Most of you know the drill. For those of you who don't, here it is.

There are ten rules. I know this because I made them all up. I have them written down on a sheet of paper. You have to tell me what they are. You can do this by posting things that you think are rules, or by posting a comic that you think conforms to the rules. Then I'll tell you if you're right or not. The first person to demonstrate to me that they know what a given rule is will get a point. Whoever has the most points when all ten rules have been discovered gets first crack at moderating the next contest (and also gets called a geek by the rest of us).

I encourage you to make strips of your own and post them. I will be more generous with the hints in reponse to actual comics.

As has been done in some previous contests, one of the rules is a continuation of the one before it. I personally don't like doing that, but I was rather attached to one rule which I didn't feel it was fair to use without the prerequisite.

I'll start with the traditional four-strip opening. And then I'll go bash my brains out trying to write a long palindrome without the use of certain key consonants. Don't expect that one until tomorrow night.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Conforms to rules 1 - 5. Breaks rules 6 - 10.
[Click to view comic: 'In 20 years, there will be a Quantum Leap movie, like so:']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Breaks rules 1 - 5. Conforms to rules 6 - 10.
[Click to view comic: 'I have the body of John Wilkes Booth']

Before you go nuts over everything that looks weird about that strip, visit the URL in the narration.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Conforms to all ten rules.
[Click to view comic: 'Admit it, you've had this fantasy before']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Does not conform to any rules.
[Click to view comic: 'I always thought he was the son of Abraham']

I figured there was no reason to make a whole new comic that didn't follow the rules when I had plenty of old ones that would do.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Hahahaha! I don't know about any rules, but that comic kicked ass!

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

[Click to view comic: 'Uber Squirrel']

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

[comic]23194
[/comic]

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

Which, the Asimov one? I like that one, myself. :)

Uber Squirrel
Follows: 1, 4, 7, 10
Breaks: 3, 5, 6, 8, 9
Maybe: 2

This Ain't the Droid You're Looking For
Follows: 1, 3, 4
Breaks: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Maybe not: 2

I'll tell you up front that "Reprint the lyrics of a Clutch song" is not one of the rules. Way to suck up, though.

You obviously know what rule 4 is. Good job with it, too. I figured you'd be the one to guess it.

You almost certainly know rules 1, 7 and 10. Nice overkill on rule 7.

Whether you know rule 2 or not, I don't think I can give you credit for it. Your intentions aren't clear enough in either strip. If I had to make a final decision, I'd say the first strip follows rule 2, but the second doesn't. Fortunately I don't have to make a final decision right now.

Good show, old bean. Keep them coming, folks. I've got another fully compliant strip scripted. I'll bring it to life sometime tonight or tomorrow morning.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Nice job fucking up my head. All the rules I thought I was following were from 1-5. I didn't think I knew 7 or 10.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

[Click to view comic: 'All your *BEEP!*']

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

[Click to view comic: 'Eye Eat Paste']

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

All your *BEEP!*
Follows: 8
Breaks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10

Eye Eat Paste
Follows: 1, 2, 7, 10
Breaks: 3, 5, 6, 8, 9
Close Enough: 4

You still know what rule 4 is. You probably stumbled over 10. I'm still convinced that you know what 1 and 7 are, but maybe you're just getting lucky. You're probably very close on 2. And you probably have no idea why the first strip follows rule 8. 8 might actually be the toughest one to figure out, though it's one of the easiest to do by accident.

This is fun, even if there's only one contestant. Come on, everyone else, steal Gabe's victory while he's still relatively clueless!

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I've been looking, but right now I'm beyond relatively clueless. Think I'm stumped on all 10. Will post when you pop out of my blind spot.

==Ken

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

Maybe this will help. It's fully compliant.

