Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for October 07, 2024

Smug Boi says “I will assign Book!” ARSON! which does nothing More the ARSONS!!! that do nothing. RIOT! That also does nothing. Old lady talk! (Smug Boi, unseen; hides under blankets a town over. A small whimper is heard) RIOT! But NEW & GOOD, BAT-KID PERSON RIOT, all are from the Funkybean. …GOOD THING WE’RE SEEING AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT DEALT WITH SERIOUSLY Tomorrow: The Flash saves them ALL

So, Mopey Pete has Ed’s fellow school bus drivers, the Grady Twins, and Dinkleberg on “speed dial”? Yeah, sure, makes perfect sense. The only ones I could see getting his Bat-Signal are Crazy Harry and DSH John. Where are his old collaborator Darwin, Chester Hagglemore, the Late Phil Holt, or Batton Thomas (Creator of the Now-Retired Comic Strip “Three O’Clock High”)? And whose hand with the bracelet was that in Saturday’s nail-biting installment?

Such talented people! They all found posterboards, sticks, nails and ink, or maybe crayon, right away! And they made signs, and all arrived at the scene of the slow-motion wannabe-riot in moments! By the way, aren’t picket signs on sticks actually banned, as they make dangerous weapons when tempers get out of control? (Seriously, has anyone seen a classic picket sign on a stick lately?)

Deep.

And how, pray, is Fahrenheit 451’s future our present? Yes, some books are challenged or banned at various local, city, and state governmental levels, but there is no global destruction of all forms of printed material. And, thanks to computers and the Internet, access to literature has never been easier. We don’t have to send folks out into the forest to spend their days memorizing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bluest Eye, or Heather Has Two Mommies, anyone of which would have been a more provocative and interesting case study than 451. Batiuk’s down-home denouement here is shaping up to be second rate Capra-corn…emphasis on the “corn.”

Way to go Lillian!

Jeepers, I sure hope we spend another day of people tearing apart someone’s silly writing style, without addressing the fact that they are de facto demanding the banning of his speech! Even explicitly saying that they WANT our speech banned! That was so self-aware of them! Some of you can’t accept an opposite opinion on a comics comments page.

I never read Funky Winkerbean or whatever it’s name was. Can someone at least tell me who the characters were and what they were known for, so I can understand these posts? Thanks…

Soooo…the self-centered narcissist who has nothing to do with all this (Harry Dinkle) is prominent but the author self-insert, the self-absorbed and self-righteous Les Moore, is nowhere to be found?

Here comes the posse to beat up the protestors.

Can we move on to a humorous story now? This non-issue story arc is really boring. Books are not being burned. Buildings are not being burned because they sell certain books. Books are not banned. I am ready for Crankshaft to run over a mailbox and be outrun by a mom getting her kid on the bus.

Les caused this mess and is no where to be seen

Now what the… Just when ya theenks this can not gets any more preposteridiculudicrous.

So they all travelled in the middle of the night from another town called Westview to here so quickly?

They was prepare all that placard and all within that short period of time they hads to immediately starts and gets to here?

And so far nobody was calls the cops who was much much closer than these clowns from another town?

What on earth is the meanings of all thees? It’s called what the…?

Now me is 100% sure this has gots to be a heelaareeous ooover the top parody.

Kid- “Mommy! when aw de bat kids going to get hewe?” Mom- “Now they have to get their batman tricycle.”

“It’s a Bat-Emergency! Everyone stop to make stupid signs!”

Say is there going to be free Monotony’s pizzas too for protestors?

Where’s the Skip at to be covering this story for his no reader paper?

The calvary has arrived!!!!

This is getting old!

The politician stood in the shadows, grinning to himself. He had done it. Stirred the pot, unleashed the anger, and watched as the crowd outside Lillian’s bookstore raged, just as he’d wanted. They were puppets, all of them. He pulled their strings, and they danced, a blind fury sparked by lies and half-truths. The book, Fahrenheit 451, was just a scapegoat—an easy target to channel their fear and ignorance.

