Crankshaft is a comic strip about a character by the same name — an older, curmudgeonly school bus driver —which debuted on June 8, 1987. Written by Tom Batiuk and drawn by Dan Davis, Crankshaft is a spin-off from Batiuk's comic strip Funky Winkerbean. Prior to April 2, 2017, the strip was drawn by Chuck Ayers.

Characters and setting

Since Funky Winkerbean ended in 2022, Crankshaft has incorporated many of the characters and storylines from Funky Winkerbean into the strip -- to the point that Crankshaft himself will now sometimes not appear in his own strip for weeks at a time. However, for the bulk of the strip's run, the major characters included: Crankshaft is known for recurring running gags, such as:

Continuity

The continuity of Crankshaft was as much as twenty years behind that of Funky Winkerbean at one point; strips in both comics in August and September 2011 show a character in the latter strip, a high school teacher with a daughter of her own, as a college-age student in the former. Crankshaft himself appeared on a couple of occasions in mid-2010s Funky Winkerbean as a much older, wheelchair-bound near-comatose husk. More recently, Batiuk appears to have retconned this time disparity (and the older Crankshaft) out of existence. Batiuk has attempted to tackle many serious issues in the strip, including: 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. Daily strips commencing July 20, 2009, appear to show Ed Crankshaft in a state of grave decline, his life flashing before his eyes as he attends a Little League baseball game. This narrative development was immediately preceded by the death of Tom Batiuk's father, Martin. It was later revealed to be a fast forward, and the strip went back to more familiar adventures the next week. This timeline eventually came back starting in late 2017, but in the sister strip Funky Winkerbean which, because of two time skips, takes place several decades later than the Crankshaft series. On September 9, this included this first appearance of the older and sicker Crankshaft in 8 years, showing him living in a nursing home. This story line also featured other members of the cast visibly older as well and implies a possible relationship between his granddaughter Mindy Murdoch and Funky Winkerbean regular Pete Roberts-Reynolds.