JIM AND SILENT BOB
By Dawson Fearnow
Growing up, every little boy just knows that he will have a ‘cool’ job like a jet pilot, gun slinging cowboy. the fourth Beastie Boy or even a member of the A-Team. Then reality comes along along bites him in the ass. Now he sits slaving away in a tiny cubicle (i.e. animal fattening pen), an insignificant cog in a faceless organization. However, it’s refreshing to know that some people have accomplished their childhood dreams and are giving “The Man” the finger.
Tempe (Arizona) artist, Jim Mahfood is one of these fortunate few. Not only is he a comic book artist and a damn good one, but at the tender age of twenty-three, he has already published several independent comics, written and illustrated his own book for Marvel’s Gen X series, and recently illustrated the original Clerks comic. Clerks is based upon the characters created in Kevin Smith’s breakout movie of the same title. Although stores were wary about stocking a black and white product, the Clerks comic book was an instant success and the first printing flew off the shelves. In less than a year, the book has gone to fourth printing with over seventy thousand copies in circulation worldwide. Now Smith and Mahfood have collaborated on the new Clerks: The Holiday Special comic, that will be released the second week of December in comic stores nationwide.
Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy) is another who’s forged his own destiny and like Mahfood, is obsessed with comics. In fact, Smith hawked his childhood comic book collection – in order to fund the movie Clerks. Smith also maxed out more than a dozen credit cards in order to raise the $27,000 needed to complete the film. At the Sundance Film Festival, – Clerks was picked up by Miramax and went on to gross 2.8 million dollars which means Smith’s little black and white film earned a staggering 100 times the money it cost to make.
After establishing himself as one of the most successful young writer/directors in Hollywood, Smith returned to his love of comics. However, everything he creates is tied together somehow, and all of his films share characters and make references to each other. So, it was only natural for him to write a comic book about the movie that started it all. He wrote a hysterical storyline continuing the plight of Quick Stop employee Dante, his friend Randall and the infamous duo Jay and Silent Bob (a.k.a. Kevin Smith). Smith needed someone to illustrate his words.
Enter Mahfood, at the time he was working with Bob Schreck, a respected comic industry veteran who had worked for publishing powerhouses like Marvel before he and his partner broke off to form their own label called ONI Press in 1997. Mahfood had shown his work to Schreck at a comic expo in 1993, and like Yoda to Luke Skywalker, Schreck told him he wasn’t ready yet. However, when Shreck saw Mahfood’s work at another expo four years later, he knew that Mahfood had developed into a comic Jedi Knight. Fortunately ONI had recently teamed up Smith’s production company, View Askew, to publish a Clerks comic book, and Mahfood was tapped for a shot at the big time.
Although Smith was hesitant to let a relatively unknown artist illustrate his story, Mahfood was persistent and eventually won the job. He was given a collection of stills from the movie and pictures of the actual store, which he used to create characters and backgrounds for Smith’s text. After months of hard work and enough mail between Tempe and Smith’s office in New Jersey to make a post man go, well…postal, the book was published in early 1998.
Creating a sequel was just as demanding because Kevin Smith is hard at work on a new film called Dogma, staring his old buddies Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. In fact, it was Smith and his partner Scott Mosier’s cozy relationship with Miramax that was instrumental in getting Good Will Hunting funded and both received some production credit on the film.
Dogma is the final chapter in a trilogy of work for Smith, which makes sense because aside from comics he is also obsessed with Star Wars. First, Clerks dealt with working, then Chasing Amy talked about love, and now Dogma completes the tale with a discourse on religion. Mahfood, who visited Smith on location in Pittsburgh and actually appears in one scene, says that this should be Smith’s most complex and stunning movie. Thanks to the runaway success of Chasing Amy, Smith was given a large budget which enabled him to perform complex camera movements and create intriguing visual. Images.
However, he hasn’t forgotten the smart dialogue is what made his previous movies so original, and Dogma has this in spades. The film will premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, and even the usually reserved Smith is predicting a possible Oscar nomination for Affleck. Finally, thanks to Smith’s trademark quick wit and love for offensive material, everyone is expecting loads of protest from those annoying Bible thumpers of the religious right.
Don’t expect any moral revelations from the Clerks holiday book. Instead, it is filled with a solid dose of side-splitting humor and observations a lot sharper than Seinfeld’s dated ‘Ginsu Knife’ jokes. Watch as Dante — who muttered the battle cry of all underpaid workers when he said, “I’m not even supposed to be here today,” — and Randall (“thirty seven dicks”) discover that Santa Claus really lives in New Jersey, well maybe.
Considering Clerks’ humble origins, it has created an incredible following. For those who want more than a movie and some comic books, Smith has responded with a series of T-shirts and even a collection of Jay and Silent Bob fridge magnets. Not enough, you say, well watch out because coming this Christmas are Jay and Silent Bob dolls. Each one is about eight inches tall with replaceable hands so you can have your Jay flashing the bird, holding a sixer o’ beer or a big fatty blunt. No kidding. It’s about time we had same toys for big boys. Jay and Silent Bob have also been lighting up the small screen with a series of comedy shorts on MTV, and recently Smith was hired to write and direct several commercials for Nike. When the original actor dropped out, Smith turned to his buddy, Jason Mewes (a.k.a. Jay), and the duo created some genuinely funny ads.
Our man Mahfood isn’t exactly sitting on the dock waiting far his ship to come in. He is in the process of drawing new concert tees for the upcoming Mighty Mighty Bosstones tour. He is also publishing Scud: Tales From the Vending Machine #4. A continuous series of comics, created by his friend Rob Schrob, about Scuds. Not those shitty Gulf War missiles, but assassins that you buy from a vending machine, who kill whomever you program them to and then self-destruct.
Early next year, Mahfood will be partying like it’s 1999, when ONI publishes a four issue series with his own characters, the Grrl Scouts, who are just like ordinary Girl Scouts except for the guns, violence and a distinct lack of chocolate mint cookies. He’s also designing album covers, including one for a new compilation CD called, Reinventing the Rock Star, which is coming soon to a record shop near you. Mahfood has agreed to work for D.C. Comics’ Vertigo division, which concentrates on more mature books. This new series entitled, Shock Treatment, is a horror comic and will be his first full color project. Oh, yeah he also does his Stupid Comics in some rag called Java. Finally he is known on the local level for creating ‘live art’ during the Bombshelter DJs shows.
So for all of you burnt-out corporate types who chucked aside your childhood dreams in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, maybe you can learn from the success of these two artists. Go to work tomorrow, tell your boss to eat shit and moon your co-workers an the way out the door. Unless you are an employee of the United States Postal Service, then you should gently put down this magazine, take multiple deep breaths and maybe just quit over the phone. And far goodness sake, please take your finger off the trigger.