[Click to view comic: 'Death is not a lumberjack, but he plays one on the internet']

As a bonus, this strip actually complies with rule 5 twice, rule 7 three times, rule 8 twice (three times if you're Dr. Pedantic), and rule 9 twice. (You could argue that it complies with some other rules multiple times as well, but so have most of the other strips, and it's the nature of those rules to be in continuing use throughout a strip.) As a trade-off, I'm being a real bastard about rule 4 in this one. But I assure you that it does follow rule 4. Consult a reference book if you doubt it.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

quote:

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I'll tell you up front that "Reprint the lyrics of a Clutch song" is not one of the rules. Way to suck up, though.

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Because several of the rules concern dialogue. There are a few reasons why I picked the particular song I did. (Other than the fact that it was stuck in my head.)

Just to clarify, the reason Eye Eat Paste doesn't quite comply with it... let's say you took it too far.

Here's a hint. There is no rule about backgrounds as such. However, judicious choice of backgrounds is probably the easiest way to comply with one of the rules.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I know why 'Eye Eat Paste' doesn't quite fit the bill for #4. I was just sending you a message.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

I assumed you were doing the same with "Uber Squirrel".

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

[Click to view comic: 'This Contest Hurts My Head']

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

This Contest Hurts My Head
Follows: 4, 5, 6
Breaks: 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10

You probably know rule 6. If you knew rule 5, I think you'd have better uses for it.

I really didn't mean to make this so difficult. I was actually afraid it would be too easy, and put in red herring or two to throw people off. I see I needn't have bothered. (Oddly, you don't seem to be going for the herrings, either.)

I think this last strip may have been making a stab at rule 3. If it helps at all, I'll tell you that rule 3 actually specifies something that can't happen, rather than something that must. I guess you could express it either way, though.

I'm thinking up another strip right now. Hopefully it'll help.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

It's always easier when you're making the rules. :)

I think one thing that makes rules easy or hard is their type. They can be roughly categorized into two chunks.

There are the basic rules, that are generally governed by things like alphabetization, numerical order, postion in the forms on the comic creator page, etc. Things that a person with with no specialized knowledge would be able to sort out through logic and common sense.

Then there are the obscure rules, which call for the puzzlegoer to have some prior knowledge. I assumed that US presidents would be pretty easy to see, but obviously it was harder for DexX. DexX thought Beatles lyrics were easy to spot, but it was a pain in the ass for me.

So how many of your rules are the confusing kind?

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

And since we can both post comics and guess, I'm going to give guessing a try... I'll save the single rule that I'm absolutely sure of, since it's kind of fun when you find it. But here are my brainstorms for everything else...

Speaking of patterns, this one jumped out right off the bat. Since all four of your first comics followed it, I was sure it was a rule and not just a mistake.

I thought the background had to fall alphabetically between both the character groups and the characters.

Good:
WIGU Props
WIGURube Phone

Bad:
Threereasons Dexx
Feetforears Satan

Everything was great up until the comic about Death and Gore, which blew that theory out of the water.

I think you need to use at least one prop.

After the first couple comics, I thought you needed to use the word you/your like 8 or 9 times, hence the 'All your base' comic to see if that was true.

Name of an assassin, or someone that's been assassinated?

Name a background?

A character from the Dexx group must appear in the right side of some of the panels.

Name a game? (This one was stretching. You used the word 'magicky' and then 'half my life'. Magic, Half Life. I know, thinking too much...

That's about all I got for now.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

Conforms to all ten rules.
[Click to view comic: 'I'm afraid I can't do that, Lee']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I tried to get a good mix of detail-focused rules and content-focused rules. I also tried to make it so that it should be easy enough to do a little internet reasearch if you don't have the requisite knowledge.

I would say that about half of the rules fall into each category, but the distinction is blurry in some cases, so I don't want to confuse anyone by giving actual numbers.

I think two rules require previous knowledge. One you've got (see below). The other may be more obscure than I first thought. I'm trying to make it suggest itself.

quote:

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Speaking of patterns, this one jumped out right off the bat. Since all four of your first comics followed it, I was sure it was a rule and not just a mistake.

I thought the background had to fall alphabetically between both the character groups and the characters.

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