Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for September 04, 2024

When is this crap going to end?

Yeah, Les, but a snake gave her the idea. Looked in a mirror lately?

Wonder if Cranky drove these kids to school?

“BOOK…SMELLER!” Good thing Tom’s treating this topic with respect. This can’t get any weirder—Did he say “EVE”?!

I love kids that catch on quick

Tomorrow: “Wait, NONE of you has the book?”

“We said we weren’t going to go there, did you think we were speaking in code or something?”

TLDR;

Or a good place to discuss the book after school hours is Montoni’s Pizza

Even more Funkification of the Crank.

And next week we will not be discussing chapters 1 – 5.

Can we please get back to exploding grills and mailbox destruction?!!!

Yep, the comics syndicate said that we could no longer have Funky Winkerbean, and that’s made us want it even more!

What? You say we don’t???

The Burning will not be the mass destruction of books, but Creepy Les’s sneaky and vengeful way of sticking it to The Man by teaching his students. Whatta Burn!

Meanwhile over in Centerville 52 cars are backed up behind Cranky’s bus. Ed looks in the review mirror and chuckles heh heh “I think it’s a new record.”

Pssst, Skippy… I got your next headline here: “HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS SMOTHERED UNDER WORD ZEPPELINS!”

What a load of crap! There is a push to limit the access of children to adult themes until they are older and more mature. The only ones who would desire to ban Fahrenheit 451 would be the statists.

Apophasis city!

i bet 4 out 5 doctors dont recommend farhenheit 451

Tomorrow, after a few students squeal to their parents, Les gets called in to speak to the school board to corroborate his statements of how he told a class full of students where they could get a book banned by the school district for free.

Where the story goes from here…

The kids buy copies of F451 at the BookSmeller store. Other than a reek of limburger from the cheese shop that used to occupy the space (hence the store’s name), nothing out of the ordinary happens.

Parents observe their kids reading this classic novel that they, too, read in high school and smile approvingly. Some say, “it’s been too long since I read a good book; I wonder what’s new,” and set off to the BookSmeller to remedy this.

When they arrive, they are confronted with a huge window display of Dead St. Lisa’s Story: the Three Volume Set (with DVD of the movie included). After they read a couple pages, The Burnings begin.

P 1: Smirking girl sure is clever!

Bravo! Great stuff!

I miss Crankshaft!!!!!

Tomorrow he’s before the school board. “Whatever your name is, we’re going to have to let you go.” Well, I’m not sorry for encouraging the kids to read that book." “Book, what book? We’re not here about a book. You’re fired for having an affair with your secretary. We’ve notified your wife.”

Les, and, Ms. Moore’s observation makes a good argument for sex education in schools. You withhold information from teens, they’re so curious about what they’re not being told, they go out and do it, with consequences that the solutions to, drive certain politicians mad.

I remember a class the teacher had us read “Catcher in the Rye”. That was back in the early 70s.

Those kids are going to be in for a surprise when they get to the Village BookSmeller and discover that after his conversation with Les yesterday, Princip’l Nate called the store, canceled Les’s order, and had all the copies returned to the warehouse.

An apple a day keeps the censors away

In 1956,Bette Davis did a movie about library censorship—-not one of her best,though

The balloons of words fill up 90% of the panels….to get acute punch line…………..where is Crankshaft……looking for Eve!

Enough of this Liberal BS

Batty forgot he ended this strip…

I wonder if “Broome Street” is a nod to John Broome, who wrote for DC Comics back in the 1960s?

Oh. So now it’s a horror story. Les teaches his class how to be smug, smirky, behavioral clones of himself.

Instead of being handed the book in class, the kids are all excited to go out of their way to pick it up on their own time? Those without a car are going to have to walk or ride bikes to the bookstore. I’m sure some parents will just love having to run their kids on an extra errand.

All this just to clandestinely distribute the books under the schoolboard’s collective noses? Everyone is enthusiastic about this prospect? Why? Les Moore’s magnetic personality? Right. Sure thing, Batyuk.

Batyuk’s Fantasy Student: “When I grow up, I want to be just as cool as Mr. Moore! I’ll do anything he tells me to. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Real World Student #1: “I’m not picking up the book on my own time. Ha ha ha! Mr. Moore spent a bunch of money on a book I’m not going to read.”

Real World Student #1: “Yeah, he can go pick up the book after school and deliver it to my house. What a tool.”

Les knows, due to his striking resemblance to the devil.

“Who knew if you told someone they couldn’t have something… they’d want it more?”

“You mean how eager the students are now to read Fahrenheit 451?”

“No, how much effort you’re putting into teaching it now that your boss told you not to. Hey, if we told you that you weren’t allowed to forget your dead wife for five seconds, you think you’d finally shut up about her?”

Why can’t Crankshaft just admit that his absence’s are because he works for the government? He ain’t on vacation! He’s in Venezuela, working on the overthrow of their despot!

This may not end well for Les.

crankshaft just wants to meet famous charecters like heathcliff is this week

Merciful heavens. Batty sure lives in a fantasy world.

Everyone simply adores (Best Actress Award Winner) Les Moore. (Best Actress Award Winner) Les Moore comes up with a plan and everyone obediently follows it to perfection. He is so clever. Only he could have come up with a plan so bold, so daring, so unafraid.

Batty stares out the window of his Comics Castle, dreaming about the students carrying h̷i̷m̷s̷e̷l̷f̷ Les triumphantly out of the classroom on their shoulders. Somebody in the background exclaims, “Mr. Moore, teacher of the year!”

(Head desk with pounding fist)

In reality, maybe two kids in this class would pick up the book. The others are thinking, “He said he can’t teach it, so I sure ain’t reading it. A free month off of class!”

It would be nice to get a note from the creator(s) about what’s going on. Is Cranky on his way out? I’ve felt this before with Funky Winkerbean.

Let me get this straight. Les is going to teach a book he’s not supposed to read, and his teacher knows and is okay with that. Both of them should be fired.

The books have already been paid for? By who? By Skinflint Les? I guess he is using all that income he got for winning the Best Actress Academy Award?

Oh, no. Wait. He’s probably using Cayla’s income. That is much more likely.

So the kids get the book, read about burning books and think “That sounds like fun!” They come back and set fire to the bookstore on Broome Street. Why? “Because Mr. Moore told us not to!”

Yeah, when you want kids to read a book, tell them you don’t want them to read it. Works every time, said no teacher ever.

What happened to Funky?

That was Mark Twain’s philosophy on whitewashing a fence in his book Tom Sawyer.