”

WEDS: MASON: “Man, let me RE-introduce myself, in the 30 seconds since we met! I need—CRAZY MUSIC! MY GOD YOUR HEAD CHANGED SHAPE AGAIN!” (pulls out iPhone 22) “Note to assistant: ACID REAL GOOD THIS TIME!”

THURS: Mason SEES the awful music, SMELLS the melting walls, introduces himself again, is taken away to rehab.

FRI: Cindy gives birth.

So Clod Barlow was the Ed Wood Junior of music? Except for the part where Ed Wood managed to be entertaining in a goofball way?

Mason is actually Richie Rich as an adult.

Masson is looking for eerie, anal, and Inharmonic. A soundtrack that the viewers would hate more and forget or grant pity for the bad production of the film itself.

Is it mandatory for these characters to be boring or what?

So all this low bar Barlow’s myoosic in public domain or he wants to using it and get into legal troubles?

PDQ Barlow?

Was the strip renamed “Dinkle”?

“Yes, the movie is being released in 3 weeks, and it’s totally completed and ready to be distributed. But I, being an actor in the movie, am thinking about reediting the score in the next week. You know, normal stuff.”

“Oh, also, on my way up your driveway I moved the giant clef note on your garage door so it’s off center. Just to be a jerk. I hope you don’t mind.”

Of course, the standard way to find weird music for a blockbuster movie is for an actor to drive cross country three weeks before the premiere and show up unannounced at the house of some mook who wrote a biography of a random 15th century (think Harpsicords in Guardians of the Galaxy people) composer and ask that guy if he happens to know of any weird songs. And then (spoiler alert, I’m sure), hire that guy and his jazz band composed entirely of Benjamin Buttons to drive back across country and record the entire movie score. In three weeks.

Accidents do happen!!!!!!

It’s good to see that PDQ Bach is alive and well, under an assumed name in the funny pages. For those that have never experienced PDQ Bach go to Youtube and search for PDQ Bach – Beethoven Symphony No. 5.

R.I.P. Peter Schickele

With the disappointment I feel in the new direction the cartoonist is taking, I’d like to create a new type of comment. A Random Strip in Crankshaft History. I will obtain a random Crankshaft strip utilizing the GoComic “Random” button. I will comment on the random strip and render a verdict if it is better, IMO, than the present-day offering. I will stop if I ever discover a random comic strip that I judge worse or more offensive than the actual strip of the day. I may purposely leave out details because I want to invite you to read those strips. Constructive comments and critiques are welcome.

Today’s Random Strip in Crankshaft History: Crankshaft from March 9, 2007. In a week-long story arc, Ed is driving the school bus and is trying to avoid an alpha mom in hot pursuit. In the first panel, Ed glances in the rearview mirror and says to himself, “Alpha moms are really tough because they engage in all kinds of sports… but sometimes that can be their downfall.” In the second panel, Ed has a mischievous grin on his face as reaches behind the driver’s seat and grabs a soccer ball. He says, “I’ll try the old soccer ball trick.” In the third panel, Ed tosses the soccer ball out of the driver-side window and says, “Sometimes they revert to form and chase after it.”

Verdict: The random comic strip is part of a week-long story arc where Ed is regaling his fellow drivers at the bus garage with a tale of a close call with an alpha mom chasing his bus. I thought Crankshaft’s method to avoid the alpha mom was funny.

Crankshaft 05/22/2024. In the latest edition of Tom Batiuk’s new title, ‘Dinkle Days’, a fat-faced Dinkle listens as Mason Jarre explains what kind of music he is searching for. Dinkle confirms that Claude Barlow’s craptacular music is just what the doctor ordered. (Lord, grant me strength)

Winner: Random comic. The random comic features Ed. The current strip has Dinkle. Boo. Dinkle. Boo.

Why is Mason asking Harry about Barlow’s music? Yes, Harry is supposed to be a (the) expert on Barlow. But wouldn’t Barlow’s music be in the public domain? And, wouldn’t Mason’s studio have some music expert to help him pick out the tone setting music he wants?

Excellent idea, Masone. The Weird, atonal, and dissonant music will distract the audience from your weird, atonal, and dissonant movie.

Mason Jarre aims for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but ends up with Battlefield Earth.

crankshaft will be back next week hes in practice for a grilloff with ted forth

(e)

red just seated a table of six these two windbags havent done nothing

Why do I see this constant stream of negative comments for this strip? If you don’t like this strip…don’t read it!

Well done Tom and Dan

wait…the movie opens next month and it doesn’t have a music score yet??? cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material a bit on the frenetic and frantic side with interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor utilizing a novel imaging technique known as positron emission tomography and the spontaneous nondenominational conceptions by expansively recontextualizing liminal narratives of colonic hydrotherapy

I want Cranky back!!!!

This week the dialogue in Crankshaft has been forced and repetitive. The artwork, especially Dinkle’s face, has been highly inconsistent.

It reminds me of Adam@Home last week, where Rob Harrell made it appear as if A.I. was drawing and writing the strip while he took some time off. The week’s strips included awkward dialogue and art mistakes, like extra limbs and a lack of symmetry and proportion.

“And I figure it’d be much easier to spend weeks tracking you down and hanging around here than to, you know, hire somebody to compose it in what will probably take a few days at most.”