Comic Book Men s03e08 Episode Script

Any superheroes ever, hm, have to deal with paparazzi? Like celebrities do.
Who would be able to deal with it versus? Who would be the Alec Baldwin or the Sean Penns? I think it's pretty obvious, Batman could deal with it.
Yeah, in the other hand, the Hulk probably wouldn't be taking it so well.
- I mean, is there a lot of call for Hulk pictures? He would have to have some sort of scandal, right? You know The Hulk has a wardrobe malfunction.
You know what? You can't blame the paparazzi, man.
You want to be a celebrity? This is part of the process, tho.
Wait 'till his star rises, and than we'll see.
We'll see how it feels.
Taking pictures of your kids.
I'd just do what Michael Jackson did.
- I'll just shroud'em.
- Yeah, ok, that's normal.
Worked, didn't it? No! Hello and welcome to another episode of Comic Book Men, the only show on this network not hosted by Chris Hardwick.
I'm Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson.
- Walt Flanagan.
- Mike Zapcic.
- Ming Chen.
Walt, what has come through the door this week? Have a great afternoon.
- How you doing? - How are you guys? - Not bad.
- Have a couple comics here, I'd like to see if you'd be interested in them.
Let's take a look.
- Oh, wow.
- The Tomb Of Dracula.
These are some of my favorites, man.
This is the stuff that I dug as a kid.
So, the scariest, yet sofisticated comics the 70's ever burst.
Scary and sophisticated? You didn't have to have gore - Yes.
- and blood and guts.
You didn't have to show someone getting killed for it to scare you.
Dracula would take a Brandy and sit down in front of the fire and contemplate whether he was evil or not for almost a whole issue.
Did he come up with a decision at the end, - or was it, like - No.
To be continued? Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, they made you root for the monster.
Perhaps one of Marvel's first antiheroes.
- Yes.
- A lead character in a comic who almost has no redeeming moral quality to him, except that he kills bad guys.
But he kills, and that's the first thing right there - that stops you.
- He thirsts.
He feeds.
- He's Dracula.
- Yeah, he's gotta.
I mean, it wasn't sanitized That is a tagline.
He thirsts.
He feeds.
He's Dracula.
Blade is in this, right? Not in number 1.
But there, issue 13.
The origin story of Blade, the Vampire Slayer.
It went on to spawn the trilogy of movies that were, like, hugely successful.
Blade's mother is a prostitute.
She's at the brothel, giving birth.
- She's about to give birth.
- And they call in a doctor, - and the doctor is - Deacon Frost.
Remember Deacon Frost from the Blade movies? - Yeah.
- A vampire.
- Yes.
- Bites Blade's mother as she's giving birth.
His mother died, and then he was born.
He unknowingly creates the perfect vampire killing machine in Blade.
There was no way that the creators could have ever imagined Blade the Vampire Hunter would one day become a feature movie.
Before the X-Men, before Amazing Spider-Man, before the Avengers, was Blade.
You know what, I'm proud to say that I was into Blade before there were Blade movies.
What was it for you that made you a Tomb of Dracula fan? Well, I've been fascinated by everything to do with universal monsters, especially Dracula.
I am a huge universal monsters fan.
I read the first issue when I was a teenager, fell in love with it.
I would send letters to comic bookstores saying "what issues of Dracula do you have?" And wait for the snail mail reply to come back of what they've got.
So it took me 13 years to finally get all 70 issues.
I plan on being buried with 'em all like a pharaoh.
We'll call it the Tomb of Dorkula.
And why are you looking to sell 'em today? During my time accumulating all 70 issues, I got a couple doubles.
So what are you looking to get today for tomb of Dracula number 1 and 13? I was thinking Mm You see a little dent right there, a lot of creasing.
You think you can come down a bit? Possible.
What were you thinking? What about 125? You do have doubles.
- 130.
- 130? I definitely can do 130, man, - for a brother in monster arms.
- Excellent.
It was a pleasure, man.
All right, thank you.
Take care, guys.
Here they are, right off the presses.
- Cryptozoic Man number 1.
- Fancy.
Let's get the van loaded and be on our way.
Don't you wanna see it first? Crack one open? Yeah, let's let's check it out.
I can't wait no longer.
Last year, you might remember the boys here at the secret stash got together, came up with their own comic book called Cryptozoic Man.
Dynamite Entertainment signed up to actually publish the comic book.
So for the last year, Bryan's been writing, Walter's been penciling and inking.
You guys came up with the bad guys, and now the book's ready to go, man.
I mean, it's it's a dream come true.
And the guys at dynamite, they came up with a killer idea to create a variant cover that would only be available at the Baltimore Comic-Con.
Really cool idea.
- Wow.
