I have no special ill-will towards Kevin Smith, and I’ve even liked a couple of his movies. But I noticed every time I wrote about him, commenter “Chareth Cutestory” would erupt in verbose rage, in such a way that was much more entertaining than the news items themselves. At some point, I just decided to let him write the posts himself, sustained only by his incandescent rage and dog-eared thesaurus. Apologies (sort of), Kevin Smith fans, I just find the idea of having an arbitrary nemesis endlessly compelling. -Vince

Kevin Smith, showing tremendous fortitude in foregoing a marijuana joke, recently announced on Twitter that the first draft of Clerks III is complete. Granted, he couldn’t help but toss a Star Wars reference in there, but what’s he supposed to do? NOT treat his audience like slovenly caricatures? Panderers gonna pander. Those limited-edition Silent Bob-a Fett figurines ain’t gonna sell themselves, and sh*t.

“Plays like the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK of the Clerks trilogy,” wrote Smith in the caption of an Instagrammed photo of the script, which is how things are formally announced now because we’re circling the drain as a society and the end is nigh. Now, obviously Smith knows that The Empire Strikes Back is actually the fifth episode in the Star Wars series, and the second film released chronologically, so I assume that he invoked it because Clerks III will feature a scene where Jay eviscerates Silent Bob with a shattered bong shard and slides into his warm, soft entrails to survive a Red Bank snow storm. Or maybe because every scene will literally be Dante and Randall arguing about Star Wars as Rosario Dawson stands just out of frame, firing her agent over text message.

Most likely, though, Clerks III plays like Empire because the film’s very existence makes you want to scream into the face of a terrifying reality and then hurl yourself down a ventilation shaft.

I apologize for being a few days late on this, guys. I’ve only just returned from Mexico, fresh off a vacation that wasn’t so much Spring Breakers as it was Hip Breakers. Because everyone else at the resort was so old, you see. Look, I stole that joke from the Mexican Henny Youngman impersonator who was also our bellhop, so blame him.

Anyway, as the plane lifted off for the return leg of my trip, I peered out the window and spotted the Fat Signal far in the distance, somewhere over San Francisco. What’s the Fat Signal, you ask? It’s the spotlight that Vince shines whenever Kevin Smith news hits the wires. It looks like the Bat Signal, except in place of the bat is the bulbous silhouette of a derivative sh*t head. So I hopped on the plane’s WiFi connection* to discover that Smith has announced that he has finally started typing the script for Clerks 3, but as a proper feature film now instead of the fan-sourced weekly newsletter or whatever it was a few weeks ago. And by “typing” I mean “speaking through a mouthful of Pringles** into a Dictaphone,” because people who lack the dexterity to even change their clothes aren’t exactly flying across the keyboard like Mavis Beacon.

Over on Facebook, Smith posted a photo of the script’s title page, along with the following caption:

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So it’s a Monday afternoon and I’m drinking in bed because I’m a grown-ass man and you’re not the boss of me, when suddenly an iPhone buzz announces an email from Vince. Furious that my spam filter isn’t working, I open it to read the following headline: Kevin Smith to Reinvent the Sequel by Beginning ‘Clerks 3′ as a Fan-Influenced Book. Lickety-split, I threw my Pimm’s Cup at a housekeeper of dubious ethnicity and dove for my laptop.

Let’s just take a look at some of these block quotes.

I haven’t talked about this yet. I want to do Clerks 3 as a book first. I want to do it in episodic chapters, so that as I release it people can read the whole thing, see what it would look like. I get to go inside the characters’ heads, tell year one origin stories. The first chapter is Dante and Randal meeting in kindergarten…all the stuff I can’t do in a movie. I’m a stoner [GUHHH – Ed.], so I want to investigate the inner life of every character, and I can’t do that in 90 minutes.

