Summary

In this new interview, Kevin Smith talks with Collider’s Robert Brian Taylor about his upcoming crossover comic Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob.

In the new comic book, which follows Clerks III in the View Askewniverse timeline, Archie gets hired by Randal to work at the Quick Stop and ends up embroiled in the antics of Jay and Silent Bob.

Smith also discusses Dogma’s recent 25th anniversary celebration, its potential sequel, and the love the crowd always shows Alan Rickman during its end credits.

It’s now been more than three decades since writer/director Kevin Smith burst onto the movie scene with Clerks, a micro-budget, black-and-white 1994 comedy that details the lewd and hilarious misadventures of convenience store worker Dante (Brian O’Halloran), his best friend, Randal (Jeff Anderson), and Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself), the two idiotic-yet-also-wise drug dealers who hang out in front of the Quick Stop. The film was an indie sensation and evolved into a whole cinematic universe for Smith (before such things were in vogue), who ported Jay and Silent Bob into later films like Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and two Clerks sequels. And that’s just the movies. Jay and Silent Bob have also enjoyed a surprisingly robust comic-book life, and, next month, they appear in their first big team-up event when they cross paths with the gang from Riverdale in Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob from Archie Comics and Smith’s own Secret Stash Press. The squeaky-clean world of Archie and the crass humor of Jay and Silent Bob may not sound like the most obvious crossover, but, in this exclusive interview with Collider, Smith makes the case that their two worlds have more in common than you might think. He also explains why Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob, which can be pre-ordered now and additionally features Randal and other characters from his “View Askewniverse,” is required reading for anyone wanting to know what happens next in the wake of the tragic events of 2022’s Clerks III. Of course, Smith never shies away from talking about all the other things he’s busy doing, so, in this interview, we also cover the recent re-release of Dogma, the sequel to that movie he’s thinking about making, what it’s like to have a new generation of fans discover his work, and which doomed Kevin Smith project he’d wish back into reality, if he could.
Kevin Smith on ‘Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob’

“I instantly said yes and instantly knew the story I was going to do.”