- The colors are bright, huh? Well, this looks awesome.
I love the cover.
Check it out, Mike.
"Special thanks, Michael Zapcic and Ming Chen.
" - Nice.
- Mm-hmm.
Always good seeing my name in print.
Oh, that's awesome.
Usually it's in the police blotter.
Tell 'em what Cryptozoic Man's about.
Cryptozoic Man is about my favorite type of comic book hero, the monster hero.
And it's the story of this man who is an amalgamation of some of the most famous cryptozoic creatures the world has ever seen.
Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the Jersey Devil.
- Ooh.
- Um Myth man of sorts.
He's the guy made up of a bunch of myths and whatnot.
This is always my favorite part.
The collaboration, seeing the final product.
What awaits us in Baltimore, I don't know if I'm looking forward to that, though.
You know that carnival barker atmosphere of, like - No.
- "Come here.
Come one and all, check us out.
" You know, that's not that's not my gig.
This is gonna sell itself.
Dude, I'm not just saying this 'cause I wrote it, but this is poetry.
"Eeyah! Aah!" Come on, man.
Where else do you get that? Yeah.
All right.
These books aren't gonna get to Baltimore on their own.
- Let's go.
- Let's go.
Road trip, baby.
Jawa Sandcrawler from Star Sars: A New Hope.
It's go time.
Game faces.
So the launch of the Cryptozoic Man comic book was gonna be at the Baltimore Comic-Con on a Saturday.
Who's gonna run the show? And I had to call in Sunday Jeff to work on a Saturday.
You know, and he's used to the slow, lazy Sundays.
Nobody can do comics seven days a week.
So what happens when the comic book men are off? Their one day of rest? Somebody's gotta man the register.
That's Sunday Jeff.
Okay, $7 is your change.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, buddy.
- Take care now.
- All right, yep.
Take it easy.
- Hey, how you doing? - Can I help you? I got a vintage Star Wars radio-controlled Jawa Sandcrawler.
Just, uh, seeing if you're interested.
I'd definitely be interested.
Man, I remember this.
Jawa Sandcrawler from Star Wars: A New Hope.
This was when Luke is introduced to R2-D2 and C-3PO by buying the droids off of this.
A pretty pivotal scene in the history of Star Wars.
- Yeah.
- This is a sweet piece.
- You mind if you take it out - No, of course.
- So I can take a look at it? - Check this out.
It's really clean.
- It is really clean.
- Nice piece.
Yeah, you can open it up, just, you know yeah, I really can't believe how clean it is - for being from what, 1979? - Yeah, I know.
And usually the doors wound up breaking off.
You see how how the hinges were? - The hinges were all plastic.
- Yeah.
And just from opening and closing the hinges over a period of time, they'd wind up breaking and snapping or falling off, so I mean, and this is almost - That's a good thing.
- Pristine.
I mean, it's it's so tight.
I mean, it's really, really in good shape.
Unfortunately I see here that you're missing the cover for the batteries for the remote.
Yeah, the back piece is missing.
Does it work? That's the no, I tried it with the batteries, held 'em in, - and it doesn't work.
- It doesn't work? No, that's the downfall.
- Ooh.
- Yeah.
Mm, what are you looking to get for it? Uh, I want 200 for it.
These aren't the droids you're looking for.
I mean, it's great.
If this was in a good condition and everything was operating, you had all the instructions, probably looking anywhere between $500 to $600.
- Really? - Yeah.
In this condition, I'd give you 50 bucks for it.
I mean, that's the only thing I could really give you.
- 50? - I mean, you have the box.
The box is a plus.
But unfortunately, no directions, no backing plate for the batteries.
- You know, it's it's broken.
- Yeah, yeah.
I can't sell something that's not gonna work.
Yeah, I can't go that low at all.
Best I can do is 160.
I can't really do anything for you as far as that.
I can't part with it at a low number like that, you know? I understand.
Sure.
Thanks for coming by.
- Thanks for your time, man.
- Yeah, sure.
This is it, man.
It's d-day.
You saw that line outside, right? Yeah, I saw the line.
I mean, let's not think that they're all here for us.
George Perez is here, Mike Mignola's here.
There's a whole bunch of stars here, you know? It's kind of nerve-racking.
There's a lot of pressure on us.
I mean, what if people hate the book? We get down to the con, and we just see massive lines of people waiting to get in.
And immediately the negativity starts starts Starts from him.
I'm not gonna lie, man.
It was really exciting and intimidating all at the same time.
I wasn't sure, you know, what kind of reception we'd get.
Yeah, man.
You're self-expressing.
You're putting your art out there.
You're not doing it so you can look at it yourself and put it on a shelf.
You want people to see it, and you want their reaction.
But that's not exactly true.
