The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer for the Albany Times-Union laments that filmmaker/comics writer Smith's TV "reality" series about comics is done in poor faith:

I have a love-hate relationship with writer/director and some time comic book scribe Kevin Smith. Smith can be a polarizing figure when it comes to the work he releases. My love-hate relationship is not that I dislike everything the man does but his more recent projects tend to cast those of us who read or collect comics in a negative light. I do not believe that this is his intention and I have no doubt that the man is a fan of comics and the medium. In fact I enjoyed his early films CLERKS and MALLRATS which have many references to geek culture. I also enjoyed his Green Arrow storyline “Quiver” which returned Oliver Queen, the original Green Arrow, back to the land of the living in the DC Universe. His other projects in the DC Universe were two Batman limited series “Batman: Cacophony” and “Widening Gyre, “both with art by friend Walt Flanagan, which in my opinion were not as good because he, at times, tried to force his style of sophomoric humor on the character of Batman which I felt did not work. For many years I listened too many of the podcasts that Kevin Smith puts out on his SmodCast Network. The shows were “SmodCast,”“Tell’em Steve Dave” (which is the platform for COMIC BOOK MEN”), and Hollywood Babble-On. Over time I felt like the shows became repetitive, conversations forced and the “humor” very childish.

Maybe it's not his intention to cast comicdom in such a poor light, but given what a vulgarian Smith is, that's just why he's one of the worst things that could happen to fandom in filmdom. If the scribe's sense of humor is that bad, how can we possibly expect any better? Though not mentioned, his Black Cat miniseries for Marvel - which he took 2 years to actually complete - was one of the most bottom of the barrel stories he could come up with next to the Batman and Green Arrow books he scripted. We have Joe Quesada to thank for that, of course: he let Smith's nasty retcon for Felicia Hardy get approval no matter what.

The problem I have with Kevin Smith and his show “COMIC BOOK MEN,” now in the third season on AMC, is that it portrays the bad stereotypes of those who enjoy the comic book medium.

And yet it's been running this long? Shameful. All the more reason it's sad that George Perez wasted his time doing an appearance on the show. If only some better network would interview him, because a TV program with Kevin Smith is not the way to draw attention to the medium. At worst, Perez made a fool of himself by agreeing to go on their set.

Smith pretty much remains Smith, and is not helping comics fandom at all.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda