In the first one, he’s so smart he doesn’t know how to say “I don’t know.”
Second one, the situation became desperate because…his client wants to be called Jason? You got me on that one.
Is the ‘joke’ in the second one that the defence lawyer hasn’t really explained to his client how desperate his situation actually is? It’s so bad, in fact, that he’s calling him up as his first witness. The first two panels are just there to clarify the client’s name so the reader is sure that it’s him, and no other Mr. Lee, that is being called up.
I still feel like there’s something of an unintended double negation in the first one.
For the second one all I could come up with was that the villain in one of the horror movie series was called Jason. Did he have a last name? The one in this strip is called Jason Lee.
The horror movie villain Jason is from Friday the 13th, and his last name is Voorhees.
Thanks Stan!
Sorry for my ignorance of the genre, but… Is he also the one who wears a goalie mask?
Yep, that’s the guy!
Jason Lee, meanwhile, is the name of a relatively well-known actor. He’s probably best known for playing the title character on the late 2000s NBC sitcom My Name IS Earl.
A) The lawyer feels that not even knowing how to lie is something said by a person who thinks they are so honest that they never lie.
B) The lawyer tells Jason that he (Jason) can only be cross-examined if he (Jason’s lawyer) calls him to the stand, “I shall ONLY put you on the stand IF THINGS GET DESPERATE””.
When the trial has gotten to the time for the defense to call witnesses , the judge instructs the lawyer to “..Call your FIRST witness” and the lawyer goes ahead and calls Jason as the first witness, an act which causes that classic understated look of surprise (and a subdued “what!?”) on Jason’s face. I love that kind of set-up.
Jaggers, of course, is the name of the lawyer in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. If Ms. Jaggers is any relation, you can expect her to be aggressive, rude and ruthless. Jason Lee (who is not named after a Dickens character) doesn’t have a chance.
“Ms”?
Carl Fink, yes, the usual prosecutor we see on “Pros and Cons” is Ms. Jagger, and is referred to that way.
By the way, when the strip starred appearing on Comics Kingdom, it was called something else, something like “A Cop, A Shrink, and a Lawyer”. Then even after it was renamed it appeared near the beginning of CK sorted lists of available comics and so on, out of place apparently, until one realized it was being sorted by the original name, still used by some part of the underlying records.
“Ms. Jaggers appears to be the prosecutor.
In a tangent, I have been viewing some videos from a county judge in Michigan who live-streams his court cases. Mostly that’s Zoom court these days. In many cases, that’s a big help for defendants, at least in the early stages of minor cases. They don’t have to haul down to the county courthouse for arraignments or pretrial stuff, just log in. Some of the best parts are outside of dealing with the “customers” as the judge calls them where he and the attorneys are just chatting. The most frequent visitor is Prosecutor Debbie, the county ADA.
@Mitch4: I misread it as the defense attorney, who aggressively presents as male, being “Jaggers”, which was confusing. Maybe I was tired. Thanks.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that Ms Jaggers is not actually shown in these two strips. No wonder the discussion got misleading!
Here she is in a recent courtroom scene:
Yeah, I was emphasizing feign and took the point to include that he is no good at feigning ignorance because he actually is so ignorant! … But then it doesn’t make sense for the lawyer to see that as having a high opinion of self. … But then again, the lawyer could be saying that with some irony or sarcasm.
@deety – good point and I agree; the lawyer could be just saying that for fun (pretending to be snarky).
hmm, enclosing a word in asterisks got me italics; I was expecting bolding, and I would have been happy with just the asterisks. (sometimes I chicken out of using the html tags).
I did some research and I now remember some other usage(s) of enclosing asterisks in internet history.
Kevin, here is a guide to the limited version of Markdown implemented in Word Press for comments:
Also, be aware there are some things listed there which are not implemented in our theme, notably lists.
Also you can use many HTML tags for a more verbose experience creating markup.
Mitch4, Thanks! I see that Markdown uses double-asterisks for bold.
I think GoComics comments will give bold for a single asterisk.
Here’s a screenshot of me typing in a comment-reply, in a sort of hybrid editing interface — not WYSIWYG but also not manual HTML: the markup buttons insert the HTML tags, but don’t actually change the appearance (beyond those characters being inserted). This is part of the admin interface, but I wonder if there’s a way to make it available to everyone. Maybe in the Reader mode. Or maybe via a plugin (which we can’t currently install, but that may change).
Huh. I read it as the lawyer (who has a name, but I can never remember it – something Rhodes, apparently) being more bird-witted than usual and not realizing that the Jason Lee he wants to call to the stand is the defendant. The other reading makes more sense, though – that the case is that desperate.
Jason Lee is also in a number of Kevin Smith movies in addition to playing Earl – and I am guessing he is better known for the movies (at least to us he is).
Thanks, Meryl, I forgot to look for follow-ups on Jason Lee, but I also mentally place him in the early Kevin Smith hang!
