Comic strip veteran Tom Batiuk discusses his book-banning plot line
Comic strip creator Tom Batiuk has never been one to shy away from hot topics. He's known for weaving storylines about illiteracy, Alzheimer's and school violence into the daily shenanigans of his beloved curmudgeon Crankshaft. Now, he's taken on banned books with a storyline that highlights the challenges librarians and store owners face around the subject.
Below, interviewer David Giffels chats with Batiuk — whose popular 1970s comic Funky Winkerbean led to its spinoff Crankshaft in 1987 — about the new series, which will continue its run in Crankshaft comics (appearing in Postmedia papers) through October.
Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q What inspired this storyline? An experience from your own life?
A That's a big question — let me just step back for a bit to provide some context for my answer. As a youngster, before I could read, my dad would read the comics in the newspaper to me. On Sundays, we would stop by a bakery on the way home from church,
I'd sit on his lap munching on a warm piece of bread while he read Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and Dick Tracy to me which really instilled the idea of reading in me. In elementary school, I lived for the monthly appearance of the bookmobile where I'd read the Stevenson books and historical novels that my dad had read, and where I later gravitated to science fiction and authors like Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov, who showed me that science fiction didn't just have to be space opera and that it could deal with weightier subjects. I was also a teacher and later a writer for some 50-plus years, so books have always mattered to me and been a fundamental part of my life. And so to your question, once I had aged my comic strip characters to adulthood, I could now tackle things that were in the current zeitgeist. Both Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft deal with schools, and, with book bans occurring across the nation, it seemed that things were reaching a critical mass. In Crankshaft, I have a character, Lillian, who's a writer and a bookstore owner, and that alone almost obligated me to acknowledge the attempts to ban books. According to the American Library Association, a record number of book bans were initiated in 2023 with more than 4,000 titles being targeted.
Q In both Funky and Crankshaft, you've previously tackled the harsher realities of contemporary life. How does that fit in with the overall intent and evolution of your work?
A To start with, work like this has to evolve organically from the strip. With all of those storylines, the pieces already had to be in place before I could do them. With the book banning, as I mentioned, I already had a bookstore owner in the strip, so I didn't have to force some contrived situation. My character operates a bookstore, so dealing with a banned book is something that could conceivably happen. I did however want to bring a school into the picture since so many book bans are targeted at schools. Books should be teaching students to think for themselves, and book bans stifle their ability to think critically.
Q What has been the response to doing those storylines?
A The reception to this weightier work has been very gratifying. It showed me that there was an audience for this kind of work as evidenced most dramatically by the fact that Lisa's Story ended up being a Pulitzer finalist. On the other hand, there's also a hard-core minority of readers who only want to see funny comic strips, and you hear from them as well, but the overall reception has always been far more favourable than not.
Q Did you have the experience of reading a book as a kid that later appeared on a banned books list?
A Going back to that elementary school bookmobile, it's where I first read Fahrenheit 451, and, when it came time to select a book for the banned books story arc, it was the obvious one that came to mind. The irony of banning a book that's about a segment of society that's burning books is almost too poetically perfect not to use.
Q What surprised you as you were developing this narrative arc?
A I was first caught by the strength and courage that Lillian showed even before the attacks on her bookstore. Even Ed Crankshaft showed a depth to his personality that hadn't been seen before. Second, I'd forgotten about how I had broached this topic in the past. In Funky, I'd had the comic shop taken to court over some of the comics found in his store. And in Crankshaft, I revealed how not knowing how to read had derailed Ed's major league baseball ambitions. In fact, I included a callback to that last story in the current arc because it was a microcosm of what being able to read books could mean to someone.
Q This story ends without an easy resolution — neither side seems to have changed its mind. So what does change?
A The changes I described earlier in both Ed, Lillian and also Lillian's supporters are what I felt it was important to show — that when their hour strikes, it's important for good people to show up.