Ad Age, Oct 19th issue, 1998 issue pg 24

Chasing glory: Filmmaker tries hand at comics

Kevin Smith moonlights as writer, boosts publisher’s sales to young males

By Jeff Jensen

Acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Smith last scored with a provocative romantic comedy set in the cavernous subculture of comic creators and fanboys. Now the director of “Chasing Amy” is writing comics himself.

In fact, he’s being hailed as a super hero for helping to reverse the comics’ industry’s recent slide.

Marvel Comics last month relaunched its struggling “Daredevil” with Mr. Smith as the writer. The title was selling 50,000 copies per moth last year; industry estimates have Mr. Smith’s debut moving more than 90,000 issues.

This follows the unexpected success of “Bluntman & Chronic,” a comic written by Mr. Smith and based on two wacky and whacked out characters that have appeared in each of his three films. Published by Oni press, the comic is in tits sixth printing.

Marvel Knights

Mr. Smith was lured to “Daredevil” by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, a popular art team hired by Marvel to revamp four titles now gathered under a new imprint, Marvel Knights.

Messrs. Quesada, Palmiotti and Smith tell a similar story, of rediscovering comics in college following a mid-to-late-1980’s creative renaissance drive by independent publishers and more sophisticated approaches to superheroes.

“Before I became a filmmaker, I wanted to write comics but was told it was too tough a market to crack, so I went into films, which oddly enough proved more accessible,” said Mr. Smith, who owns a comic-book store in Red Bark (sic), NJ.

