‘Crankshaft’ creator Tom Batiuk tackles book banning in comic strip’s latest storyline - cleveland.com

Oct 16, 2024

A preview of the Sept. 7 edition of "Crankshaft," by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis.Andrews McMeel Syndication

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- “Crankshaft” is no stranger to serious. Tom Batiuk’s humorous and pithy comic strip has covered subjects such as adult illiteracy, Alzheimer’s disease and school violence in extended story arcs. In a new series premiering in over 300 newspapers including The Plain Dealer on Aug. 26, the strip is coving the increasingly common and politicized push to ban certain books in schools and libraries.

“Books have always mattered to me,” Batiuk, an Akron native and Medina resident, said. “They’ve been an important part of my life, and so it was less choosing this topic than it was not ignoring it. Because the topic is out there.”

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