Kevin Smith
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Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American screenwriter, writer, film director, actor and comic book writer. He is also the founder of View Askew Productions along with Scott Mosier. Smith's films are often set in his home state of New Jersey, and while not strictly sequential, do feature crossover plot elements, character references, and a shared canon: the View Askewniverse.
Comic writer
A life-long comic book fan, Smith's early forays into comic books dealt with previously established View Askew characters, and were published by Oni Press. He wrote a short Jay and Silent Bob story about Walt Flanagan's dog in Oni Double Feature #1, and followed it with a Bluntman and Chronic story in Oni Double Feature #12.
He followed these with a series of Clerks comics. The first was simply Clerks: The Comic Book, which told of Randal's attempts to corner the market on Star Wars toys. The second was Clerks: Holiday Special, where Dante and Randal discover that Santa Claus lives in an apartment between the Quick Stop and RST Video. Third was Clerks: The Lost Scene, showing what happened inside Poston's Funeral Parlor. (This story was later animated in the TV series style and included as an extra on the 10th Anniversary Clerks DVD.)
Smith has written a comic mini-series Chasing Dogma, which tells the story of Jay and Silent Bob between the films Chasing Amy and Dogma. He has also written the trade paperback Bluntman and Chronic, published by Image, which purports to be a collection of the three issues of the series done by Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards (of Chasing Amy). It includes a color reprinting of the story from Oni Double Feature #12, purported to be an early appearance by McNeil and Edwards.
These stories have all been collected in Tales From the Clerks (Graphitti Designs, which also includes a new "Clerks" story tying in to the Clerks 2 material, and the story from Oni Double Feature #1. They were previously collected by Image Comics in three separate volumes, one each for Clerks, Chasing Dogma and Bluntman and Chronic.
Smith makes occasional mention of his desire to do a comicbook one-shot of Bartleby and Loki (from Dogma) and the story behind how they got kicked out of heaven, as well as a comic-only sequel to Mallrats called Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall announced all the way back in August 1998. In 1999, he won a Harvey Award, for Best New Talent in comic books.
Marvel and DC Comics
Smith began a lengthy association with Marvel Comics in 1999, taking over as the writer of the Marvel Comic Daredevil. His run, titled " Guardian Devil" and lasting eight issues, was plagued by delays (which artist Joe Quesada publicly took responsibility for, though it was a sign of things to come). His tenure on Daredevil was controversial among Daredevil fans. Some fans accused Smith of misogyny in his handling of Karen Page's death, and others objected to the killing of long-time Spider-Man foe Mysterio in a non-Spider-Man series. John Byrne and Howard Mackie (then-current writers on the Spider-Man titles) would bring the character back to life (however, because of the delays in his Daredevil run, Mysterio's return to life in the pages of Spider-Man was published before the Daredevil issue featuring Mysterio's death was published).
Kevin Smith followed this by jumping to DC Comics, producing a 15-issue tenure on Green Arrow that saw the return of Oliver Queen from the dead and the introduction of Mia Dearden, a teenage girl who would become Speedy after Smith's run had ended.
Smith returned to Marvel for two mini-series: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do and Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target. The former is six issues long, but after the third issue was published two months after the initially scheduled release date, the final issues were delayed for at least three years, prompting Marvel to release an "in case you missed it" reprinting of the first three issues as one book prior to the remaining issues' release. The delay in part was due to Smith's movie production schedule (in this case, work on Jersey Girl and Clerks II) causing him to shelf completion of the mini-series until the films were completed.
He was announced as the writer of an ongoing Black Cat series and Amazing Spider-Man' in early to mid-2002. However, because of the fatal delays on Evil That Men Do and The Target, the plan was switched so that Smith would start a third Spider-Man title (originally planned for then-ASM writer J. Michael Straczynski), and even this plan was eventually abandoned and the title (by then known as Marvel Knights Spider-Man) launched, in 2004, by Mark Millar instead.
While the Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series was ultimately completed, Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target remains unfinished, with one issue published. As of May 2007, Marvel and Kevin Smith have indicated that there are no plans for the mini-series to ever be completed. Smith at the 2008 Comic-Con convention
Smith is reportedly going to be writing the limited series Batman: Cacophony (with art by friend Walt Flanagan) that will run November 2008 through January 2009. As announced at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con, the series will reportedly feature the villains Onomatopoeia (a character created by Smith during his run at Green Arrow), Joker and Victor Zsasz.
Smith has also cameoed in the second season premiere of the sitcom Joey, where he played himself, on an episode of Law & Order in 2000 (episode "Black, White and Blue" playing Tony's wife's nephew), Duck Dodgers (2003 as Hal Jordan, voice only) and Yes, Dear (2004, as himself and Silent Bob). Smith appeared in the second episode of season two of Veronica Mars, playing a store clerk. He stated on his webpage that Veronica Mars is some of the best television work ever produced.
In the third season of the HBO series Entourage, Michael Bay and Kevin Smith are directing and writing Aquaman 2. In reality, Smith wrote a script for the Superman Lives movie, while Bay was attached to direct a separate Superman movie. In Entourage, the characters awkwardly react with obvious disappointment at Smith's involvement. Smith has speculated that, that jab and another from season 2 may have been motivated by a book he was involved in, in 1995 where he criticized Rob Weiss and his movie Amongst Friends. At his 37th birthday Q&A in August 2007, Smith assured the audience that he was not offended by the jibe, but rather that he is always tickled when his name is mentioned on television shows. He said that whether the comments are positive or negative, his reaction is "The magic box said my name!"
