Whether people like comic books, comic book movies, or comic book characters, we all share a deep passion for tales of heroism that make the world a better place. That’s probably why comic book store Mike (played by Jesse Metcalfe of “Desperate Housewives”) and new-kid-in-town Brandon (newcomer Micah Giovanni) take such a liking to each other. As Mike faces difficult choices about keeping his store open and Brandon navigates a contentious relationship with his own father, these two new friends find ways to let their passion for comic books and comic art reveal unexpected paths forward.
From writer/director Jonathan L. Bowen, “The Comic Shop” co-stars Tristan Mays (“MacGyver”) as Mike’s loyal employee Alex, who may have to take a job at a rival store when her hours get cut; Trevor Einhorn (“The Magicians,” “Mad Men”) as the spoiled and scheming rival store owner; and with cameos from Eric Roberts and Scott “Carrot Top” Thompson.
Featuring a stunningly poignant performance from Metcalfe as Mike’s fortune turns from bad to worse, Bowen’s story frames the emotional journey of the characters against the backdrop of their love for indie comics and the unique community of creators and fans who often struggle to find a place in a market dominated by Marvel and DC. The underdog Mike has lost some of his fight, and by helping protégé Brandon with finding a way to connect at home, the decisions about how to move forward reveal themselves one small heroic moment at a time.
Shot on location in Las Vegas, “The Comic Shop” is a slice-of-life love letter to comic fans that general audiences will easily relate to. We’ve all drawn inspiration from the larger-than-life heroes that are born on ink and paper and blossomed in our imagination, but “The Comic Shop” reminds us that the best sources of inspiration are those around us who are willing to risk it all to help us find our way.
Jonathan Bowen stopped by to chat with us about the film.
I absolutely loved The Comic Shop. I watched it about a week or two ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since watching it. It’s one of those films where it just makes you think about following your dreams. I work in an office job during the day and then in my spare time I run my movie websites, which is my passion. I was reading that you used to run a film website, didn’t you?
Yeah, I did. That was like my training; I really felt and I still feel that if you want to be a filmmaker, you kind of need to know what has come before you, because how can you put your two cents in when you don’t know if somebody else has already said it in the same way? I think that I just wanted to watch as many movies as I could. I want to go all the way back. I saw films from the late 1890s, you know, little 30 second black and white things (laughs). And yeah, I’ve always loved movies too. I kind of can’t get enough of them.
Although, I run the two websites, The Action Elite and The Movie Elite, because I love watching every genre. People sometimes think I just watch action movies but I watch everything, like silent movies and Kurosawa as well as blockbusters. You have to understand where it all comes from.
It’s funny, you’re absolutely right because when I was doing my website, I had a side gig. You’ll laugh, it was pathetic. But I was the contributing editor for Suite 101’s Hong Kong action movie site. And so, they would pay me 25 bucks a month for four reviews. But the deal is that that was about enough money for me to buy the movies direct from Hong Kong. The shipping was actually most of the cost. So about 20 or 30 movies at once, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, you know, all that stuff. It was non-exclusive so once I put the review up, I could put it on a place called Theme Stream, and they would pay me 10 cents per view. I actually had reviews that made like 50-60 bucks on Theme Stream. I was only getting paid like $6 but it was just a way to feed my movie habit back in high school and college. I was like, hey, it’s not much money but if it pays for me to get the movies, I’ll take it. I’m so glad that you connected with the movie. I think that that was something that was really important to me is that it kind of reminds us that we’re only here for so long and whatever your passion might be. It certainly doesn’t mean like quit your day job and go do it. But it’s more like asking people if they could just take a little time, like maybe each Saturday, if that’s all you have to give for a couple hours, something that you love to do. Certainly, I don’t think that your passion has to be the way that you make your living. But I think that if you do live a life where you hate what you’re doing, or you’re just bored of it, and then you don’t do anything that makes you passionate you’re going to feel a little restless. It’s going to be like Groundhog Day, where you look at Mike at the start of the movie, and he’s just not excited to be awake. Like he has nothing to look forward to and that’s a sad way to be; we’ve all been there.
Oh, yeah. It’s something we very much empathize with and that’s what stuck with me. Where did the idea for the script come from initially?
Yeah. So, it was kind of a mix. I knew a guy, Mike, who ran a comic shop when I was a kid, probably about maybe eight, nine years old through middle school. He was a little bit like the Mike in the movie in the sense that he kind of lost his passion, I think. In the early years, he was so helpful and he was just a great guy. He always helped me find what I wanted. Then it kind of seemed like he was just going through the motions. I knew eventually he became a UPS driver and closed his store, so it was really sad. Then I was kind of thinking about that as an adult and realizing that I thought Mike was so cool and what he did was so cool because when you’re a kid, owning a comic shop seems like an amazing thing. I remember thinking I want to own a comic shop when I’m older (laughs). But I didn’t realize how much work goes into any small business, like whether it’s inventory management or bookkeeping or accounting. It’s mostly not very fun. It’s not like Mike sitting there reading through all the comments all the time. I’m sure he does that, but most of the work is kind of boring and the same thing. So, then I was running my own small business and really not feeling very passionate about it either. I just lost the spark because we did nationwide business to business videos like corporate. Because of that, I’m not really on set. Like my job oftentimes is to find the videographer, write a check, deal with the deal memos, the legal stuff, the bookkeeping. I’m not doing anything creative on most of it. It kind of became just kind of listless going through the motions. I imagine the script where I could take some of me and then fuse it with some of Mike and then a lot of fiction and then make this amalgamation that was about a guy near middle age where he’s like, this isn’t where I thought I would be. It had been about a decade for me since my first feature film and so I was wondering if I ever going to get to do this again. It was a very personal story for me. I always joke that I gave Mike his second chance at the end of the movie, but I still had to wait for mine because the movie had to do well enough to give me another chance.