Image via Archie Comics

COLLIDER: I know you’ve had a very busy spring what with traveling around the country with Dogma and then heading to Cannes for a screening there. Are you able to finally have some time to relax at this point? KEVIN SMITH: I think I’ve got about eight days here at home, but it’s not like eight days off. Like, today, I had Good Day LA, which I just came from. And then there’s this. And then Jeeter dropped a donut for National Donut Day. Jeeter did a National Donut Day joint, and this time it was infused with Jay and Silent Bob’s Bluntman’s Chronic. Nice! SMITH: It’s a limited job and went very fast. The Weed Shop, which is down the street from me … literally the name of the store is The Weed Shop … they got 100, and they were like, “Would you do a signing at the store?” So I said, “Oh, my god, yes.” So, tonight, me and Jay will be taking pictures. Tomorrow, there’s more Dogma press. Wednesday, there’s a pitch. Friday, there’s a pitch. And now it just sounds like I’m humble-bragging. That doesn’t sound relaxing, though. SMITH: No. Long story short: I’m home. And, as my wife said today, because I was going through the schedule, and she was like, “Yeah, but at least you’re home doing that.” And that’s true. Considering I’ve been on the road for the last month, it’s nice. But eight days of that, and then Jay and I are back out on the road for the Aural Sects tour. So still more asses to put in seats. Every waking hour is spent trying to put asses in seats, which gets more and more difficult the older I get, the longer in the tooth my material gets. I’m always hoping for one day to do something that makes it easier to put asses in seats. For example, a hit show. Boy, that makes it easy to put asses in seats. I just did Good Day LA, and I was like, you know, they usually have a format where there’s an old guy and younger women. They have younger women here. Maybe I could be the old guy! All I’m looking for is a little stability as I head into my golden years. So we are here to talk about this new Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob comic book that you’ve written. Comics is a medium that you have dabbled in your whole career, and I feel like you must always have comic ideas or are getting pitched comics to do. What was it about this one that felt right and convinced you that this was one worth doing? SMITH: First off, nobody pitches me shit. I’m a forgotten element in pop culture most days. [Laughing] It’s not like, “Image is on the phone, and they want to be in business!” Mercifully, a couple of years ago, Mike Richardson at Dark Horse was foolhardy enough to believe that there’s still gas in our tank. So we made a deal for me to do a comic book imprint at Dark Horse called Secret Stash Press. We’ve been doing that for two years. I’ve been having a blast, but it ain’t rewriting the rules of comic-book retail, by any stretch of the imagination. There’s nobody going, “Hey, man, let’s do stuff.” So my friend, Jeremy, texts me one day, and he goes, “My friend works with Archie.” And I was like, “Archie who?” He said, “Archie Comics.” I said, “Oh!” He goes, “He wants to talk to you. Would you entertain the notion of talking to him?” I said, “Yeah, man, hook us all up.” So we did a Zoom, and my man, his name’s Jesse, said, “Would you be interested in doing an Archie book with Jay and Silent Bob and your characters?” And I was like, “Are you kidding? Yeah!” It’s nothing I’d ever thought of, nothing I ever dreamed of my whole life, but Archie has existed in pop culture way longer than I have. We’ve referenced Archie in some of the stuff, including Chasing Amy, most memorably. So Archie is in the DNA of my storytelling, in as much as Dante’s torn between two girls and one of them is named Veronica. Archie is America, for heaven’s sake. So, I never thought about doing it. But when presented the opportunity, I instantly said yes and instantly knew the story I was going to do. And when I got off the Zoom, I started writing. I was so delighted and inspired. I set the story in the continuity of my flicks, where, if you’re one of the nine people who’ve seen Clerks III … I am one of the nine. SMITH: Thank you. You know that Dante has left this best-of-all-possible world. And so that gave me the opportunity to be like, “What if Archie was the kid working there after school? What if Archie got a job at Quick Stop?” And the story just kind of unfolded from there, and it wound up being this sweet little tale of a middle-aged motherfucker dealing with grief by hanging out with a teenager who reminds him of his dead best friend and acting as something of a mentor. That aspect of this story just tickles my fancy. And then, of course, the requisite Jay and Silent Bob appearance molded into something nicely. Honestly, it should be titled Archie Meets Randal because, really, that’s the main story. But Jay and Silent Bob, as per Clerks III, have the weed store next door. [Jay’s] daughter, Milly, who is played by my daughter in the movie but in the comics is drawn, works at the weed store. So that’s the connection with the teenagers right there, because they’re kind of the same age.

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They’re still not supposed to be here today.

