Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for April 28, 2024

“Thanks for inviting me back to do a signing at your bookstore, Lillian. Can’t understand why no customers showed up. You still owe me for all these unsold books, though.”

Can we now please put an end to this month-long exercise in self-back-patting by a selection of Batiuk’s thinly-disguised creative avatars…before the biggest self-insert of them all shows up to hawk his latest Dead St. Lisa tomes?

“No, I’m not surprised you wrote this book while he was still alive. And I’m not surprised you took ninety years to get a publisher. I’m just surprised that reading the manuscript didn’t kill him first.”

He’s a ghost writer…

“John Philip Sousa”: “This book is dedicated to ‘Lisa’s Story’, the single-most greatest book and film adaptation in human history!”

Not if Sousa was descended from Nostradamus.

It’s called writing foreword. Ha ha ha ha.

I know of a guy running around with that name. Think he’s a descendant, but I’m not sure.

They should rename this strip Lillian

Where’s Batton Thomas?

A foreword written by a person who died 90 years before publication of the book? You’re safe. I don’t think anyone will catch on.

Lying rascal……

All musicians use a ‘fake book’ now and again, Harry.

Pretty obvious.

Yes, a book signing by an unknown at a small used bookstore location that I’m sure is in violation of numerous regulations for a retail shop must have been wildly successful.

So these authors are doing signings in a USED bookstore?

today crankshaft decides to plant cheatgrass

Hey, I wrote a book too! It’s an in-depth recount of every time Dead St. Lisa visited Montoni’s. When’s my book signing?

This was a little chilling. I think we’re watching ‘same story syndrome’ in real time.

“Is it obvious that I faked it?”

Doesn’t have to be a fake. He could have found someone else with the same name.

I once met Nikita Khrushchev, but he was unrelated to the famous one. He wasn’t even born in Russia.

He was first going to use Bach

Final panel: That’s what she said.

Share is Crankshaft……….again?

still no Crankshaft?

Gee, Harry, a foreward by a bandmaster who’s been gone since before you were born, a fake?

“Is it obvious that I faked it?”

“Well, yes, Harry, but that wasn’t my question. My question is why was that allowed to be put in the book in the first place. Didn’t the publisher or an editor have any questions about it?”

“Oh! Ha ha ha, you poor dear sweet child. Ha ha, mercy. Editors. Hah. Listen, Lillian, when you’re someone like me, they’ll just print anything you write, no questions asked. Somehow, enough people keep buying my drivel, but nobody cares! It’s a sweet life, let me tell you. People just remember me as being some blowhard from forty-some years ago and say to themselves ‘oh, yeah, I remember that blowhard, he was a blowhard!’, and they never stop asking for more. They’ll even go out of their way to insult anyone else who calls me out for being a blowhard. There’s people out there who buy this trash and defend this trash by outright insulting other people who call it out for being trash. It’s great!”

I wish you people would accept this strip like it is or don’t come back even though it is your right to be crybabies.