Kevin Smith Responds to Bill Maher Taking a Shot at Him

Bill Maher may have taken a shot at Kevin Smith — and to a greater extent comic book fans everywhere — during his latest rant about the passing of Stan Lee and the response to it, but Kevin Smith is taking the high road about it all.

Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, Maher double-downed on his controversial take on comic books and Stan Lee’s death. In November, Maher wrote an op-ed on his blog about how comic books were meant for kids, something he lashed out about again, comparing the enjoyment of comic books and related media — such as movies and television shows — to essentially being immature and childish.

He specifically opted to trash talk filmmaker Kevin Smith who happens to not only be a comic book superfan but has written several comic books himself. The attack on Smith specifically focused on Smith’s signature style of specialty hockey jerseys but Smith? He’s being the bigger man in all of this in a response on Twitter Saturday, even with a sly twist.

“Yes, @billmaher took a shot at me during his show last night, in the midst of his latest rant about @TheRealStanLee and adults who like comic books,” Smith wrote. “No, I’m not mad at all. Bill may talk tough but he’s a stoner like me and a real pussy cat when confronted.”

Smith’s tweet contained a link to clip from an episode of Maher’s show several years ago when Smith was a guest, but the video itself was about Smith wanting to slap Maher with a specific and intimate body part for crap Maher gave him over his “flying while fat” issue years ago.

As for why Maher was taking specific shots at Smith last night, that relates to Smith’s reaction to Maher’s original op-ed. After Maher wrote his controversial essay, Smith spoke about it on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast.

“Just taking a shot when no shots are f-ckin’ necessary,” Smith said. “And like, this guy, he did so f-ckin’ much for this world. He put so many smiles on people’s faces. He launched imaginations. He made kids feel part of something. He made adults feel part of something. He was a whole good. Everything about him was f-ckin’ good. He was sweet, he was nice, anything you ever heard that was negative, honestly, was f-ckin’ horseshit, made up. He was a great man, I’ll miss him all of my days.”

It will be interesting to see if Maher has any further comments about the situation now that Smith has responded. After all, Maher is no stranger to being the center of controversy. His comments about the 9/11 terrorist attacks saw ABC opting not to renew his show at that time while last year, he referred to himself as a “house n–er” on his HBO show. As for the Stan Lee situation, Maher had previously attempted to do some damage control on Larry King Now, though he ultimately stuck with his criticism.

“But talk about making my point for me: Yeah, I don’t know very much about Stan Lee and it certainly wasn’t a swipe at Stan Lee. Yeah, fine. I am agnostic on Stan Lee,” Maher said. “I don’t read comic books. I didn’t even read them when I was a child. What I was saying is, a culture that thinks that comic books and comic book movies are profound meditations on the human condition is a dumb f-cking culture. And for people to get mad at that just proves my point.”

What do you think about Smith’s response to Maher’s latest? Let us know in the comments below.