Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for April 14, 2024

So, in other words, the last week of strips was totally unnecessary and this episode would have sufficed?

Looking forward to January 1, 2025, when “Crankshaft” goes out of business and is replaced by the hilarious new comic strip “Cupcake the Cat.”

Aw, what a shame! Crankshaft rediscovered his numerous visits to the hardware store just in time for it to go out of business! If only he hadn’t spent so much of his shopping time and money on-line! And if he had talked to Phillip “Screw” Driver yesterday, he might have learned the store’s last day of business and avoided this wasted trip with Mute Mitch.

I like it that the past is shown in kind of a sepia tint, like a precious antique, and today is just regular color. By the way, cats can’t handle that much sugar, so that place will be out of business fast…

This reminds me of the recent closing of the Harmony Lunch, a little place that remained essentially unchanged while it served the World’s best hamburgers to my grandfather, almost a century ago, my dad, me, my children and their children.

About 40 years ago Handy Hardware was forced to leave its location in Broad Ripple, Indiana. The building became The Corner Wine Bar. Handy relocated, adz handles, horse collars, and all, to a smaller building near 54th and Keystone. It remained there for about 15 or 20 more years. It wasn’t quite the sort of place that is so lovingly depicted in Centerville, but one could get about anything one needed therein from original pushbutton wall switches to brand new power tools — you just had to know where to rummage. If you couldn’t find it, Bill or Bobby or Perry would reflect a few seconds and tell you the location within a couple of feet or retrieve it for you. Example: Once a good friend went in to buy a new drill, but couldn’t find one that suited him — he didn’t want a consumer grade product, he wanted a REAL drill. Bill, after pondering a moment, then lighting a cigarette with the propane torch he kept by the cash register for that purpose, told him there was Milwaukee half-inch drill in the bathroom under the toilet, and then he fetched it. There were three stores, I think, in the chain owned by the family and they decided to close this one — until they looked at the books and saw how much money it brought in. That led to a two or three year reprieve. Something changed, however, (retirements, a family squabble or death in the family — I don’t know exactly) and it did close. The building now houses the Back Yard Birds store — which is better than another watering hole added to the existing surfeit. Some day I can tell a bit about Hedlund’s Hardware, another fine venue, and one with a colorful history — like the Sunday years ago that the law hauled up at the store, arrested the whole family inside — including Grandpa — and took them downtown to the hoosegow for violating Indiana’s Blue Laws. Waterman’s has closed, but at least Suding’s is still open. There are some survivors yet.

Looks like the potbelly syndrome skipped a few generations and ended up on Ed.

Yeah, I’m going to sell cat cupcakes instead, I heard it’s a big business and there is more money in that.

The Cola (assuming Coke) thermometer sign is a great detail.

Thanks Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for another touching cartoon. Mike Foxtrot the nay-sayers

The owner of a very small hardware that was closing down told me that one of the main reasons he couldn’t stay in business any long was that his suppliers no longer sold him stock in small quantities. They insisted on large quantities that cost much more and he simply couldn’t manage any longer. Sad.

21st century wins again!!!!!!!!

This is not a good thing for Ed. Now he will be living on “Beans End” website for his fix of hardware. Or on other web hardware stores. (There are many to choose from).

I guess we get another week of hardware laughter because we haven’t seen what he needed that screw for . he probably lost it already .

Geez, Ed, if you have been visiting this hardware store for 80 years you’d think you knew the hours by now and would have shown up before closing time.

And the demise Mom and Pop type stores continues unabated across America, as our farmland and small businesses are bought up-forced out of business by China, mega rich people, mega corporations, or combinations thereof.

Ain’t quite the same…….

I, for one, welcome our feline overlords!

This is the way “things” are- -especially when you are aged. . .

After Walmart became a national presence more than a few of the “old time” hardware stores closed their doors.

I guarantee Cupcakes for Cats won’t last anywhere near as long as the hardware store

Things change.

Ed used to have a cat…

I think the clip art used for Max in panel 4 is that of Eric “Mooch” Myers (or as I like to call him, Sir Nuts-A-Lot)