It’s crazy to me how when I started telling people, “Oh, I’m going do Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob,” the amount of people — I guess, completely unfamiliar with the world of comics or maybe assuming that I was going to youth my characters down — they’re like, “Oh, man, are Jay and Silent Bob gonna fuck Betty and Veronica?” And I’m like, “They’re teenagers, bro.” [Laughing] I’m an old man. Look at me, I’m 54. Jay is not too far behind — he’s 50. So we had to find a better reason why these old-timers would interact with eternal teenagers. And the Randal-and-Quick-Stop story makes absolute sense. I’ve got to imagine — things have changed — but kids still work after school sometimes. Although, I’m sure they’re competing for those jobs with grown-ass adults at this point. Having Jay and Silent Bob interact with Archie by virtue of [Jay’s] teenage daughter made sense. Milly’s a fan of Josie and the Pussycats. Turns out Archie knows them. And there’s like a needle-fucking-scratch moment when they’re trying to get tickets for like a Josie and the Pussycats concert in Newark, and it’s all sold out. They’re like Taylor Swift-huge, the Pussycats. Archie’s like, “Well, I can get you tickets for the Riverdale show.” And Jay, Bob, Randal, and Milly are like, “Yeah, right. How can you do that?” And he’s like, “Well, my band’s opening.” They’re like, “Who are you, kid?” One of my favorite parts of the book is when Randal shows up to the concert and realizes that the band is named after him and he’s the lead singer. Randal is just flummoxed by this separate world that Archie lives in. So, as you can tell, I had a fucking blast. I turned in a draft to Jesse two days later and then did a second draft where I got a little tighter. It’s so weird, the factoids that make you head a story in a different direction. The Archies, which had a real career with a real hit — “Sugar Sugar.” That was a band that was literally created just for the cartoon. The Archies didn’t have a bassist, and neither did The Doors. So that became my whole third act. Jay takes the stage, and, basically, we replicate the scene from Oliver Stone’s The Doors where [Jim] Morrison just kind of goes nuts on the audience in Miami. I had such a fucking blast writing the book. I hope it sells. Look, I’m going buy a lot of copies, and it does seem like the kind of book that could break through and sell, just by the virtue of, “Wait, Jay and Silent Bob and Archie? That don’t make sense!” By, my god, if it doesn’t sell, it’s not because we’re hurting for covers. There are 42 different covers for the book. And it’s not like, “Archie’s selling every one of them!” Archie, I think, has two or three covers. But they allowed retailers to make their own covers, and, if you bought 300 or something like that, you could do your own cover. So many people took part. I know the Secret Stash got one, and then Smodcastle Cinemas, my movie theater, got one. But we’re just two. That means there’s 40 other retail establishments that were like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Because a lot of the retail establishments put their store and the people who work at the store onto the cover. It was delightful. It just became this kind of party. I got to approve every cover. And it’s weird because it put me in this almost-prude position where I had to be like, “Jay’s hands can’t be on the girls’ hips.” [Laughs] Too weird. SMITH: Good fences make good neighbors. Now, the book is wholesome good fun. But there’s lots of cursing, and Jay and Bob sell legal weed and stuff like that. But it’s not a sex book, and why would it be with teenagers and stuff? I can’t guarantee that won’t be the case in the sequel. We’ll see how well the first one sells. But as I was doing it, I told Jesse I want to do it again because there’s a whole Jay and Jughead book that I think I want to pursue. It was such a great fucking time. I can’t tell you how much fun I had doing it. It’s good for my imprint. Honestly, this will be the most high-profile Secret Stash press book we’ve done. Most of my stuff is just pretty much sold to the fan base. This has a chance to actually cross over into a world where people are unfamiliar with my books. And it’s just so lovely to have a crossover. I’ve now reached a place in my life and career where, not only do I have my own comic book imprint — just the way I’ve read people’s comics on their imprints for years — now I get to do my own crossover with a major book label. The first of many, I believe. I’ve got another crossover in the works that’s also pretty dazzling, and I can’t wait to get involved with it. But this Archie thing really just captured my imagination and my heart. And Jesse was like, “If I can find the money, would you like do it animated?” And I was like, “Fuck yes! Are you kidding me?!” That would be amazing. I could wear pajamas. Number one, I’m Silent Bob, so I got no lines. But Jay and Jeff [Anderson], they could show up in their pajamas and do the role. And since, right now, there’s no cartoon Archie — the sky is the limit, man. We can go for Chalamet for the voice of Archie. [Laughing]
‘Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob’ Serves as a Sequel to ‘Clerks III’

“I consider this book 100 percent canon.”

