Kevin Smith has a blog!

(Attention Women In Comics / When Fangirls Attack fans! Please support aspiring comic book writer Ashley Shaffier in her AIDS Walk this Sunday, September 30, 2007! Click here for more details!)

This is something I should have been aware of long ago. In the months leading up to the release of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001 I used to be a regular visitor to the News Askew website. I was a huge Kevin Smith fan back then, but I gradually drifted away. I still kept in touch with the world of Kevin Smith, buying the anniversary versions of Clerks and Mallrats (was there ever one for Chasing Amy?), getting multiple copies of Clerks: The Animated Series (funny funny stuff, too bad most of it never aired), even getting a copy of the first DVD of Kevin Smith's college tour (still haven't watched it yet.) But somehow the need to stay on top of everything he was doing just seemed less urgent.

I read an interview with Kevin Smith in a recent issue of Wizard, the magazine of the comics industry (wow, that sounds so professional when I put it that way) that just pissed me off. He came across as sexist, immature, lazy, unprofessional - all probably fair assessments, but thrown into stark contrast when compared to the same issue's profile of artist Michael Turner.

This weekend I heard Kevin Smith on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and he killed. (Click here for his segment - this is a Javascipt link, so it may not function if opened in a new window.) This was the first time that I heard that he had a blog. (Hey, everybody should have a blog, and Kevin Smith is no exception.) I was reminded again on my way home today by this interview (not Javascript this time!) on NPR's Fresh Air.

It's more than just a blog. My Boring Ass Life, Kevin Smith's blog, is now also a book winnowed from the pages of the blog. As he points out in the Fresh Air interview, this is absolutely the easiest way to write a book, since all of the "writing" part is already done once you've written the blog entries. It also helps if you're a very good writer, and/or a celebrity, and/or Kevin Smith.

It's not the first time a blog has been turned into a book, and it certainly won't be the last. Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry collected their columns and published them as books, as have numerous feisty music critics and other columnists and essayists. I think many bloggers secretly (or not-so-secretly) dream of being tapped by an agent or publisher. Maybe it will happen - we can just keep blogging and doing our best, and hope that someone thinks our output would be worth paying for.

In the meantime check out Kevin Smith's My Boring Ass Life. And keep blogging!