Comic Book Men is ‘ a guy thing’
New AMC docu- reality series follows lives of Secret Stash’s clerks, geeks
One day in the not- too- distant future, in a galaxy close to home, cultural historians may pore over the mind- blowing pop- culture artifacts of fanboy Kevin Smith’s New Jersey comic shop, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, and wonder: What was that all about?
If they’re lucky, Smith will still be around to tell them. If not, they will have the new AMC docu- reality series, Comic Book Men, to show them.
Comic Book Men follows the day- to- day lives of the Secret Stash’s counter staff of clerks, comic- book geeks and card- carrying “consultants,” including moody manager Walt, unapologetic nerd Mike, lifelong slacker Brian, and merry Ming, the shop’s go- to guy and lead gofer. Comic Book Men is the antiAntiques Roadshow: The guys buy, sell, talk about, and argue over the treasures of the comicbook world, and share their findings with their boss Smith through their podcast.
Comic Book Men — it’s a guy thing, few gals here — debuts Sunday on AMC, following the return of The Walking Dead.
Smith, sporting a gargantuan, oversized blue- and- orange Siri Podcast Radio hockey jersey, likened comic- book collecting to poring over the menu at a high- class fast- food restaurant, in a raucous, at- times over- thetop meeting last month with reporters in Los Angeles.
“It’s like reading, but it’s reading light,” Smith said, warming to his subject. “Know what I’m saying? It’s reading with pictures, and we all like that.
“It’s like going to Denny’s. You don’t just read a menu, you look at things. Same thing here. Read the stories, look at the graphics. It takes you back to our beginning as storytellers. They found these scrawlings, pictographs on cave walls, right? So apparently, we were telling stories with pictures, even before we formed words and whatnot.”
Think of comic books, in other words, as the Lascaux cave paintings of our modern age — the Avengers as a latterday reflection of Upper Paleolithic art.
The more Smith warmed to his subject, the more carbon dioxide he began spewing out.
“It’s a tradition that’s been around for a long, long time. Plus, it’s just fun. It’s easy. And look, it’s great. If Fat Boy loves to read about thin people beating the s— out of chain snatchers and muggers and stuff, and then puts himself in there, going, ‘ One day, that could be me,’ it’s cool — even though it could never be you. It just gives you a place to go. It’s an easy fantasy place, and still, to this day, works.”
Then there are the comic books themselves.
“[ They are] a male- dominated medium, sure. The readers are mostly dudes. We’ve seen a transition away from just superhero tales over the course of the last 10, 15 years. But this is great. The growth of independent comics has been wonderful for people [ who] want to tell stories that aren’t necessarily about anybody in tights, male or female. And that’s what’s going to bring in more women, I think.”
Smith trolls online whenever he can, but there are times when he can feel his blood pressure start to pop.
“I could barely do anything for myself, let alone the entire gender of women, and stuff.
“So my response is always, ‘ Go and make your show, man. I want to watch your show.’ There should be a Comic Book Women. God willing, if this works, there will be a spinoff.”