A clerk at a comic books store in Dallas has been fined $4000 and sentenced to a term on probation for selling an adult comic to an adult "undercover agent" (what exactly was he trying to uncover?) from the adult section of a big comic book store.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the man's appeal (effort funded by the wholly laudable Comic Book Legal Defense Fund), so he's stuck.

Full story here.

Because everyone knows that all comic books are actually intended for kids.

Yeah, right. Maus, in which a Holocaust survivor tells his gruesome story to his grandson, was certainly meant for little kids, as was, say, Safe Area Gorazde which details Joe Sacco's real life adventures in the middle of all of the ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

And yes, I know, the above referenced titles are not examples of what is commonly meant by one who expresses concern about the availability of "adult" material.

But still and all, I'd much rather explain why that cartoon lady is naked than why that cartoon mouse got machine gunned for being Jewish or Serbian.

You know, I still really want to know what that undercover agent was trying to uncover.

That's going to bug me for a while.

I'll be over in the corner slapping myself with a fish for a while.