Interview: Kevin Smith talks comics, more animated ‘Clerks’, & his future in film

You get the sense that Kevin Smith is something unique. A little crude, a bit loud, and this guy who can at once be an astonishingly gifted self-promoter while living a life of authenticity. Read that again, “living a life of authenticity”, not putting off an air of authenticity. Smith is clearly the real deal. So when you sit down across from the man, you do your best to curb the bullshit.

I’ve been a Smith fan since I was a teenager. His films, his comics, his overall give-not-a-fuckedness about “supposed to” or politeness. This is a guy who questions his critics and keeps close his supporters, and his friends.

Yesterday at Carolines On Broadway I was one of less than two dozen reporters that got to listen to Smith and his friends talk about their new, unscripted show Comic Book Men, which premiers on AMC this Sunday after the Walking Dead. The show, which is set in Smith’s New Jersey comic book shop, The Secret Stash, seeks to capture the type of banter that first established Smith in Clerks while also shining a light on comic books and guys like Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Ming Chen, and Michael Zapcic.

We’ll have a full write up on Comic Book Men and what Smith, Flanagan, Johnson, and company had to say about it in the second part of our coverage tomorrow. Today, enjoy our talk with Secret Stash manager, Tell Em Steve Dave smodcaster, and comic artist Walt Flanagan, and my face to with Kevin Smith.

Walt said you’re working on more stuff for DC. Can you comment on that?

Kevin Smith: We did Cacophony, that was the first mini-series we did. That was three issues. And they were like, “You want to do another one?” We were like, “Fuck yeah.” At first we wanted to do a Swamp Thing story, but they wouldn’t let us do Swamp Thing because it was, uh…

Because of Alan Moore?

KS: No, because it’s a Vertigo title and they don’t really cross over too much.

Ah. Speaking of Vertigo, you’ve been an outspoken fan of Preacher, which is awesome.

KS: Dude. I loved Preacher. That’s going to be an awesome series. Once somebody nails that, it’s going to be an awesome series. Eventually, when somebody nails it, it’ll be a perfect HBO series. But fuck, where was I…

DC, Cacophony…

KS: Thank you. So we did Widening Gyre, six issues of that. We have another six issues left. He’s on issue four right now, I think. It went on the back burner because the TV show thing happened; we were shooting that. But now that the TV show is put to bed, at least as long as it can be, we can get back to the book.

Walt did a phenomenal job with that [the comic book]. His pages on the new book are even better than the Gyre stuff… what I loved about Cacophony was, you could open up to the Joker-Deadshot exchange in issue one, where the Joker’s reading Ayn Rand, and then you go to the Joker-Batman scene in issue three, and the Joker’s still reading Ayn Rand…it’s like two different artists drew it. You can literally see the growth from book one to book three. So by the time he gets to Gyre, Walt’s just a fucking ninja.

So now, these new pages… he’s drawing wonderful Batmans. Stuff I never would have thought he could, classic stuff with the cape billowing and amazing poses. It’s like anything else. The practice you put into it, the better you get at it. And he’s aggregated a lot of practice drawing Batman and that world. And when you’re passionate about something it comes through. And Walt’s passionate about drawing the weirdest fucking characters, and we get to put those into the book as well. And that’s the next one, and if we were smart we would have had it ready to go when Comic Book Men launched. But I can’t be that guy, going like, “Hey man, synergy!” If it works, it’ll work. One thing at a time. We chose to concentrate on this, but that’s next.

Speaking of what you’re working on, you’re working on Hit Somebody, which you’ve said is your last movie. Are you going to remain involved in the industry, though? Funding new films, micro-budget stuff, things like that?

KS: We just did this thing, we didn’t fund it but we did this deal…the idea was, when I was on stage at Sundance last year, I said once we’re done with Hit Somebody we’re going to turn Smodcast Films over to you guys, put out your films. A people’s film studio, put out your movies, that kind of thing.

We worked with this company called Phase Four, which released our movie in Canada. We had a good relationship with them, and they were into the idea. They were like “that’s a good idea, do you want to set that label up here? We could start now. We see all these great films at festivals and shit.” And I was like “Alright, let’s do it.” So three years ahead of schedule we just started Smodcast Pictures. And Elyse [Seiden] just watched two features with a third one coming for the possibility of putting out. We’re still looking for our first one.

There was one that played at Sundance that was really good, but it felt a little off-genre for our first flick. But we just found this other one, made for twenty thousand dollars that might be perfect for our first film to put through the system. So that kind of thing is neat, because you’re like, “Let me see if I can find somebody else cool. Let me see what the next big thing is.” I’m the old thing. Let me see if somebody else has a cool idea. Because to be involved in that, with that person, makes me look smart. Makes it seem like I know where the puck’s gonna be and shit.

Any chance of the animated Clerks coming back?

KS: The people who took over Miramax asked if we want to do anything with the characters, because of course they want to re-monetize the library. And I said no, not with the movies. But that Clerks cartoon is so easy to do. Adult Swim plays those six episodes all the time. They could probably make new ones.

We made those episodes, it cost, I think it was $600,000 a piece back in 1999-2000. You could do the whole show on fucking flash now for a couple grand and be good to go. So there’s a piece of you that goes “Yeah I hope it works out.” And I hope it does, I hope they’re into it and I hope we go forward with it.

But now, I’m of the age of “Why wait?” I don’t need anybody’s permission. If they don’t want to do it, somebody else will want to do a cartoon. And if nobody wants to do it, then fuck it we’ll do it on our own site. The SModimations came from something like that. Mosier went in and talked to people, like, “Hey guys, would you be interested in this anthology show, little five minute animation clips based on the podcast?” And people couldn’t get their heads around it.

He literally got the fucking note from somebody going like, “Well, Aquaman’s in this episode.” He’s like “Yeah.” They’re like, “Can Aquaman be in every episode?” And we’re like, “We don’t own Aquaman. It’s a joke. A throwaway joke. We can’t do every episode like that.” So some cats can’t get their heads around it, and it’s like fuck it. We’ll go in our backyard and do it and they’ll see what we meant. So for me now, I’m of the mind that I’ll give some people an open field and say, “You want in?” If they don’t tag it, then fuck it we’ll do it ourselves. Indie spirit, I guess. It extends beyond the movies.

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Portions written by Jason Tabrys.

Written by Myles Cockcroft (@myleswithay)

Myles Hewette Cockcroft is a writer, comedian and part-time unemployed person living in Brooklyn, New York. When not watching terrible movies on Netflix streaming, he watches TV shows from his youth over and over again, often while weeping and cursing the heavens. He co-wrote and directed the short film My… More »