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.

Kevin Smith fans came out in numbers to poopoo Chareth’s attack on that “dirigible” of a filmmaker’s arrogance. This week in hate mail:

ChewlysGum: Wow, you come across as a bitter c*nt. If this was in print, Smith wouldn’t find this worthy of wiping his fat ass with it. You fester in your small area of Internet while Smith does whatever the f*ck he wants to. I’m sure he appreciates the money you paid to watch his films.

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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If this isn’t your first time on the internet, chances are you’ve come across at some point the picture of a stoned-ass Nic Cage wearing a Superman suit over his pooka necklace, or that video of Kevin Smith talking about the time a producer Jon Peters wanted him to write a Superman with three conditions: I don’t wanna see him fly, he doesn’t wear that f*cking suit, and he has to fight a giant spider in the third act. Incredibly, that Nic Cage picture isn’t is Photoshopped, and but (sorry, I’m retarded, here’s a couple real ones) Kevin Smith wasn’t making the story up (which you know because no one argues about blow jobs or Star Wars). It was all for movie project that never quite got off the ground, Superman Lives, written by Kevin Smith, directed by Tim Burton, and starring Nic Cage. It’s all so beautifully batshit that one man – Jon Schnepp -  has taken to kickstarter to raise money for a documentary about it, called “The Death of Superman Lives.”

I’ve been interested in this film since it was first announced back in the late 90’s. Nicolas Cage was announced as Superman, Kevin Smith was announced as the Writer, Tim Burton was announced as the Director, and fans have had very heavy opinions, both positive and negative, on all of this. As news slowly bubbled out, news buzzed around about Rainbow Robot Outfits, Brainiac Skull ships, Superman not “flying”, Fighting a Giant Spider, Polar Bears guarding the Fortress of Solitude. [KickStarter]

They say their “stretch goal” is to use the original FX crew to actually produce some of the original scenes. They’ve already raised $40 grand. My hope is that they raise enough to actually hire Nic Cage. Hell, I’d settle for video of Nic Cage walking through his house talking about his snake venom and dinosaur skulls in his Superman voice. Actually, considering he did name his son after Superman, I’m not convinced he hasn’t been in character this entire time.

Movieline found a video of the original Superman Lives suit. It basically looks like if dub-step was clothes.

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