Kevin Smith: If Comic Book Men Is Cancelled This Year, That's Okay

Folllowing up on our earlier story about the seemingly charmed status of Comic Book Men, AMC's reality series starring Kevin Smith and the group of friends with whom he runs his New Jersey comic book store, the filmmaker told reporters at New York Comic Con this year that, at this point, they can all feel good about the run of the show and that if the luck they're enjoying runs out, it's not the end of the world. The series, which begins its third season on Sunday, felt like it was in danger of cancellation repeatedly during its run, according to Smith, but no pressure from AMC ever bore that out and now they've been returned to their original programming slot, where they were originally a big success after The Walking Dead and Talking Dead. "I got lucky and believe me, I know it every second of the day," Smith said. "I'm not sitting there going, 'this show's so f--ing frighteningly original that it deserves the attention it gets.' No. We've got a very friendly network who happens to like the show a lot. It helps when the network actually likes the show. And they're supportive. They kind of like the numbers it pulled, especially based on the costs, so boom! We come out with season three. Now, it'll come the same thing at the end of this season will happen where we go, 'God, I wonder if they'll go one more season.' Because for me I jsut wanted one. If we could do just one season of a show--fantastic. Then you get to the end of it and suddenly it's like 'two. Two would make us legitimate and then they could cancel it and s--t.' But then when we got to three, well now the pressure is kind of off. If they cancel it after this season, I'll be like, 'Look, they gave us a great f---ing run and I've got a bunch of episodes of a show that stars my f---ing friends. That, to me, will be the greatest trick the devil ever f---ing pulled. So it doesn't matter if it goes on for five years, ten years or one year--it happened and the fact that they keep bringing us back feels wonderful but it must mean that we're doing something right."