Did anyone watch Kevin Smith’s series “Comic Book Men” that premiered on AMC Sunday night (February 12, 2012)? If so, what did you think of the episode?
Capsule summary of the 2/12 episode: Made up of parts interwoven together:
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KS and Co sitting around a radio booth style set, talking about the other parts and various random bits. Repeated shots of an old-style looking lightbulb for some odd reason.
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Scenes in J&SBSS. Mainly consisting of people coming in with memorabilia (not all comic books) and trying to sell them. Inevitably they would be asked what they want. If it was a reasonable amount, there would be a low ball counter offer, some back and forth, etc. Seemed like the people didn’t get all that much if they sold. Some didn’t sell. The most “interesting” one was a woman dressed … oddly … with a “Chucky” doll (out of the box). No sale. One guy had some really old DC stuff that they kindly directed him to sell with a major auction house since it was so valuable.
These bits seemed heavily staged, like most “reality” show things.
- Scenes at a flea market. There was a hokey bet about selling off junk stock, 3 of them set up tables and vied to see who could make the most money.
Not as interesting as it sounds. And it doesn’t sound interesting.
No KS in the last 2 bits. He’s funny in reasonably well prepared bits, but not in his segment so much. The others are just random buddies, not of the same caliber of weirdness as Jay. I think I’d rather watch Walt Flanagan’s dog than Walt Flanagan for an hour.
Probably won’t watch again unless I’m really bored. (And that’s with a DVR.)
AMC ordered 6 episodes. Just like ABC’s Clerks series. The question is: will AMC air more than 2 episodes?
Pawn Stars with fewer fat guys.
It was amusing enough to hold my interest.
I didn’t know about it until I saw this thread, so I went right to AMC’s web site and watched it. I liked it a lot.
Friendly, decent, engaging guys talking about things I love.
I just watched this last night. I think the show needs to pick what it wants to be. It seems like it wants to be 3 different shows in one which will suck but if that is just the guys doing their thing and that is what they normally do then ok I guess.
I know Bryan and Walt have their own podcast which I assume is what they were doing in the just sitting around talking bit.
I thought the “Pawn Stars” bit was kind of dumb like they were just trying to capitolize on the pawn shop shows. They can trash this bit.
I really liked the fleamarket bit. They should do more zany stuff like that.
I hope the show does at least the six episodes to give it time to figure itself out. I have a hand drawn head shot of Galactus by Walt so it was really cool to see him and him doing his thing.
I liked it ok. I wanted more Silent Bob. I liked the part where Bryan starts breaking things at the fleamarket and the guy came over to talk to him.
My parents, who have never seen any of Smith’s movies, loved it! They like Pawn Stars and all those shows. I figured the show didn’t have enough of Kevin Smith being articulate so it wouldn’t hold their interest - but no. They didn’t know they were missing any thing and just loved it all to pieces.
Parents, man. Parents are weird.
It feels like the producers haven’t decided if the are going to play to existing nerds who know comic books and Kevin Smith, or if they’re aiming for a mass appeal to people who have never heard of Bob Kane or Jack Kirby. Make up your mind.
As a member of the former group, I wanted to like this.
From the title I was hoping for a show like Mad Men. A show about comic book writers and artists set in the early 60’s.
I enjoyed it but I’m a big fan of everyone involved and really enjoy the banter between Walt and Bryan “Steve Dave” Johnson. It’s like a real-life Clerks or Mallrats… In fact, Walt was the model for Randall in Clerks and Brody in Mallrats was based on Bryan.
I liked it well enough to watch again.
Kirby dots? What’s that? An example would have been nice. I had to look it up. Not that I mind, but still…
Is this show still on? I watched it a few times when it was on after Mad Men and I quite liked it.
It had a short season, but it was renewed for a second.
That’s good to hear
I didn’t find it very engaging. Kind of all over the place. Felt like a video podcast mashed up with extra bits.