What you want is their good reaction.
How much longer? Half hour.
All right, it's go time.
Game faces.
You ready to roll? Let's see your game face.
He's got it down.
Let's sit back and see what happens.
- Nice costume.
- Thank you.
- Cheetara.
- Yeah.
- Thundercats.
- Yes.
Congratulations on the release.
Wow.
I first met Walt in fifth grade, and he drew a picture of it was just waist down, a guy's butt with googly eyes on it And underneath, he had written "wild ass.
" Your first work? And he gave it to me.
And my mom picked me up from school, and I-I was so taken with it that I just had to share.
And I was like, "check this out.
Isn't this funny?" And she's like, "you're not allowed to hang out with that boy.
" And I feel so lucky this many years later I still have that association with someone whose art I respected back in fifth grade And still respect now.
Like, I feel really fortunate to be able to work with somebody that talented who I love that much, you know? Well, the follow-up to Cryptozoic Man is a four-issue miniseries called Wild Ass.
Hi.
How you doing? Looking forward to the book.
Thank you.
Thanks for waiting in line.
- Huge fan.
- Thank you.
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it.
- No problem.
- Thank you.
What do you think? Th there's a line.
Pretty dope, man.
I don't even know where it ends.
It wraps around the building.
We're gonna be here all night.
Yeah, we'll close it down.
After the first hour, it really started to appear that there were people who were excited to see us.
You know, they had seen the television show.
They had remembered the episode where we pitched it to Dynamite, and they were excited to get it.
I mean, they were also excited that it was free.
Thanks, guys.
An honor to meet you, sir.
Hey, ming, how you doing? - Good.
How are you? - Good, man.
Awesome.
Fan of the show.
- Love it.
- Thank you.
You're the reason why I watch the show and stay up so late.
- Oh, really? - Oh, yeah.
You hear that? Watches the show 'cause of me, not you.
There you go.
Can I please, please touch your beard? It's good.
It's cool.
This is why you need one of these.
It feels freshly shampooed.
Mm-hmm.
For some reason, recently a lot of females have wanted to just stroke my beard.
Stop saying "females" 'cause there was plenty of dudes - who wanted to stroke - With sweaty hands.
There there was an alarming amount of guys.
- Can I do the Billy goat? - The Billy goat what's with the dudes lately? - I mean, if it's followed - Yeah, yeah! - With her doing it.
- Definitely.
Can my girlfriend do it? You guys are great.
Thank you.
- Nice costume.
- Thank you, thank you.
- Gorgeous.
It's a ten.
- Thank you, thank you.
- Leo kid.
- Hey.
Want me to write my name on this for you? Yeah.
Grumpy cat.
Fromfrom the Internet.
- I can make the face.
- Let me see.
Yeah? Let's see the Grumpy cat face.
That's pretty good.
- Greetings, citizens.
- Hello! How you doing? That's a great costume, man.
- Thank you.
- He calls it the cam-male toe.
Whoa.
- How you doing? - How's it going? - Cheetara.
- Yeah.
- Thundercats.
- Yes.
I almost wore that same outfit.
I'm so glad I didn't.
Why didn't you? We would have matched.
It would have been amazing.
Don't you wish right now you were a litter box, ming? Don't listen to him.
You look amazing.
- Thank you, thank you.
- You look amazing.
I've kinda, you know I've gone on record in the past just saying, you know, I'm against cosplaying, - as they call it.
- Even as you say the word, like, cosplaying.
But it's insane some of the detail, and it's almost worth the price of admission just to see the guys walking around in costume who are unauthorized to even wear the costume.
Not only is it fun to look at, it's rebellious, it's breaking laws, it's metal.
Congratulations on the release.
- Thanks, man.
- Oh, wow.
How long did that take to get on? Took me about an hour and and a half to put it on.
Took me about 250 hours to make.
- It's impressive.
- I love it.
Best costume I've seen at the whole Con.
Thanks.
Once people start coming up to the table, how are you feeling at that point? What's your public like? It's flattering, it definitely is, but I always feel like I say the wrong thing, or I come across as, like, I've never talked to another person in my life.
Homina homina homina.
You just wanna make your stories and not have to deal with the public about it.
Like, let the work speak for itself.
And not because I don't wanna deal with the public.
Just because it it's it's difficult for me.
All right, I don't wanna deal with the public.
Huge fan, love the character.
I wanted to give that to you guys.
Awesome.
Look at that.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Would you like a copy of Cryptozoic Man? - Thank you.
- Oh.
That makes it all worth it.
These are mego Buck Rogers, huh? I wouldn't miss this, man.
Here's your receipt.
- You're all set.
- Thank you very much.
Thanks, buddy.
Take care.
