Comic Book Men premiers Feb. 12 after the return of
The Walking Dead. The show is scheduled for six episodes in Smith's comic book store,
Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash. While at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena, Kevin Smith spoke on the new venture.
"Comic-book dudes, it’s such a well-known stereotype at this point. I mean, we’ve had like more than 20 years of ‘Comic Book Guy’ from ‘The Simpsons.’ Let’s up the ratio on TV.”
Smith touched on pressure of being on a very drama driven channel such as
AMC:
“The fact that it’s AMC is like [...] insane credibility. I’m coming up on 20 years into my career, and the older you get the less cool you are. So it’s nice to be able to say, ‘Oh, hey, did I mention I have an AMC show?’ You don’t want to ruin the curve. You don’t want to be the minus among all the pluses. The nice thing is that they stay so involved.... They weren’t just like, ‘Hey, go make a show.’ We handed in the first pilot, and they were like, ‘It’s good, but it’s not it.’ That was refreshing. I feel like we’ve had our hands held through the process. The show that they are going to air is the exact show that they wanted to see.”
There are also some concerns from the network about the lack of a female character.
AMC had wanted a woman at the shop, and auditions were even held to find customers or a female shop worker. There were even some potential candidates.
“We sent in a version of the show with a woman,” Smith said. “AMC saw it, they greenlit the show, but one of their first notes was, ‘Let’s save the girl for Season 2. They said it would give us somewhere to go.”