See you in the funny pages, Kevin Smith and company

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Kevin Smith, front, with the cast of his new reality show, Comic Book Men.

The geeks shall inherit the Earth.

OK, maybe not the whole planet, but certainly one very prime timeslot on Sunday nights.

AMC's new unscripted series, Comic Book Men, takes up residence in the 9 p.m. slot this Sunday, and head geek Kevin Smith -- filmmaker, unapologetic Degrassi fan and lifelong comic-book nerd -- says it's about time one of America's underappreciated art forms got its due.

"What I've always liked about comics is that they're one of the only pure American art forms," Smith explained last month during AMC's portion of the U.S. networks' semi-annual press tour in Los Angeles. "We invented the comic book in our country -- I mean, we didn't invent the illustration, but we invented all in colour for a dime. It's one of those things, like jazz, that Americans can actually claim for their own, that didn't come from some other place."

Comic Book Men is a six-part reality-TV series that takes place in Smith's New Jersey comic-book store, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, and follows the geekish behaviour of the employees and regular customers who have made it their home away from home. Front and centre in the unscripted storylines are the shop's mostly cranky manager, Walt Flanagan, resident super-nerd Mike Zapcic, slacker/square peg Brian Johnson and Ming Chen, the lowest-rung employee who is the most frequent target of the others' not-so-fearsome wrath.

Smith has owned the store since 1997, but his association goes back much farther -- Flanagan and Johnson, in fact, were the inspirations for the central characters in Smith's career-making 1994 indie film, Clerks.

Clad in his trademark short-pants-and-Oilers'-colours-hockey-jersey ensemble, Smith said the hardest part of getting this series made was convincing Secret Stash's staffers that they were ready to be prime-time players.

"The beautiful thing about Walter and Brian is that they have no interest in this," he offers. "I called up Walter and I was like, 'Dude, you're never going to believe this, but we might have a show on AMC.' And he goes, 'I don't want to do it.' I said, 'Why?' And he goes, 'Because I don't want to be (expletive) Snooki.'

"I said, 'You're out of your mind -- everybody wants to be Snooki, at least for five minutes.' And he goes, 'Not me.'"

Smith says the manager only agreed to take part in the TV project when his boss (Smith) convinced him it would be good for business.

"I said, 'Well, this could work as a really cool commercial for the store,'" Smith continues. "And Walter always likes to see people coming through the door, because he knows if more people come through the door, he still has his dream job working at the store. So he was like, 'All right; if it works like a commercial for the store, I'm in.'"

With that, the deal was sealed, giving Smith and company a chance to offer a glimpse of their offbeat lives to the audience of a network that airs such geek-approved shows as The Walking Dead, Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

Smith added that he holds an admittedly slim hope that this TV series might do a little bit of good in terms of de-nerdifying the comic-book-fanboy crowd in the eyes of the fairer sex.

"Look, honestly, I'm not going to say (about this series), 'It's up to you, ladies,'" he says with a laugh. "But I will say this: All I ever hear single women talk about is not being able to find a good man. Well, you will never find a better man than in a comic-book store, because if you throw a comic-book guy just a little bit of attention and/or (physical affection), you've got him for life -- the most loyal husband you'll find.

"My wife, she dropped her standards this much, and she got me for life, man, because she gave me a shot. Comic-book guys are reliable dudes. I don't have to sell it beyond that -- ladies, if you're looking for a man who will take care of your needs first, (it's) comic-book dudes."

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2012 E5