Sunday Jeff appeared in our lives very early on at the Stash.
He was a c a hard-core collector of toys.
I mean, he had the disease.
When he would come through the door as a customer, I nearly didn't know him, I'd be like I would be super jazzed.
I was like, "all right, we're in for a good day.
This guy's here.
" "Here comes the pigeon with all the money.
" I grew to really like this guy, and he had a sense of humor that I found was very on par with my own.
And I offered him a job, and he's he's Sunday yeah.
I mean, he's Sunday Jeff.
"Sunday yeah.
" - Hi, how are you? - Hey, how you doing? Good.
Brought in mego 12-inch Buck Rogers dolls.
Buck Rogers, huh? Buck Rogers popular character, been around for a long time.
Classic, timeless hero.
I wasn't really a huge Buck Rogers fan.
A little campy at first, but it was a good show.
It lasted two years.
It went from '79 to '81.
- Starred Gil Gerard.
- Mm-hmm.
You got Killer Kane, played by Michael Ansara.
Then you got Tiger Man.
Great figure.
Well, you know what, I liked Twiki.
- Twiki? - I like the guy that did the voice.
Mel Blanc.
Mel Blanc, yeah, exactly.
Big Looney Tunes guy, so that was my guy.
Mel voiced him in the first season, not the second.
See, that's why I didn't watch the second season.
Boxes are nice.
- Never been opened, right? - Never been opened.
Well, just the tapes falling apart a little bit.
I mean, without a doubt, they're in excellent shape.
Is there any reason why you're selling 'em? I have a large collection of a lot of variety of different things.
So I just decided to move on from buck.
Um, what are you looking to get for 'em? I'm thinking 800.
$200 a doll? Uh, you know this is a comic bookstore, not a Wells Fargo? I really don't think they go for that much right now, though.
Really, the best I could probably offer you, maybe 350? Ooh, no.
Can you go, like, 650? No, that's awfully high for these figures.
They haven't done anything to relaunch or spark interest in this particular TV show.
Today's generation who haven't really watched the '80s television show don't really know much about this character.
I mean, you know about Buck Rogers, I know about Buck Rogers, but people who were born, you know, in the '90s don't really know about Buck Rogers.
I think the way Hollywood works, though, there'll probably be a Buck Rogers movie in well, you I hope so.
I hope so for your sake.
I just don't think there's enough interest right now for me to sit on 'em.
And I don't wanna take the chance - of losing money either, so - That's all right.
I think I'll just put 'em back in the collection - and thank you for your time.
- Sure.
- Thanks for stopping by.
- All right.
This is it, huh? - The legendary cryptozoic? - This is it.
- Right.
- It looks good, man.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
I know.
He doesn't get picked on enough.
It's gonna get a hell of a lot worse.
- Oh.
- Wow.
I wouldn't miss this, man.
This is awesome, dude.
This makes me so proud.
This is your Clerks, man.
All four of you.
And it looks ba and it's in color, so technically it's not your clerks.
- What's it - It's Clerks II! Yes, there you go.
To be fair, we were at the Con anyway.
It would have been really rude for us to not walk over and be like, "congrats, boys.
" It was awesome to see you in that element.
I've been to many Cons over the course of my life, but I've never gone to a con where I've felt more pride and more like, "this rocks," than when you approach the table that your friends are sitting at with their comic book.
I melted a little bit.
I was like, "aw, they're my heroes.
" My superheroes.
- Do people talk about the show? - They do, people talk - about the show a lot.
- And? They say we're too mean to Ming, which I disagree with.
- I think we're not mean enough.
- That's even worse.
My question is, can I have a book? Can I have it signed? - Oh, my God.
- 3 bucks.
- What a good idea, man.
- I know.
Personalize it, please.
I'm totally gonna eBay this, but still, for this moment, this is really sweet.
I knew you had it in you.
You, I've seen you do this before.
Cryptozoic Man, ladies and gentlemen.
If you're lucky in this life, you not only get to work doing what you love, but you get to do that work with people that you enjoy being around or love, and that's what you got to do in this situation.
You could be launching a book that becomes somebody's absolute favorite comic, that 50 years down the line they're handing it to their grandkids going, "this comic book changed my life.
This is the one that means the most to me.
" Yeah, it's crazy.
The comics I picked up, you know, a story by Stan Lee, or, you know, these well-known artists.
Now we pick one up, I see my friends' names in it.
I see my name in it.
Right on the front cover, my name is right there.
That that was kinda cool.
- I can you know, I can - It's about me.
We're closing the book on another episode, kids.
Sorry about that.
For Comic Book Men, I'm Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson.
- Walt Flanagan.
- Mike Zapcic.
- Ming Chen.
The future's not written, kids, so we'll be back.