Posted in: Comics | Tagged: amc, Bryan Johnson, comic book men, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, kevin smith, MIke Zapcic, Ming Chen, New York Comic Con 2014, walt flanagan

'It's The Toughest Kind Of Love Ever' – The Brotherhood of AMC's Comic Book Men At NYCC 2014

By Shawn Perry

Ever since I arrived, NYCC has been blowing me away but I doubt anything will top meeting Kevin Smith and the cast of Comic Book Men who discussed their upcoming season as well as the origins of their shop and the show.

The fourth season of Comic Book Men premieres on AMC this Sunday at Midnight just in time for my Post-NYCC withdrawal period.

Now, like a lot of geeks from my generation, Kevin Smith is a hero to me for a number of reasons: he made his first breakthrough feature film [Clerks] on a shoestring budget of approximately $30,000 which he got by selling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 and the rest of his comic book collection…he has written for both Marvel and DC including an excellent run on Daredevil and mini-series Batman: Cacophony…oh yeah, not only is he best friends with Batman but his buddies at the comic book shop that he owns have their own television show on AMC.  Bottom line: there are few people on earth who have done more for comic book culture than Smith, Bryan Johnson, Walt Flanagan, Mike Zapcic and Ming Chen so it is with a little drool on the keyboard that I admit I was pretty stoked to meet them.

Now if you watch the show, it should come as no surprise that everyone was completely chill and super-fun to talk but I am going to let them speak for themselves from here on out:

Shawn Perry: Comic Book Men takes place at Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey. Can you tell us about the genesis of how you came to own a comic book store that is now watched by millions every week?

Kevin Smith: It was '96 and we had just done Chasing Amy and shot a scene in our local shop. One day the guy who ran that store, Steve-Dave, was like 'I am moving to Taiwan.' He was going to close the store to teach English and that bummed us out cause me and Walt [Flanagan] had a 30% discount. Then Steve-Dave was like would you be interested in buying the store and Walt and I had been dreaming about doing that since we were kids. The price was 30,000 and I was like all right man that's a lot of money but that's close to what I spent to made Clerks and that changed my life so here I am within spitting distance of making another dream come true for myself and Walt so I said 'all right man the universe has put this in my path and I have the scratch to do it' so I bought it and renamed it the stash and…Walt did not go into the store for the first two years it was open. He refused to quit his job at the rec center so it took me years of hammering him to leave before he finally joined it…and it's a good thing he did because we would not have the shop or the show if he hadn't said yes.

Back in 1999 just when we were about to move to our current location in Broad Street I was like 'dude you have to do this and I am going to pay you 50k a year to run the store, I don't know if anyone in the world is getting that figure but don't fight me on this' and he said fine but it has to stay open at least ten years and I said 'hook before crook I will make it will happen.' A little while before the show came out the store was getting hit hard by the digital wave and we had a discussion where I said it looks like we might have to close who can complain though its been more than ten years there's no more interest coming in from what I do because I'm not making movies anymore and then I get a phone call from one of the producers of Red State who knew someone at AMC that was interested in doing a show for the geek audience like The Walking Dead.

I said,  "If you were going to do a cheap show for the geek culture about comic books why not just do a pawn shop style show? Find the most disturbing comic shop in America that's my idea and beyond that I have nothing left to say", then a couple days later he calls me up and says AMC likes your idea they want to see a pilot presentation. I was like this is how easy it is to get a show made? Then they say we have to shoot something that looks like what the show is gonna be for the presentation and I say "Okay I own a shop in jersey we can shoot it there with my guys" and I show them our podcast Tell em stevedave and they say "Kevin you're a fucking idiot this is the show your friends are the shit!"  So then I had to call Walter and he's not the chippity chill look-at-me kinda guy so I asked him and at first he says "I don't want to do it."

Then I'm like "Think about it like this is a free commercial for the stash maybe we can stay open a littler longer" and he says "Ya know if it will help the stash stay open I'll try it" and the rest is history. Walt is the reason for all this because he kept the store going for fifteen years now I get to say that investment really panned out because now are coming up on our fourth season and 16 years in business.

SP: Awesome. So your daughter, Harley Smith, appears in the first episode of the new season – what was that experience like?

