Kevin Smith, a.k.a. `Silent Bob,’ is no slacker when it comes to fans

Robert K. Elder, Tribune staff reporter
Published August 28, 2001

More than 2,000 people are waiting outside the speaking hall in Rosemont, but the 700 inside aren’t budging.

Many of the fans at the Wizard World comic book convention have sat through three panel discussions in the same room for a chance to see Kevin Smith — writer/director of “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma” and the new “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” and writer of comics such as Daredevil and Green Arrow — and they aren’t about to give up their spots.

“He’s a typical guy, but he’s got this hard-core, dedicated following,” says Wizard Con organizer Jim McLauchlin during the melee.

Comic book conventions, in large part, are about communing with fantasies — getting closer to the people behind Spider-Man, Batman and other superfolk.

As odd as it sounds, Smith — wearing jeans shorts and a faded gray sweatshirt — is a flesh-and-blood superhero to them: He makes movies, he writes comic books, he got married and had a daughter whom he and his wife named after a Batman character (Harley Quinn Smith, age 2) (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).

But as Smith’s cult status rises and his life changes, it has become hard for him to connect with fans.

After his panel discussion is over, Smith begins to walk the floor, where he is mobbed by admirers and seems obsessively compelled to please everyone. He poses for pictures, signs endless autographs, and videotapes intros to people’s Web sites — almost anything he is asked. When security guards ask him if he wants to move on, he says, “No, I can’t leave now.” (Later, Smith comments: “I don’t feel right about leaving people there with stuff unsigned; it wouldn’t feel right. Catholic guilt.”)

“The artist throws art out to an audience to communicate — you’re throwing a message out there to see if anyone understands, listens, agrees,” Smith says. “You do it essentially, I believe on one level, to ensure that you are not alone in the world. And to have so many people say, ‘I get it,’ — there is no downside to that whatsoever.”

He continues: “And to having people go beyond ‘I get it,’ to ‘I know it, live it and can quote it back to you. Here are notes on how to make it better’–that invaluable.”

Smith, himself an ardent comic book fan, rose to fame with his low-budget 1994 smash movie “Clerks.” He financed the $27,575 effort by selling his prized comic collection and maxing out his credit cards. Today, Smith owns his own comic book store in his native Red Bank, N.J., but he still goes to conventions, only on the other side of the stage.

“He’s one of us,” says Chris Joslin, 23, of Bloomington, a fan waiting in line outside to see Smith. “He worked in a convenience store, then made movies, but he still connects with his fans.”

During his two-hour panel, the perpetually laid-back Smith regales the crowd with behind-the-scenes movie anecdotes and sets them rolling in the aisles with off-color jokes.

Among the strange questions he responds to without complaint are these: “I invited you to my bar mitzvah, why didn’t you come?” “Do you have a stalker? If not, I have a lot of free time.”

Later, in a quiet moment, Smith actually reflects on the latter question.

“The relationship that I have with those cats — I’ll never have a stalker. A stalker is cultivated out of somebody not being available and they want to get close,” Smith says. “You can find me on the Net, you can go down to the comic book store — sometimes I’m there — I’m at comic book shows all the time. I am way available, I’m always around.”

On his Web site, www.ViewAskew.com, Smith spends hours daily reading fan feedback, posting news and writing about his passions: family, film and comics. (In addition to writing superhero books, Smith also pens his own Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob comics.) His not-so-secret e-mail address receives an average of 200 e-mails each morning, most of which Smith says he feels obligated to reply to.

Smith’s wife, Jennifer Schwalbach, says she was unprepared for the intensity of her husband’s cult following when she married him two years ago. At the San Diego International Comic Convention in July, Schwalbach had to be lifted out of the crowd by security guards after fans rushed her for movie tickets. “They are so harmless, and the sweetest people — but enthusiastic,” she says.

She has adjusted, having come to an understanding about her husband’s relationship with his audience. “He’s just a normal guy. He hasn’t changed since he worked at the Quick Stop. And people who have been following from that point are in love with him for not changing.”

His life has changed

But at age 31, Smith has changed. True, he still loves comic books, still has the sense of humor and ear for dialogue. But it has been almost a decade since Smith worked at the convenience store, and his life experience no longer reflects that of his audience. He’s one of them, and he’s not — a fact that Smith is coming to terms with.