Image via Archie Comics

Some of your characters have been around for three decades now, and there have been movies and comics and cartoons and all of this material, which inevitably leads to some discussion about how all of these things fit together story-wise and what is considered absolute canon or not. You just mentioned there’s some stuff in this that ties directly into Clerks III and where that movie ends up. SMITH: I consider this book 100 percent canon. Okay, so I was going to ask, being that we’re comic-book guys, how much time do you spend worrying about what counts as canon in the View Askewniverse and making sure that things line up as well as possible through all of this stuff? SMITH: Here was my only manifest: In Chasing Amy, they talk about Archie as a comic book. So, in my world, there’s an awareness of Archie as a comic book. But, in Clerks … not necessarily the case. Even though Clerks and Chasing Amy are in the same universe, Randal was never the one going like, “Archie and Jughead are lovers.” None of the Chasing Amy stuff came out of his mouth. So, for Randal, these are just kids. This kid walked in and got a job. He hired this kid. But, even in the world of The Archies, they’ve got their own band, and the band is known. So, they are a part of pop culture to some degree. Randal used to be the king of pop culture, but, since he’s in his 50s, maybe he’s forgiven for not knowing. Because even though Archie’s been around forever, in his timeline, Archie is still a teenager. It gets really fucking complex, man. And, honestly, I had to sidestep the Chasing Amy thing, which a lot of people would still argue, “You can’t just sidestep it. It’s part of your universe.” See, the thing is, I think your answer is here is “a lot.” Because some people wouldn’t worry about this, but you’ve clearly thought about it! SMITH: I sweated it. I really sweated it. I could have done a version where they are comic-book characters, and we enter the comic or whatever the fuck. But I wanted to play it real. Again, I’m sure this doesn’t reflect the world as it is today, but when I was a kid, after school, you’d get a job. And I don’t mean “after school” after you graduated — you had an after-school job — and my jobs, as we saw based on the movie I made, were convenience stores, man. They hired kids to sweep up and to run the register and stuff. So, that story, having it set in continuity really worked. Honestly, it’s Clerks 3.5, because it’s basically the aftermath of Randal’s dealing with the loss of Dante. It works insanely well in Clerks continuity. The Chasing Amy conundrum … We’ll let it slide. That one can slide. SMITH: It could create a bit of a rift, but I could argue that, since Archie and his friends do have a band that is known — maybe not as well known as Josey and the Pussycats worldwide, so much as they’re more local, Riverdale-famous — there could be a comic book about their adventures that Banky knew back in 1997. That’s where it falls apart — the timeline. You’ve “No-Prized” your way out of that, sir. I think it works well enough. SMITH: I hope so. It won’t hold up to scrutiny. It might get me to the next question, but all anyone has to do is break that down on some paper and watch it fall apart.
A New Generation of Fans Are Now Discovering Kevin Smith’s Movies

“I never really thought past ‘Clerks.’

Image via Gramercy Pictures

You mentioned that maybe there’s a chance — just because of how this book’s put together and who it’s appealing to — that some people who aren’t as familiar with your work will pick it up and read it. That kind of ties into my next question. So, I have a 15-year-old daughter. A couple of months ago, she comes to me, and she says, “Hey, you know some movie called Mallrats?” SMITH: Whoa. I say, “Yeah, I know a movie called Mallrats.” And she’s like, “I think I want to watch that one.” So I watched Mallrats with my kid, and she loved it. She wants to watch all your stuff now. SMITH: Number one, thank you. Number two, how does a movie that — it’s celebrating its 30th anniversary this year — how does that play for a modern teenager who probably doesn’t even know mall culture at this point? Because malls are not a thing. Right. It’s bizarre to me, and, yet, she liked it. She’s shown it to some of her friends. So I wanted to ask you: You’ve got your daughter involved in your work, so you’ve been able to sort of connect the generations on the creative side of things. But, on the audience side — I mean, you have to get other stories like this — does it blow your mind when the sons and daughters of Gen X are discovering your work? SMITH: One hundred percent. I just came off the Dogma tour. Dogma is out in theaters right now. And, for the last month and change, I’ve been on the road touring 20 cities across America and doing two shows a night and then Q&A afterward. So I look out in the audience, and a lot of them look like me. They’re middle-aged or whatever, and they grew up with this shit. They look like us. SMITH: Yeah, exactly. But a lot of young people in the audience, too, which blew my mind. When I was doing a show in Chicago, there was a guy who, during the Q&A, had his hand up, and he goes, “I’ve been watching you since 1994. I’ve seen you live 19 times. Now I bring my adult children with me.” And he had his 20-something kids sitting on either side of him. And, before I could even stop to ponder, like, wow, a second generation of fandom, he goes, “What’s your endgame?” And I was like, “You know, I never really thought about it.” Honestly, I never thought past Clerks. Clerks I was ready for, I wanted to do. But I didn’t pack for a 31-year journey in cinema. That just kind of happened, and I just kind of make it up as I go along. The nearest I can figure for an endgame is I don’t get killed or canceled, and I go out of this life toes up on a movie set. The same way Robert Altman died making a movie. He was making A Prairie Home Companion, and then Paul Thomas Anderson came in and finished the movie. Give me some of that death, man. I’ll totally take that. So, that’s the nearest endgame I got.