KS: In my twenty years in this business to see her on my show was one of the weirdest things ever. My kid is never going to work in a convenience store so this is the closest she is going to be to a clerk but fuck everything else there's a moment in that episode where I talk to Harley and when I watched the first cut I was like "I'm going to cry, there's something that came out of my balls talking to me on my show! She was in my balls and now there she is cracking wise!"

SP: Was it her idea?

KS: Getting Harley involved was my idea because I thought it would be a great dry run for her being on camera before she tries movies, ya know, because once they turn the camera on its every man and woman for themselves so its kind of like throwing a kid into the deep end of the pool but she rose to the occasion, I mean, she was very, very good at it.

SP: What else can you guys tell us about the new season?

Mike Zapcic: Adam West and Billy Dee were the big guests this year. Also Robbie Risk is going to reprise his role as Cousin Oliver.

Ming Chen: No one knows who that is…

SP: Of course we do! The behind the orange bandana in my favorite independent movie of all time, besides Clerks of course, is a beloved idol to Teenage Mutant Ninja Bleeders everywhere. Now what can you tell me about that surprise appearance by Ben "The Bat-man" Affleck?

MZ: No Ben Affleck, he is off the table. We can't even get Matt Damon.

MC: But you never know with this show…

SP: How about some more Trivia with Ming?

MZ: No more trivia for Ming.

MC: I think I have proven that I am bad at trivia.

SP: Now that the show has been on a few years people must travel to the shop just to see you guys…does it bother you when they aren't there for the comics?

MZ: I have a huge problem with that!  I have huge problem with anyone coming just to see us and not buying comics. Let that go out throughout the land: you come into the store you best be dropping some coin!

MC: That doesn't happen too often, when people visit they usually buy something and they are usually thrilled to see we're actually there.

SP: Would you ever consider opening up a chain of Comic Shops, perhaps with bars or, in Denver or Washington, head shops?

MC: We could not run a stash without Walt Flanagan. We had one in Los Angeles and Bryan Johnson had homeless minions running around and the rent was insane.

SP: What's the craziest thing that happened?

Bryan Johnson: One day this guy in a wheel chair comes in and acts kind of weird and parks himself in front of the entrance one day and he's watching TV and he's cursing like crazy and then he would space out then he would start swearing again and again and again until it got to the point where I had to roll him to the back.

SP: So how true to life is this show? So much of reality and unscripted shows come across as contrived but I always get the vibe that what happens on the show is real because you're really friends. I guess what I'm asking is: are your relationships on the show an accurate reflection of how you guys really are with each other?

Walt Flanagan: Is our relationships on the show different in real life? Hell no, we bust Ming's balls even harder in real life, to me, its like that's a sign of affection for our group to bust each others balls. We don't give hugs we show each other affection in different ways.

BJ: it's the toughest kind of love ever.

SP: It really is beautiful that all this came from a podcast and the love of true friends. As someone that has dealt with depression and struggled to find platforms to speak from I understand how important it is to have the right people to support and work with you when there is something you want or have to share. That's what I love about your show…I always feel like a guest in your world and it's so unlike other unscripted shows in that it feels very real and true to life.

BJ: I went into this to deal with my own issues. I moved back from California and had no direction at all and I asked Kevin if he thought doing a podcast would be something that Walt, our friend Brian Quinn and I could do because at the time I was pretty depressed and wasn't able to tell my family. The podcast was something where I knew no matter how down I was two of my best friends in the world were gonna come over to laugh about something…not all of the shows are funny but just having the opportunity to vent with people who really knew me helped a lot. How many times do you hear 'how are you' a day but no really gives a shit and you say 'all right' but does that mean anything? So when you have time to talk on a podcast with friends and get everything out there it is really helpful.

Make sure to check out the Season Four Premiere of Comic Book Men this Sunday at Midnight on AMC and for more from this awesome group of people check out Johnson and Flanagan's Podcast Tell Em SteveDave, Chen and Zapcic's Podcast I Sell Comics and Smith's criminally-underappreciated love letter to the shock-horror genre: Tusk.

Peace Out Bleeders! Follow your Dreams!

Shawn Perry is a proud geek from East Hartford, CT who is striving to be here now. He enjoys yellow journalism, the varied mediums of storytelling, yellow sunglasses and running to Weezer's new album. You can tweet him @thesperry or send him an email at Shawn.Perry88@gmail.com.

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