Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for January 16, 2013

That’s one way to bribe a cop.

Since when does a cop set the fine?

Wait until he discovers that the cards are marked. They will both be in the pokey!

Should have asked him to include his gun in the bet…..that would have been just as believable.

This strip just crossed the plausibility Event Horizon.

Real Life plausibility is subservient to setting up a bad punch line.

Once a cop starts writing a ticket he has to finish it. There’s a copy in his pad, and none better be missing.

C’mon Jim, you can do better than this.

The world has changed… I think the strip is set in an earlier time, when traffic cops did know the fine scale an’ were actually empowered to not only set the fine but collect it…this was before credit/debit cards, when people carried an’ dealt in CA$H, and when officers of the law were considered honest an’ above reproach…if you paid the fine in ca$h, the ticket was your receipt. If you didn’t/couldn’t pay, the ticket was your temporary license, as the officer would confiscate your drivers license in lieu of the fine – it would be returned to you when you showed up in court to either challenge the charge, or to just pay the set fine to the court clerk. (I think I was a very small child back then…)

So, the cards in the deck are all the same?

This strip is all dialogue, no action. They’ve been sitting in the car telling bad jokes to this cop for a week now.

A good magician (or a card cheat) can “force” someone to pick the card that they want that person to pick without it being obvious. A crooked dealer can give you cards from the bottom the middle or just under the first card. This cop doesn’t stand a chance.

I hope the poor cop doesn’t have a bad reaction to the eyeful of cider he’s gonna get.