I hope it does because it deserves it. The fact that they talk about COVID and how that changed everything. So many places like comic book stores went out of business and went online, so it was very much a real story with real people. I think that’s a thing you can empathize with.
Yeah, absolutely. That’s what was really important to me is to make pretty fully fleshed out characters. I wanted to at least be able to give three of them like a real arc, like Mike, Brandon and Kurt, I’d argue. I wish that there had been more space to maybe give Alex a fuller arc, but the best way I can put it is that it’s not her time. It’s sort of like Pamela. Pamela’s more like, oh, she’s making Brandon happy. These people have their time to change. Maybe when Brandon goes off to college, Pamela’s going to take up some really fulfilling volunteer work and discover this. Who knows? But in one movie, there’s only so many people who are necessarily going to have a character change. I don’t think you want to stuff it too full to where you lose focus of what it’s about. But one thing I wanted to focus on is that these characters all impact one another, even not necessarily directly. Basically, Mike and Brandon’s relationship helps Brandon kind of see his dad’s perspective more. And so, Mike ends up being a positive influence on a different relationship completely between Brandon and his dad. I like the idea of showing that first you think it’s this gruff military guy who is very practical, doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Then we catch him playing guitar and realize that Kurt was a dreamer at one point; he did have that side to him, but he had to make a choice. His choice was family and paying the bills and he doesn’t regret it. It was important to me to show that because I didn’t want to imply in the movie that if you don’t go chase off after some artistic goal, that you’re not going to be fulfilling life. That wasn’t the message I wanted. Kurt chose his life, and he’s very happy. He has a son he cares about, a great wife, he has a good job that pays the bills, and he’s happy about it. He’s content that he gave up his dreams to live a life that he thinks is worth living. But we see Mike is not content. He’s not happy with the life that he chose and that’s what it’s about. It’s not about what someone else thinks about your life. It’s about what you think about your life, and whether you feel good about it. How do you feel first thing in the morning when you wake up? Are you looking forward to getting out of bed and facing a day or you’re just like, oh, God, another one of these?
I love the relationship dynamic between Brandon and his dad because it didn’t go the way I was expecting. Whenever the dad’s playing a guitar, I didn’t see that coming. I just thought it was nice because it was a fully fleshed out character then.
I tinkered so much in earlier drafts of the script, even maybe the 10th or 15th draft. He just wasn’t there still. He came around too quickly in the earlier drafts, and he didn’t have the backstory that I wanted, so we explored that a lot. Like, how is he going to relate? I wanted to have like a football scene. I want to have something where they can bond. Brandon is the kind who like, we’ve all seen this, where you reject what your parents say, not because of what they say, but just because it’s your parent. We’re all guilty. Sometimes my wife will do it to me (laughs). “So, this movie is great. You’ve got to see this movie”. And she’s like, “I don’t know”. Then we watch it and she’ll really like it. And she’s like, “I don’t know why I was so resistant”. It happens, it’s one of those things. I think that Brandon’s like, well, my dad likes sports, so they have to be stupid. Then he kind of throws around a football. It’s like, okay, this is kind of nice. It’s pretty outside. And yeah, why not, you know?
FYI, my mum loves Jesse Metcalfe. She loves the Martha’s Vineyard detective movies.
I’d watch those as well. They are good.
Why was he the perfect choice for Mike?
Yeah, he was and I had this really good feeling about that, so we kind of cast him. And I didn’t know as much about him. Of course, I’d seen some things like John Tucker Must Die. I knew who he was and all that. But after we actually cast him, I got more excited because I started watching everything he’d done, trying to learn everything I could about him because he’s my star. I want to know what we’re dealing with. I read everything I could. I got a big smile on my face because I thought, this guy is going to understand Mike. Jesse had early success; he was on Desperate Housewives, but he was also on Passions before that. He knew what it was like to be at the top, going to the Emmy parties, young, a really good-looking dude in Hollywood. Then he knew what it was like to kind of stumble and to have the spotlight be harsher. He’s always remained hardworking and he’s done a lot of good projects. I actually really liked the Dead Rising films. I think they’re really fun. They didn’t get as much exposure because they put them on Crackle. And like, no one had heard of Crackle but they’re actually fun movies, like, not critic movies, maybe. I believe that Jesse is going to relate to this character, because he wants that success back that he had when he was younger and he’s worked hard for it. I saw that passion on set and I saw his list of notes to himself and I want to read it, but he wrote little notes like to make him think how he sees the line. In other words, like Mike’s line, how does he relate to it? And I thought that this is perfect because Jesse’s the kind of guy who at middle age thinks “I deserve better. I should be getting these big roles”. And he’s a really talented actor, and he’s in great shape, and he’s really hardworking. I thought, he’s going to take that sort of energy and give it to Mike. I think it came across well; I really can’t imagine somebody else playing the role, even though our first offer was actually to Justin Long. It would have been a different movie. And another offer, I believe, was to John Heder, like Napoleon Dynamite. That’s a totally different movie and actually, that’s not really the movie that I want to make.
