KEVIN SMITH, who wrote and directed the comedy “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” took the red-eye from Los Angeles to New York last week for a party with big names — people he says he admires. Scorsese, Coppola and Spielberg? No, not that business, not those names. Mr. Smith owns a comic book store in Red Bank, N.J., and also writes for some.

“Guys like Neal Adams, who draws Green Arrow, are legends to me, just like Scorsese is a legend in the movie world,” Mr. Smith said before auctioning paintings from “Heroes,” Marvel’s book about police officers and firefighters on Sept. 11, at the party on Thursday night at Club 101 on Park Avenue. The money went to the Twin Towers Fund.

Mr. Smith’s original passion was comics, not movies. “I had to sell my original comic book collection to help finance `Clerks,’ ” he said, referring to his 1994 film, which laid the groundwork for a more recent animated television series. “I’m a huge Batman fan. I had to part with all my Batmans. And I had a Sandman statue. I really hated parting with all that.”