But what the politician hadn’t counted on was resistance. Another group was rising—one that wouldn’t fight with violence but with something stronger: their minds, their voices, their resolve. These weren’t people led by fear, but by the deep-rooted belief in freedom, in liberty, in the fragile gift of democracy. They weren’t afraid to stand, even if it meant standing alone. And if the time came for violence, they would be ready to lay down their lives to protect the freedom they cherished. This was the resilience the politician never saw coming.

The politician had built his power on lies, and they had worked for a time. He believed his own lies, believed he could rule with them. But his lies were as hollow as the crowd’s chants, and he didn’t realize that a society led by fear and chaos cannot last. He thought he could own this town, then the community, and eventually the world. But the world does not bend to tyrants forever. It bends to those who fight for truth.

Lillian spoke to the crowd, her voice steady. “If we are to survive, we must embrace civility. We must cherish love, not fear. Chaos is not law. We live by the laws of compassion, of freedom, of the soul.”

She hoped her words would sink in, even if only a little. That would be enough.

Please do NOT listen to the haters. They are negative about everyone and everything. This arc is actually an honest look at today’s over-used control over everything and is looking more and more like the book “1984”

Looks like the kids “bat signal” went out to much more than their fellow students. Apparently it went out to all anti book banning members of the community.

Too true. Vote for a sane future.

Save the books!

The biggest problem isn’t them it’s the people who stand by and allow this to happen. Awhile back I made a comment about libraries banning Dr. Seuss books. Heard from a librarian that there were still some in her library. But that would be only until they wear out. And I’m tried of people using the word actor to describe a female actor. IT’S ACTRESS. I feel that somewhere Hitler and Stalin are laughing at us

Batyuk, I don’t think now is the best time for a group of your favorite characters to show up holding “Pulitzer for Tom Batiuk!” and “Think of Batiuk next award season” signs. It’s highly doubtful that those signs will help defuse this situation.

The silly campiness has returned. Are the Superbestfriends going to drown out the protesters with messages of love? With corny signs that read “We love books”, “Save bookstores like the Village Booksmith”, and “Ban hate. Not books.”?

Intimidated by the outpouring of love, the mob skulks away?

Wow. And I thought Lillian lecturing the mob from the book was corny.

The tension mounts. Will our heroes be able to burn the building down and beat them to a pulp in time?

time for the martians from mars attacks to appear but ibet crazy harry has a slim whitman song on his phone

There are a few people who want to ban certain books and a few who want to edit and abridge some books. And there are some idiots who think there should be a bible in every classroom. And then there is some cartoonist who is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Except the original had TV addicts, instead of computers/cell -phones.(The movie started with panning the city with TV antennas on every roof in the city.)

Can anybody read Crazy Harry’s sign? It looks like it reads, “Ban the Batiukverse.”

Anybody else remember when GoComics had a really useful zoom/magnification feature? Why get rid of it? Even a subpar comics website like the Comics Kingdom has one.

A lot of people on here hating if you don’t like the comic and the story lines stop reading it.

and 75 years ago ‘1984’ was released which democrats are using as a companion guide to another of their favorites ‘Das Kapital.’

So the anonymous, nondescript protesters are now being flocked by the people we all know and can’t stand… maybe Dinkel can give them some frozen band turkeys and they will leave…

No Darrin Fairchild? Wow! He and Mopey Pete were inseparable in Funky Winkerbean. Mindy has broken up the bromance.

Scenes We’d Like to See:

Lillian, for the most part, deescalates the tension between her and the mob. The appearance of the Batfriends only makes matters worse. The Village Booksmith and the books are destroyed in the ensuing carnage. Oops.

MAUS has been banned—-the mention of concentration camps hurts somebody’s delicate feelings

In real-world Ohio, the MAGA terrorists would’ve beaten her to a pulp by now.

Say Hey to your boy Mr Cunningham. He’s a real nice boy

It is always refreshing when one can observe stupid getting its @$$ whipped by intelligence.

Maybe those morons who want to burn books should read one every once in a while. If you’re afraid that reading books might change someone’s way of thinking, you’re not afraid of books, you’re afraid of thinking

Oh dear *god*… this is still going on? Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

Too bad they’re so against this book. A first edition, first printing sells for about $2K or more.

Lil might say “Can’t we all just get along?” before this arc is done.

I’ll be glad when the political strips’s comment section get unlocked because I can’t stand the political comments in non-political strips

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