Crankshaft cartoonist declares Blue Bombers allegiance

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This article was published 11/01/2016 (3536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Turns out, Crankshaft is a fan of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

This week’s comic strip, that revolves around the life of a crusty school bus driver and runs daily Monday to Saturday in the Winnipeg Free Press, depicts Ed Crankshaft’s son-in-law, Jeff Murdoch, out jogging with his wife while wearing a sweatshirt and tuque emblazoned with the old lightning bolt blasting out of a football and through the iconic ‘W’ logo for the Blue Bombers.

There’s a reason for the nod towards the local football team — in recent years, the comic strip’s creator, American cartoonist Tom Batiuk, has become a long-distance fan.

And Batiuk’s not just a fan — he’s a big fan.

Batiuk said his love for the Blue and Gold began when the NFL locked out its players in the summer of 2011.

“The NFL was on strike and I was going through football withdrawal,” he said on the phone from his home near Cleveland.

“I found Canadian football games on cable. The Blue Bombers were on and I started following them. I thought it was great football and there’s only eight teams in the CFL — I thought this is really cool, and I can know a lot about all of them.”

Batiuk, who also created the comic strip Funky Winkerbean, began Crankshaft in 1987 and it is now published in more than 300 newspapers around the world.

Batiuk, 68, said there are several things he loves about the Bombers.

“I like the name,” he said.

‘I won’t have the characters say anything about Winnipeg — let people Google it. They have to do some work here’

— cartoonist Tom Batiuk

“They have a really cool logo with a lightning bolt going through the football. I like that logo better than the one they have now. And they played in the Grey Cup that year, even though they lost.

“And Buck Pierce, the quarterback, I thought it was the coolest name for a quarterback in the world.”

Batiuk also said, in a special place in the office where he writes the comic strip, is a mini football sporting Pierce’s autograph.

“My wife even got me a Blue Bombers hoodie as a present,” he said.

Batiuk, who writes the strip while artist Chuck Ayers draws the pictures, said he told Ayers exactly which logo he wanted on the character’s shirt.

“I told him to go online and use the lightning bolt one, don’t use the new one,” he said.

Batiuk says he is more than a year ahead in writing the strip so he knows the Bombers logo will be featured in future comics.

‘I thought it was great football and there’s only eight teams in the CFL — I thought this is really cool and I can know a lot about all of them’

— cartoonist Tom Batiuk

“I won’t have the characters say anything about Winnipeg — let people Google it. They have to do some work here,” he said chuckling.

Darren Cameron, a spokesman for the Blue Bombers, said: “We welcome fans from all parts of the globe, and are always intrigued when our brand reaches beyond Canada.

“We look forward with interest to seeing the strip.”

Batiuk said he continues to follow the Bombers, well after the NFL dispute was settled, even though few of the games are shown on the cable stations he can get access to — and even though the team has finished out of the playoffs the last four years.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “It’s hard to fathom where everything went south.

“Every Monday I still go to their website to see how the team did on the weekend,” he said.

And don’t be surprised if Crankshaft ends up in Winnipeg to cheer on the CFL team. On Batiuk’s bucket list is experiencing a game in the team’s hometown.

“It would just be a lot of fun,” he said.

“I know they have a new stadium. It’s something I want to do sometime down the line.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca