Crankshaft (comic strip)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crankshaft is an eponymous comic strip about an elderly, curmudgeonly school bus driver which debuted on June 8, 1987. Written by Tom Batiuk and drawn by Chuck Ayers, Crankshaft is a spinoff from Batiuk’s comic strip Funky Winkerbean.

Ed Crankshaft is a widower with two daughters, Pam and Chris (he had a son who died as an infant), and is a World War II veteran. In his youth, he was an aspiring baseball player who never made it to the major leagues. Pam, who is a major fixture, is married to Jeff and has two children, son Max and daughter Mindy. Chris (who according to the storyline lives in New York City) occasionally appears in the strips. Crankshaft drives a school bus for a living and is part of the company bowling team (though he is not a great bowler).

Crankshaft is known for recurring running gags, such as:

insulting the cooking efforts (especially the brownies) of Lena, a co-worker,
constantly trying to outrun kids (and their mothers) who miss the bus,
pouring too much lighter fluid on the grill, causing it to explode whenever he lights it, and
destroying the mailbox of a neighbor George Keesterman every day he drives the bus.

Batiuk has tackled many serious issues in the strip, including:

Adult literacy: When Crankshaft revealed to his family that he could not read, the strip followed his efforts to learn.
Alzheimer disease and dementia: One of Crankshaft's friends, Charlie, has a spouse who no longer recognizes him. A neighbor, Lucy, also exhibits symptoms and has moved to a care facility.
Access to higher education among the poor: Crankshaft recognized that the students on his bus route would never better themselves if they didn't attend college, yet they were too poor to do so. Therefore, Crankshaft sold an extensive collection of movie posters to set up a fund so they could attend college after graduation. However, he never bothered to invest the money, so at present the students can only attend one semester.
Recent history: The anniversary of the May 4, 1970, shooting and killing of Kent State University students by Ohio National Guard troops was commemorated through flashbacks of Pam and Jeff's involvement.

Crankshaft often features flashback scenes involving Ed (or one of his friends) as a younger individual. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2005, flashback scenes were used extensively in a storyline that had Ed and several of his war buddies visiting the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.