Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for October 14, 2024

To quote the late, great Gerald R. Ford, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over!”

Yep. Figured the whole Burnings shebang would end with a whimper and a whole slew of unresolved questions. (Including the important ones, like “what was so objectionable about Fahrenheit 451 that people were protesting outside Lillian’s store” and “who even were the protesters, anyway” and “who committed the arsons, and why”.)

That was… what, six weeks? And Batiuk couldn’t find the room to answer any of the actual, pertinent questions. Because of course he couldn’t, he was too busy contradicting himself at every turn instead of developing a coherent story. It’s called not writing!

LAST 6 WEEKS: A very important look at a very important problem! THIS WEEK: Senile people look at leaves.

“Yes . . . this time of the year saw the beginning of the end of Funky Winkerbean. I realize a single event isn’t much of a pattern, but we can always hope!”

The color of your tree Lil matches your burnt down garage

I know you’re not supposed to say this, and my apologies ahead of time. But, what does this mean?

Regarding “The Burnings.” Don’t be sad it happened, be happy it ended..

Lillian, tell us again how you destroyed Lucy and Eugene!

Yep, Ed, there’s an annual pattern here. The leaves change color, the geese fly south, the days grow short, the children carve pumpkins, and Tom Batiuk dusts off the space on his bookshelf where he expects to put the Pulitzer Prize for the recently concluded story arc.

Sometimes Fahrenheit 451 is challenged and asked to be removed because it contains vulgar language and content. Some people may take offense to the content due to conflicting moral, ethical, or religious beliefs. Who tried to burn the store is less important than the fact that people sometimes do take their beliefs to radical extremes. The burning of books was the whole premise of Fahrenheit 451, written 70 years ago, prophetic and timely today

The pattern is that you and power tools (or, barbeque grills) should not mix, Ed.

I miss the antics of Cranky and the bus route.

Ironically, the week will conclude with Ed using napalm to get rid of the leaves on the trees in his backyard, and a wayward gust of wind will send the flames over to Lillian’s garage/bookstore, charring it to the ground. Thus endeth “The Burnings.”

I prefer the vivid greens of the aspen trees in the spring as the leaves first come out. One good gust of wind and the fall leaves are gone, but the spring leaves have staying power.

The irony is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. Lillian’s store survived ’The Burnings," but Ed will burn it down with his flame thrower while trying to get rid of the leaves!

Very soon it would seem…..

I believe Crankshaft is morphing into Wuss-shaft. Please come back, Cranky, get behind that school bus steering wheel and run over some old ladies. Quit wussing around with Lillian.

I’m just going to enjoy a cranky moment here.

“The Burnings” is over? That’s it? “The Burnings” was seven weeks of vague dialogue, a tepid confrontation, a quote from a much better writer, and a truckload of unanswered questions. Do you know what that reminds me of? Pick any soap opera comic strip – “Mary Worth,” “Judge Parker,” “Rex Morgan M.D.,” etc. A comic strip that garners far more snark than praise. Batyuk just threw in a handful of cringey puns and smirks.

Tom Batiuk, the once-respected gag-a-day writer, has completely transitioned into a typical soap opera comic strip writer. Congratulations, Batiuk, you’ve won a no-prize. All you need is a shelf to put it on.

The illustrious prestige arc Batyuk boasted about in the puff pieces is just standard operating procedure for a soap opera comic strip. The only noteworthy thing was the subject he chose to feature. Can someone please inform me the next time Karen Moy or Francesco Marciuliano are granted a puff-piece interview for a story they’re about to do?

it will be back he just wants to get in some leaves jokes and maybe pumpkin spice

Ah yes, next to lighting the charcoal in his grill Ed loves to rake the leaves into a pile and burn them. That is why the Fire Department hates this time of year.

In real life, some crimes are never solved and that’s what the arson case will go as. We may want complete stories, but life isn’t that.

Nothing eventually gets past Cranky….attaboy!

And, Batiuk said in this blog that he is too busy to post. Maybe he knows he can’t even defend this toxic waste.

The Bad News: Best Actress Award Winner Les Moore receives no comeuppance whatsoever for his blatant disregard of school policy.

The Good News: Best Actress Les Moore never appeared in ‘The Burnings’ at all after September 13.

Sometimes I just have to accept life’s small victories.

First red then yellow then orange then burnt umber then vermillion then cerise then amber then lemon then copper then ochre then paprika then gold

The Westview school board had decided that Fahrenheit 451 would not be taught in the high school English classes. We were never told why they reached that decision (Was it in fact the “vulgar language and content” that is why the book is challenged in some schools, or something else?), but in any case it was the board’s decision to make, and they made it. Les Moore nevertheless chose to violate that decision by exploiting a very feeble loophole in the language of the written policy. Should parents who agree with the school board’s decision be free to protest against violating it? They should, so Batiuk chose to turn this story into something else entirely, with an unidentified group of protesters (Parents, or citizens in general? From Westview or Centerville?) who wanted Lillian not to distribute the book to Les’s students. Note that they never did say just why they objected to the book, and it was never made clear just what their demands actually were. Apparently they wanted some sort of nebulous “ban” on the book, but did that mean just enforcing the school board’s decision not to teach it (including Lillian’s giving the book to the students whom Les was apparently afraid to give it to, himself), or did they want Lillian to remove the book from sale altogether (even though she had probably been carrying it in stock for years), or did they want all book sellers (including online giants like Amazon) to stop selling it (yeah, sure), or did they want the sheriff to hunt out all copies in libraries, schools, and homes and confiscate them (which is what an actual “ban” would entail)? We shall never know. By making the protesters’ motivations and indeed their demands just as vague as he possibly could, Batiuk felt free to tear apart the straw man that he had constructed, thereby making his cast of loathsome characters (and of course himself) appear noble, enlightened, and courageous. Now bring on that Pulitzer!

The kids and grandkids quit paying attention to them so they come here to harangue us.

Nice work on the leaves, guys. Beautiful.

Pick up……..??

When raking season starts,he’ll be “Cranky”