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It’s crazy, though. I looked out every night, and there were so many young people. Every night of the [Dogma anniversary] tour in America, I would ask the audience, informal straw poll, “How many people have seen Dogma before? Put your hands together.” Ninety-eight percent of the crowd. “How many people have never seen it on a screen in a theater?” And that was like 80 … 75 percent of the crowd. Still large. And then I said, “How many people have never seen Dogma at all?” And it was always less than five percent. It’s only like eight or 10 people. When I went to Cannes, I did the same thing before our screening, and I was like, “How many people have seen Dogma before?” And it was flipped. It was some applause. Then I was like, “How many people have never seen Dogma before tonight?” Way more — like almost everybody. So that was sitting down and watching the movie with a young audience, because they were all fucking young. A lot of the kids worked at The American Pavilion, film-school students from around the world and international kids. I met them as they were all going in, and they were way familiar with my work and way younger than me. That screening turned out to be full of youngsters, and I had to stay to watch it because I was like, “How’s it gonna play for somebody who didn’t grow up in the ’90s? Or didn’t grow up in the ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s?” This is a movie that was made in the’ 90s. And it was lovely. It played. It didn’t matter. There’s a lack of cell phones in the movie, right? Nobody whips open a cell phone. But, other than that, the movie can still play as if it was happening today, with the exception of the fact that there are some pretty fucking famous people that look younger than you’ve ever seen them before in your life. Like Matt Damon looks like Matt Damon’s daughter in this movie, he’s so fucking young. I’m in Pittsburgh. I was not able to come to the Q&A here, sadly, but I did take my daughter to a normal theater screening of Dogma last week. And just seeing baby Matt Damon and Ben Affleck … they look so young because I hadn’t seen the movie in so long. SMITH: Right?! Especially when they were just at Tudum. They came out for Netflix, and Matt’s wearing his Odyssey beard. And Ben looks fucking fantastic for his age, but he don’t look like the kid in the movie. So seeing those two dudes on stage for Tudum and then seeing them up on screen this weekend at Dogma was for me like, “Oh, yeah, I guess we’ve all gotten older.”
Kevin Smith on ‘Dogma 2’ and Crowds Loving Alan Rickman in the Original Film

“I know where the story goes, so I can’t imagine people getting mad this time around.”