Comics Correction

Mr. Smith’s celebrity has given the business a much-needed spark. In the early ’90’s, the industry was booming, fueled by speculators looking to invest money in collectibles. Publishers old and new fed the market with products tricked out with gimmicks ranging from reflective covers to sensationalist story lines. The zenith was reached in November 1992, with D.C. Comics’ “Death of Superman.”

But the deluge of cheapened comics’ investment value, forcing prospectors out. And lesser quality products quickly turned off new readers. Combined with increased paper costs and other factors that drove up pricing, the comics market took a nosedive.

From a decade long high of $850 million, the industry stabilized last year at $400 million, said John Jackson Miller, managing editor of Comic Buyer’s Guide. Since 1993, he said, the number of comics stores has dropped by more than half, from 9,000 to 4,200.

Still, the stabilization of the market and the excitement generated by Mr. Smith’s appointment are among the reasons Mr. Miller is encouraged.

“We may be at the end of the industry’s recession,” he said.

Hollywood Tries Comics

It’s not unusual for Hollywood talent to try their hand at comics. In the past, though, their interest has been short lived, motivated by novelty or youthful nostalgia. But Mr. Smith is among a group of unabashed fans who can talk trivia and trash with the best fanboy, as comics followers are known.

And it appears more of them are giving comics a long-term shot.

Mr. Smith will write the first seven issues of “Daredevil” and has pledged to write another story line next year. In between those ventures, he will be the writer on D.C. Comics’ relaunch of Green Arrow.”

“I hope to keep doing it,” Mr. Smith said. “My only problem is my day job. Writing comics takes a lot of time to do right, and I don’t like to rush things.”

At D.C. Comics, the editors of the company’s cash cow Batman titles have made the unprecedented move of hiring a team of non-comics writers to execute major yearlong story line next year.

Bob Gale, who co wrote the “Back to the Future” Films, is on that team.

Each writer will develop a story line encompassing four tot five issues.

Possible Backlash

But hiring talent such as Mr. Gale doesn’t assure sales success. There is a potential for backlash, said D.C.’s Batman editor, Dennis O’Neil.

“Traditionally, the core fans prefer one constant creative team,” Mr. O’Neil said. “But these new creators grew up reading comics, know the medium and see it as a legitimate art form. We’re in good hands.”

Although there are fewer comics reaching fewer kids than in 1993, they do reach a high concentration of teen-age and twenty something males. And advertisers have taken notice.

D.C. Making An Ad Space

D.C. Comics said ad sales have increased sharply since 1996. The company will soon eliminate the letters page of it s adult-targeted Vertigo line to make room for more ad space.

Marvel’s first issue of “Daredevil” had ads from Levi Strauss & Co., a “Got Milk?” ad from the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotions Board and ads from a host of movie studios and top toy brands.

“You don’t see as many sea monkey ads anymore,” said Steve Bobowski, exec VP-sales and marketing at Marvel, noting Mr. Smith’s “Daredevil” “is going to make our sales job much easier. When you have a hot property, it creates a glow for our entire line.”

Hot titles create ad sales opportunities, but not necessarily hot creators, said Paul Levitz, exec VP-publisher of D.C. Comics.

Delivering Audience

“Advertisers don’t usually buy because of one ingredient in a comic book but because of the delivered audience we are reaching.,” Mr Levitz said. “Now, if Tina Brown was editing the magazine maybe the masthead brings in advertisers.”

Ad sales growth hinges on strategies that can boost readership. Time will tell if name-brand Hollywood writers will be among them.

But industry observers note that names such as Mr. Smith’s also have brought new faces into stores.

“A lot of my film audience doesn’t read comics,” Mr. Smith said. “The smart retailers should merchandise the hot products with other good stuff that my film audience would like. Once they’re in the door, it’s up the retailers to keep them coming back.”

ORDER HERE AND SAVE $20! – AC3/CC/LBX/REG1 – Audio commentary by Gus Van Sant, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck – 11 deleted scenes – Production featurette – Behind-the-scenes footage – Academy Awards Best Picture montage – Elliott Smith’s “Miss Misery” music video – Theatrical trailer & TV spots

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