Comics I Don't Understand 
In the first one, he’s so smart he doesn’t know how to say “I don’t know.”
Second one, the situation became desperate because…his client wants to be called Jason? You got me on that one.
Is the ‘joke’ in the second one that the defence lawyer hasn’t really explained to his client how desperate his situation actually is? It’s so bad, in fact, that he’s calling him up as his first witness. The first two panels are just there to clarify the client’s name so the reader is sure that it’s him, and no other Mr. Lee, that is being called up.
I still feel like there’s something of an unintended double negation in the first one.
For the second one all I could come up with was that the villain in one of the horror movie series was called Jason. Did he have a last name? The one in this strip is called Jason Lee.
The horror movie villain Jason is from Friday the 13th, and his last name is Voorhees.
Thanks Stan!
Sorry for my ignorance of the genre, but… Is he also the one who wears a goalie mask?
Yep, that’s the guy!
Jason Lee, meanwhile, is the name of a relatively well-known actor. He’s probably best known for playing the title character on the late 2000s NBC sitcom My Name IS Earl.
A) The lawyer feels that not even knowing how to lie is something said by a person who thinks they are so honest that they never lie.
B) The lawyer tells Jason that he (Jason) can only be cross-examined if he (Jason’s lawyer) calls him to the stand, “I shall ONLY put you on the stand IF THINGS GET DESPERATE””.
When the trial has gotten to the time for the defense to call witnesses , the judge instructs the lawyer to “..Call your FIRST witness” and the lawyer goes ahead and calls Jason as the first witness, an act which causes that classic understated look of surprise (and a subdued “what!?”) on Jason’s face. I love that kind of set-up.
Jaggers, of course, is the name of the lawyer in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. If Ms. Jaggers is any relation, you can expect her to be aggressive, rude and ruthless. Jason Lee (who is not named after a Dickens character) doesn’t have a chance.
“Ms”?
Carl Fink, yes, the usual prosecutor we see on “Pros and Cons” is Ms. Jagger, and is referred to that way.
By the way, when the strip starred appearing on Comics Kingdom, it was called something else, something like “A Cop, A Shrink, and a Lawyer”. Then even after it was renamed it appeared near the beginning of CK sorted lists of available comics and so on, out of place apparently, until one realized it was being sorted by the original name, still used by some part of the underlying records.
“Ms. Jaggers appears to be the prosecutor.
In a tangent, I have been viewing some videos from a county judge in Michigan who live-streams his court cases. Mostly that’s Zoom court these days. In many cases, that’s a big help for defendants, at least in the early stages of minor cases. They don’t have to haul down to the county courthouse for arraignments or pretrial stuff, just log in. Some of the best parts are outside of dealing with the “customers” as the judge calls them where he and the attorneys are just chatting. The most frequent visitor is Prosecutor Debbie, the county ADA.
@Mitch4: I misread it as the defense attorney, who aggressively presents as male, being “Jaggers”, which was confusing. Maybe I was tired. Thanks.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that Ms Jaggers is not actually shown in these two strips. No wonder the discussion got misleading!
Here she is in a recent courtroom scene:
Yeah, I was emphasizing feign and took the point to include that he is no good at feigning ignorance because he actually is so ignorant! … But then it doesn’t make sense for the lawyer to see that as having a high opinion of self. … But then again, the lawyer could be saying that with some irony or sarcasm.
@deety – good point and I agree; the lawyer could be just saying that for fun (pretending to be snarky).
hmm, enclosing a word in asterisks got me italics; I was expecting bolding, and I would have been happy with just the asterisks. (sometimes I chicken out of using the html tags).
I did some research and I now remember some other usage(s) of enclosing asterisks in internet history.
Kevin, here is a guide to the limited version of Markdown implemented in Word Press for comments:
https://wordpress.com/support/markdown-quick-reference/
Also, be aware there are some things listed there which are not implemented in our theme, notably lists.
Also you can use many HTML tags for a more verbose experience creating markup.
Mitch4, Thanks! I see that Markdown uses double-asterisks for bold.
I think GoComics comments will give bold for a single asterisk.
Here’s a screenshot of me typing in a comment-reply, in a sort of hybrid editing interface — not WYSIWYG but also not manual HTML: the markup buttons insert the HTML tags, but don’t actually change the appearance (beyond those characters being inserted). This is part of the admin interface, but I wonder if there’s a way to make it available to everyone. Maybe in the Reader mode. Or maybe via a plugin (which we can’t currently install, but that may change).
Huh. I read it as the lawyer (who has a name, but I can never remember it – something Rhodes, apparently) being more bird-witted than usual and not realizing that the Jason Lee he wants to call to the stand is the defendant. The other reading makes more sense, though – that the case is that desperate.
Jason Lee is also in a number of Kevin Smith movies in addition to playing Earl – and I am guessing he is better known for the movies (at least to us he is).
Thanks, Meryl, I forgot to look for follow-ups on Jason Lee, but I also mentally place him in the early Kevin Smith hang!