Image via View Askew Productions

I read some interviews you did this week where you were talking a little about potentially making a Dogma sequel. Gut reaction, given the state of things today and the state of America today, if you do make Dogma 2 in the next year or two, do you think it ends up being less controversial than the first movie or more controversial than the first movie? SMITH: I think less. I think it’s hard to surprise anybody anymore. I mean, look, this is what I thought about during the first one. When I wrote it, I was like, “Oh my god, nobody will ever be mad. If anything, they’ll be mad that it’s so sickeningly pro-faith.” The guy who wrote it and directed that movie believed in everything that he put up there on the screen. It wasn’t him making fun of religion or Christian mythology. That was the real deal up there. I don’t have those beliefs anymore. Now I’ve got, as we say in the movie, some good ideas. So, going into it, the journey is not going to be the same. I know where the story goes, so I can’t imagine people getting mad this time around. That being said, I couldn’t imagine people getting mad last time around, considering how embarrassingly pro-faith the movie was. Yet they did, and that was before anybody could see the movie. The people who got mad about it — they hadn’t even seen it. It was all based on the idea of the movie. Once the movie came out, once people could see it, the people who made hay off of like, “This is controversial,” quieted down and went away because the movie spoke for itself. And, if there was any controversy, it was like, “There’s a 30-year-old man who still believes in everything he was taught in Catholic school.” So, yeah, I think this time around — and, again, I know where the story goes — I can’t foresee people getting up in arms about it. That being said, I couldn’t foresee it last time either. So who fucking knows? At my screening of the movie, when Alan Rickman’s name and face shows up on screen during the end credits, the whole crowd broke out into applause. Just as a fan, obviously I miss Alan Rickman. How does it make you feel that his performance in Dogma still provokes that kind of reaction? SMITH: It’s amazing. Every night, during the credits of the movie, as you know, it’s like a curtain-call affair, where everybody gets a single card. And it’s a clip where they break character and smile or laugh or whatever the hell, kind of like how Hal Needham used to do his credits for Cannonball Run and stuff like that. Or John Landis, as well. Since I’m there, everyone is applauding and cheering and everything. But it starts when Ben, because he’s the first picture card. And it’s pretty loud. But people run out of energy and shit, so it starts softening up. Then it starts to build on three people. First one is Jason Lee. Suddenly they come back — there’s more energy. Then Jay happens, and the audience goes fucking nuts, because, inarguably, Jay steals the show out from under most of the cast. But then Rickman happens, and it goes louder than Jay. Then I feel bad for whoever follows Rickman. I think it’s [Chris] Rock. And it’s not like they don’t like Rock — they love him. But he’s following Rickman. At a random Thursday show in Pittsburgh, it was definitely Rickman where the crowd went nuts. SMITH: Isn’t that fucking beautiful? And I told Jay while we were on tour, “They love you, dude, but they love Rickman just a little bit more.” And he goes, “Wait till I die.” And I was like, “Fair enough.” But, yeah, Rickman blessed us with an amazing performance, pre-Snape, but it’s also a movie that was missed by Harry Potter fandom. Because [Dogma] was locked up and unavailable for a long time. And so now, it could be the entire Potter generation that are grown up are like, “Oh, I never saw this Alan Rickman performance. How cool.” But I know a lot of people came exclusively for Alan. When they think of the movie, they think of him and his performance. And every night the audience let us know who was the MVP of Dogma.
The Robert Rodriguez/Kevin Smith ‘Superman’ Movie That Got Away

“If I could make anything that didn’t happen happen, I think it would be that.”

Image by Jefferson Chacon

There have been a lot of projects over the years that you’ve either written or you’ve been attached to or you’ve talked about, and then they didn’t happen because of money or scheduling or whatever reason. If you could have just one of them back — take one canceled or abandoned Kevin Smith project and wish it into existence at the time it was supposed to happen — which one would you pick? SMITH: Such a great question. Ummm … [Long pause] I’m sorry. This is my “gotcha” question. SMITH: No, it’s awesome. I’m going through the filing cabinet, and I think I got it. There was a moment back in 1996-97 where Robert Rodriguez, who I knew a little bit from the world of indie film, called me up to be like, “Warner Bros. asked me to direct your Superman script.” And I was like, “Please do it. Oh my god, do it. You’d be amazing for it.” He goes, “I kind of like it. It’s fun, man. Walk me through it. Clearly you know more about Superman than I do.” So it was a two-day period where he was trying to decide between Superman and this other project that he eventually wound up choosing because he felt he owed the studio. The studio was Dimension, and the movie was The Faculty. So he chose The Faculty instead of doing Superman. But for this one, like, two-day period, he was considering it. Warner Bros. wanted him big-time, and it would have been his biggest budget to date. But he was kind of finding his footing and became a Dimension guy. And I think … I don’t know if that followed Spy Kids or where Spy Kids was in the mix … but he felt like, “I owe one to Dimension.” And so my version of Superman, Superman Lives, directed by Robert Rodriguez, never came to pass. If I could make anything that didn’t happen happen, I think it would be that. Because I didn’t have the pressure of directing the movie myself. It would have been in the hands of one of my generation’s greatest and absolutely-fucking-on-point visionary action directors. That would have been a wonderful marriage of material, because that script — and I ain’t saying that’s the greatest script — but dialogue was sharp in that fucking script. And this was pre-Avengers, you know, before that became the norm and stuff. So I would have benefited, as a screenwriter guy. “Hey, he wrote that!” It probably would have opened more doors or created more opportunities. And those things never happen in a silo, so I imagine there would have been a couple Supermans, and, even if I didn’t write the next two, you still get a taste if it’s based on your script. And the pressure … even if people were like, “Oh, I hate that Superman” … then I’m like, “Yeah, well, blame Robert. He directed it.” So I’d have had the benefit of being involved but not being involved, and I’ve never really had that.

