- Q: I recently watched the movie “Mallrats” and was fascinated with Jason Lee, who played Brodie. Has he done any more movies since then? What’s he doing now?
-N.P. San Jose, Calif.
A: Lee, a professional skateboarder and skateboard manufacturer as well as actor, has worked regularly in films since the 1995 “Mallrats”, with Shannen Doherty and Ben Affleck. “Chasing Amy”, HBO‘s “Weapons of Mass Distraction” and the current “Kissing a Fool” (as David Schwimmer‘s friend) are a few of his movies since “Mallrats”. He has three more movies due out this year: “Enemy of the State”, “Dogma” (with “Good Will Hunting”‘s Affleck and Matt Damon) and “Mumford”(with Ted Danson).
- So here’s the wackiest gimmick of all – good writing for comics
By Andrew Smith (Comics, Etc.)
Captain Comics has seen a lot of goofy gimmicks to boost funnybook sales: Hologram Covers; Big Guys with Guns; Bad Girls with Few Clothes On; even (Lord help us) Nuns with Guns.
Now comics are trying the wackiest gimmick of all: It’s called “Good Writing.”
After too many years of lame-o storytelling, the big companies are hiring the best in the business to pen their top titles. The latest coup is a fellow named Kevin Smith, best known for his movies Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy. Smith (no relation) will pick up the writing chores on Marvel Comics’s Daredevil and DC Comics’s Green Arrow sometime after wrapping up his latest movie, Dogma.
“But,” I hear you gasping, “why would a famous writer-moviemaker-raconteur like Kevin Smith lower himself to write comic books?”
Beats me. Next thing you know, Stephen King will debase himself by writing network television. Like The X-Files, maybe.
Anyway, if you’ve followed Smith’s career, it’s pretty obvious that he’s quite a funnybook fan himself. After all, Chasing Amy took place at a comics convention, and Mallrats had a cameo by Marvel Comics founder and pop-culture guru Stan Lee.
This won’t be the first time Smith – who plays “Silent Bob” in all his films – has appeared in comics. Clerks the comic book (published by Oni Press, 6336 SE Milwaukie Ave., Suite No. 30, Portland Ore., 97202) was co-written by the Bob. And a new four-issue miniseries (called Jay & Silent Bob) will follow this June.
So it’s obvious Smith has a love for four-color funnies. Heck, he must love comics, to tack his name on to second-tier titles like Daredevil and Green Arrow. I mean, we’re not talking Superman here. “The Man Without Fear” is blind, and the “Emerald Archer” shoots, um, really sharp arrows.
OK, there’s a bit more to them than that.
Daredevil is a martial artist who, while blind, has other heightened senses that allow him to hear heartbeats, read newspapers by touch and find his way around with “radar sense.” He’s got a sterling supporting cast, including his ex-junkie girlfriend, bumbling law partner “Foggy” Nelson, the World’s Meanest Boss (yes, including yours) and a terrific bad guy in the hulking form of “The Kingpin” of New York’s underworld. Oh, and he dresses in red tights.
Green Arrow is the second of that name, the son of the original arrow-shooting Batman wannabe introduced in the ’40s. GA is the most politically correct hero in comics, being equal parts Caucasian, Oriental and African-American. He’s a former monk unfamiliar with the ways of the world, who is – to his complete consternation – irresistible to women. And he dresses in green tights.
Both titles have been good reads for some time, and it’s disappointing that sales have been marginal. Marvel and DC comics are obviously banking on Smith’s cachet to draw readers to these titles, both of which are currently on the brink of cancellation.
Still, we won’t know until at least late summer, when Dogma wraps up and this new writer climbs on board.
In the meantime, however, there’s no dearth of good writing around. The Captain is really very pleased with how funnybooks are rising to the challenge of entertaining their readership in the face of TV, movies and the Internet.
If you remember the dynamic comics of your childhood and want to see them again, look no further than all-ages books like Incredible Hulk, Starman, Avengers, Captain America, Thunderbolts, Astro City, Supergirl, Supreme and Justice League of America. They are so much darn fun, the Captain’s wife is getting jealous.
Plus, Marvel has hired fan favorites Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti to punch up Black Panther (soon to be in a movie with Wesley Snipes), Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (soon to be a TV movie with David Hasselhoff) and The Punisher (who was already in a movie with Dolph Lundgren, which the Captain is trying to forget). And Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the duo who launched The Uncanny X-Men into the stratosphere some 20 years ago, have signed on for another tour of duty with Marvel’s Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, respectively.
Imagine that: Comics that are fun to read. Just plain old good storytelling, with nary a hologram cover, heavily-armed muscleman, half-naked babe or psychotic nun in sight.
It’s crazy – but it just might work!
- “Good Will Hunting…Where do these two fresh-faced motherfuckers get off being this brilliant, this early?”
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