“I wonder what Dante and Randal were like in kindergarten” is what I imagine my ex-girlfriend screaming during yacht sex with her new Brazilian boyfriend. I don’t quite know what that means either, but just know that I find the query both completely irrelevant and yet utterly torturous given the circumstances. And the reason, Kevin, that you can’t do kindergarten Dante in a movie is because no one cares. Sure, if Quentin Tarantino made a movie about Vincent Vega and Jules Winfield in kindergarten, the world would explode. Babies in bespoke suits washing baby brains off their baby hands is a priori awesome. What are we supposed to do with baby Dante? “Hey everybody, look at this whiny baby in a Cosby sweater. He wasn’t even supposed to BE here today!” F*ck that baby and f*ck you, Kevin.

Also, didn’t you already make Clerks: The TV Show, Clerks: The Animated Series and Clerks: The Comics? Weren’t those episodic? So, to be clear, you already once before chopped-up the dead horse you’ve been beating, and now you’re announcing that you’re going to finely dice it too?

If I’m doing it in pieces as opposed to just writing one big fat book, I’ll be honest with you, the audience is going to influence it as I read each chapter. And I know a lot of people are going to be like, ‘Well that’s ridiculous, it should be your artistic statement,’ but my whole thing, my leitmotif [Pssh, more like “weight-motif” – Ed.], my entire career has been about audience interactivity.

Your career was launched due to your own hard work and ability to stretch a shoe-string budget. There wasn’t an audience to interact with then, so I’m not sure what you’re even saying here. You can’t just call your recent pandering “leitmotif” and think you’ll get away with it. Also, how dare you make me ask Siri what “late motif” means. Bitch probably thinks she’s better than me now.

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You guys, I have a confession to make. Last time I wrote about Kevin Smith, I think I might have been too hard on him. His retirement announcement was ridiculed. Fat jokes were bandied about with an abandon that can only be described as reckless. I even sunk so low as to compare him to a bowl of cheese that someone farted in. Many of you took to the comments section to decry that post as “hateful” and “douchey.” Well you know what? You’re right. I reread the post and I simply cannot defend it. I came across as a petty, mean-spirited jerk. And as 2012 draws to a close, I’ve re-examined my Kevin Smith hatred and, in the words of the English poet Robert Graves, I am here to say “goodbye to all that.” Goodbye to the blind hatred of a man who is a charming underdog at best, and a harmless bullsh*tter at worst.

It is with this newfound outlook that I slid into the couch cushions the other day with a warm cup of joe, grabbed the remote, and turned on Good Day LA (hands down my favorite source for all things newsworthy). And wouldn’t you just know it? They were interviewing Kevin Smith about Clerks 3, which he announced that he hopes to have in theaters in time for the film’s 20^th anniversary in 2014. What better way to put my new outlook to the test. The entire interview is embedded below, but follow me after the jump for a breakdown of various snippets.

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I’ll be honest, folks, Kevin Smith news bores me a bit. I used to think he was charming as a person and that some of his movies were sort of okay, but ever since he started smoking weed and adopted this forced folksy shtick of his, I don’t feel strongly about him one way or another. BUT, one thing I do feel strongly about is commenter Chareth Cutestory and his white-hot Kevin Smith hatred, which is so pure and beautiful that I let him write up this latest bit of Kevin Smith news himself. Enjoy.

Are you sitting down? Well hold on to your Jort loops because Kevin Smith, his Macbook Pro just out of reach, grasped his Twitter stick in his sausage fingers and, breathing heavily, methodically tapped out the following:

“Since HIT SOMEBODY is now gonna be a mini-series, yes – that leaves room for a new final flick before I retire from directing feature films.” – @ThatKevinSmith

OH HO HO. What’s this now? Giving up so soon after changing the game with Red State? A film you attempted to finance like some sort of dime store P.T. Barnum? After all that, you’re hanging up your leather duster? Or rather dropping it on the floor since raising your arms to coat rack-level has become a sad spectacle?

And what, pray tell, will be your swan song?

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