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The Doomed History of the Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman Movie Explained

Once, Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage almost made a Superman movie…here’s how it went awry.

I had it just recently, in as much as my friend directed a movie that I executive-produced and edited. I’ve never edited somebody else’s movie before. Logic made this movie called Paradise Records, which just played at the Tribeca Film Festival. And I’ve never been to a public screening of a movie where I was as deeply invested in the outcome, even though I didn’t write or direct it. But because I was the editor on this motherfucker, I had skin in the game. So it was an absolute blast, and, based on the experience I had riding shotgun and being involved in somebody else’s production, that meant Superman would have been amazing. Like, oh my god, all the pressure and responsibility would have been Robert’s, and I could have hung out on set, fucking scooping it on the Internet. I don’t ask for much. Put me in the motherfucker. Maybe I could have played Perry White or something like that. I was probably too young at that point. I could have played somebody. But that’s what I’d be more interested in. Everyone’s like, “Do you want to make a Marvel movie?” Fucking never. What in my body of work has ever made anyone think, “He’d be good for that sort of visual spectacle.” But Marvel if was like, “We want you to play … anybody. One scene — a fucking bad guy, a good guy.” Oh my god, whose dick do I got to suck to make that happen? That’s what I’d be more interested in. Because that would be fun, and none of the responsibility would be mine. I’m put on this Earth to make Kevin Smith movies, if anything, and most critics will argue that I’m not even put on this earth to do that. But nobody wants to make Kevin Smith movies except me, so that’s my lane and I love staying in it. But, oh my god, visiting some mega-budget set and getting to be in that motherfucker … ’cause that means I get to go to a con, and it be like, “You saw him in Thor 5!” And then, “Hey, it’s me!” That’d be good for me. Because then I’d work until I die, right? I’d always have that sweet con money. Because one day this Silent Bob shit’s going to fucking irritate people. It’s really going to fucking burn out. It hasn’t happened yet! SMITH: I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting three decades because I have the benefit of knowing where they came from, and they’re just a Cheech and Chong rip-off. That’s it. So I really feel like they would have run out of gas a long time ago, and I’m waiting. I’ve been ever prepared for the day where we are out of gas, at which point it’d be nice to segue to like, “You saw him in one scene from a Marvel movie!” I can make that shit work. Give me that, or give me that Robert Altman “I die while I’m directing a movie.” That or the old guy on the morning show. SMITH: That’s the dream, because then you get the fake tan and nice suits. And you have to watch your weight because you’re on TV every day. It would probably prolong my life. But then people grow to hate you because you’re there in their faces all the time. Somebody the other day … I put up some clip, and somebody in the comments, talking about me, was like, “Ugh, one of the most punchable faces in the world.” And I was like, “Man, really? Still, in this day and age? I’m 54!” So, yeah, some people don’t buy into it. But I’m still doing it three decades in. Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob can be pre-ordered now at the Archie Comics website or at a comic-book shop near you.