Crankshaft comes to Winnipeg
Crankshaft and his son-in-law Jeff Murdoch — who for the better part of the last decade has sported Winnipeg Blue Bombers sweatshirts and tuques in the Crankshaft comic strip — are set to begin a daily month-long story arc where they visit the Manitoba capital to see a football game.
The story begins today and can be read in the Free Press and nearly 500 other newspapers that carry the strip, including the Los Angeles Times, Denver Post, Dallas Morning News and Seattle Times.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Ohio-based Crankshaft comic illustrator and avid Winnipeg Blue Bomber fan Tom Batiuk, who is finally in Winnipeg to see a Bomber game and do research on the city for a future comic strip, at Portage and Main on Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. For Nicole story. Winnipeg Free Press 2024
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Ohio-based Crankshaft comic illustrator and avid Winnipeg Blue Bomber fan Tom Batiuk, who is finally in Winnipeg to see a Bomber game and do research on the city for a future comic strip, at Portage and Main on Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. For Nicole story. Winnipeg Free Press 2024
Along the way, Winnipeggers will delight in seeing some familiar faces and places.
'It worked out really well,' creator Tom Batiuk said during a recent phone interview from his home and office in Ohio.
'It really is enjoyable when we can take Crankshaft through a real-life experience. As a kid, reading comics in the paper, I always liked it when they touched on real events and real people.'
Batiuk visited Winnipeg last summer to research the city and took in a game at Princess Auto Stadium, as a guest of the Bombers. He even ran out on the field with the team before the game.
The 78-year-old writes his storylines about a year before they run in newspapers and admits this series and its real-life characters had him sweating for months.
'I was holding my breath hoping anybody mentioned in the strip doesn't get traded,' he said.
Bombers head coach Mike O'Shea features in three of the strips, and mascots Buzz and Boomer make an appearance in another.
'It's a real honour to be featured in Crankshaft — especially knowing Tom Batiuk is such a passionate supporter of the club,' said O'Shea, whose honours include six Grey Cup rings — including two as Bombers coach — and player awards as the CFL's most outstanding rookie and most outstanding Canadian.
'When you coach in a place like Winnipeg, where the fans, the history and the community mean everything, it's pretty special to see that spirit captured in something as iconic as a comic strip.'
Cody Chomiak, Travel Manitoba's vice-president of marketing, said having Winnipeg featured in a comic strip is the kind of publicity you can't buy.
'This is marketing gold for us,' Chomiak said.
'Getting organically featured in pop culture, whether it's a movie, series, comic or otherwise, can be just as impactful as traditional advertising.
'We love that this piece highlights such an important sports team and integrates our iconic skyline — what a great way to shine a spotlight on Winnipeg and Manitoba.'
Starved for football when the NFL locked out its players in 2011, Batiuk began flipping television channels and came across the Blue and Gold in action. He loved the name of the team's quarterback — Buck Pierce, now head coach of the B.C. Lions — but he also fell in love with the team and the Canadian style of football. Batiuk has continued to follow the Bombers long after the NFL labour strife ended.
It's why, for years, Batiuk has added Bombers logos onto shirts worn by some of the characters.
'The strips are a quarter inch from my real life,' Batiuk said.
'When you are doing daily newspaper comic strips — and at one point I was doing three at once — you scratch at all parts of your life for it. When the Bombers invited me to run out onto the field, I was immediately thinking Crankshaft could do that.'
Batiuk said he took plenty of photographs when he was in Winnipeg with his wife, Cathy. Although he is the creator of Crankshaft, which began in 1987 as a spinoff from his comic strip Funky Winkerbean, he doesn't draw the cartoon.
'I wanted (illustrator) Dan Davis to have lots of references,' he said.
'He really nailed it. Dan does terrific work.'
As to whether Crankshaft will ever return to Winnipeg, Batiuk doesn't know.
'I would certainly love to come back sometime,' he said. 'The Bombers organization treated us well. It was just great.
'And the game was amazing, too — it was really exciting. At the last minute, the pass was into the end zone and they won.
'I would come back just for that.'
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin RollasonReporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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