“The trick is to never let that, the real life, intrude too far on what they perceive you to be. I made good, but it doesn’t really represent who we are now,” Smith says.

Smith — now taking a break in his hotel room, flicking cigarette ashes into a half-filled glass of Coke — talks about fans who approach him almost everywhere he goes, asking if he wants to get high. Given the drug humor in his films, he thinks it’s understandable. Unlike his screen persona, Silent Bob, Smith doesn’t smoke pot or even drink, and hasn’t for years. “You’ve never seen someone so shocked when I tell them that I don’t get high,” Smith says.

“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” Smith’s fifth film, which opened Friday, is the last live action film to feature the drug-dealing duo who have been constants throughout his career. Jay and Silent Bob have become MTV icons, 21st Century clowns whose comic books are on display on the convention floor and whose action figures are cased in protective plastic boxes.

Smith has been closer to his audience than most artists, a film school dropout with a cult audience whose films have been equal parts pop culture references, gleeful vulgarity and social commentary.

He has made personal films about sexuality (the boy-loves-lesbian drama “Chasing Amy”) and religion (”Dogma”), but not without controversy. A practicing Catholic, Smith came under severe fire for his theological exploration — which, among other things, suggested that Mary and Joseph had children after Jesus’ birth. The Catholic League’s denunciation of “Dogma” before its 1999 release incited a media frenzy and protests at the film’s opening. A handful of death threats followed and Smith’s mail was screened for six months, in what the director remembers as “a nightmare.”

A love letter to fans

“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” Smith says, was a consciously light film, a love letter to fans who have been clamoring for the director to give the pair their own movie. “It’s offensive to no one except people who like intelligent films,” Smith joked during the panel.

But that’s not entirely true. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has attacked the film for what it perceives to be sophomoric humor and reinforcement of negative gay stereotypes. Although Smith doesn’t agree with GLAAD’s impression, he gave $10,000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation and included GLAAD’s phone number in the closing credits of the film.

“I know the movie is not homophobic. I know that there is an abundance of gay jokes in the film, but none of them are at the expense of the gay community,” says Smith, whose brother is gay — a fact he didn’t reveal during the controversy.

“If you can make jokes about straight sex, why can’t you make jokes about gay sex?” Smith inquired of fans during a Q&A session.

Now it’s time to move on, Smith says, blowing cigarette smoke out of the car window on his way to a charity screening of the new film.

On his plate next is an animated movie, a sequel to “Clerks” called “Clerks Sell Out,” followed by a “Fletch” movie that rejuvenates the comic detective franchise with actor Jason Lee, and a more personal film about fatherhood starring Smith-alum Ben Affleck.

Whether his fans will move with him as he abandons a cast of characters they love weighs on the director’s mind.

“Sure, but I hope they grow along with us. Not to say that we’re children and we need to grow up, but because we’ve done stuff that’s had weight to it,” Smith says. “`Chasing Amy’ and `Dogma’ were serious films. I think they’ll come with us.”

Slackers in La-La Land

Kevin Smith says this may be the last live-action go-round for the Cheech and Chong-like duo who have been a running gag through all of his films. Here then is a fond look back at the scruffy screen careers of Jay and Silent Bob, two marginal men for their times:

Clerks (1994) Portrays a madcap day in the life of Quick Stop clerk Dante Hicks and his slacker friends and eccentric customers, including a video-store clerk with a spectacularly lame work ethic. Jay and Silent Bob make their first appearance as pot dealers rooted outside.

Mallrats (1995) Two slackers (notice the developing theme), with recently broken hearts try to renew their self-esteem among the bad-mannered regulars of a mall, who include Jay and Silent Bob.

Chasing Amy (1997) A comic book artist struggles with the complicated sexual history of his new artist sweetheart. Jay and Silent Bob appear again as models for the hero’s comic book.

Dogma (1999) Two fallen angels try to get back into heaven through a loophole in the Almighty’s laws. This time, Jay and Silent Bob are prophets and, as usual, Bob is silent except to deliver a key mot.

Scream 3 (2000) The boys have a cameo role as comic relief on a grisly studio lot in this non-Kevin Smith film. (Smith says he and Jason Mewes especially enjoyed the free shirt and $300 they got from Wes Craven for the gig.)

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) The dynamic duo return yet again with a plot to destroy a Hollywood film based on their comic book lives.