Yeah, they’re more comedic actors; you associate them with comedy, but Jesse Metcalfe gets across the disappointment of life, basically, and he portrays that nicely.
Yeah, and that’s what I want. I can’t tell you how many battles there were before when I just had to keep saying to the producers, especially, “it is not a comedy. You’re getting hung up on the comic shop, like the Sunday funnies or whatever”. But comics aren’t fun. They could be funny, but they could be really dark, or they could be action packed, and could be sad. It’s just a medium. It’s like film. Film can be anything you want it to be. And so I was like, “I feel like you guys are getting hung up on like, the comic as in like, we went and saw a comic at a stand-up comedy show on Saturday”. I was like, “you got to get over that, because that’s not what this movie is about”. So, there was an attempt to inject more humor into it. Then I pulled a lot of that back and said, “Look, I want there should be funny moments, this movie should be entertaining and enjoyable”. It’s a comedy in the sense that it has a happy ending. If it was nominated for a Golden Globe, it would be under comedy or musical, but I don’t want it to be trying to be ha-ha, funny, because this is a serious movie about a guy who’s really going through it. He’s struggling with alcohol; he’s struggling with basically a loss of a sense of purpose. I would say he’s confronting his own mortality, because he’s thinking to himself, “well, what if this is all there is for the next 30 years just running this stupid comic shop? And then I just die one day and that was that”. I think that we want to mix it and be able to put some comedy where appropriate but also focus on making a movie that is serious drama and is based on the character relationship to not just throwing every joke at the screen and seeing what hits. You’re going to get the tone right because then it loses the emotion from it. If everything just turns into a joke, then you’re like, okay, so it’s a joke, then that’s it.
You’ve got the tone just right with the amount of humor, but it didn’t take away from the dramatic side of it, which is good.
Yeah, and I think it kept going in a good direction. It was one of those things where movies can go from a script to a finished film and get better or worse and I do think it got better. When we got to the set, there were jokes that were in the script where we said, “we’re not going to do that. It just feels out of place now that we’re standing, and we just didn’t do it”. There were other times where we were like, “we’ll do it both ways. We’ll do the joke”. Then we got to the editing room, and even my producer who was pushing for the comedy; he watches and he goes, yeah, “this doesn’t work. We’ve got to take this out. It just doesn’t work here. This is a drama”. And I’m like, “now you get it. Thank you”. It was a real team effort, though, because I do think he understood as we made the movie; he’s like, “oh, okay, I get what we’re doing now and we’re all like on the same page” and I love that. I think it’s good to have a discussion where the editor, myself and the producer, we’re all arguing about how the scene should be. And then eventually, we get to some sort of shared reality where we’re all happy with it. Like, this makes sense. This is how it should be.
How did you get Eric Roberts?
Oh, so the casting director kind of just threw it on me. We were on the phone and she said, “would you like to have Eric Roberts in the movie? “And I said, “Who wouldn’t want to have Eric Roberts? but I mean, can we afford that?” She said, Well, we’ll ask and then his wife and manager, Eliza said, “Oh, you know, Eric’s really affordable. Trust me, we’ll work with you guys. We’ll work with your budget”. And I said, “That sounds great”. I got asked this question, and I think I froze. So now I remember this answer but, the one thing I learned on this movie that I don’t think I had really thought about as much is the advantage of a really good actor to take a scene that’s written pretty weakly. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not a great scene. The scene Eric is in is just very perfunctory. We need to have the guy come in and tell Mike that his lease is going up. That’s it. That’s the only purpose of the scene is just to make Mike’s life a little bit worse. But it’s still an important scene, though, because it’s moving the story on. It has to be there. But it’s like when there are scenes that are important, but not that entertaining. My thing is like, keep them short, then. Don’t linger on it. Just get the information and go and what Eric brought to it is taking it from one of my least favorite scenes in the script to one of my favorite scenes in the actual movie, because his performance is so great. The little things he does like when he says he does inflation. I know I told him to do that. He just comes up with these things and then the way he reacts and interacts with Mike is so great that he has taken a scene that was a little bit weaker and then elevated to, I think, one of the stronger scenes in the film. It’s something I definitely learned that those little cameos put in the right spots. It’s not about having Eric Roberts. It’s about having an actor who’s that talented to elevate the material. It was fun working with him. He’s a real gentleman. He obviously just loves movies; he just is the kind of guy you’d have to pry him off the film set. He just wants to always be working, and he was so nice to all the cast and crew. Everybody wanted a picture with him and that was no problem. He’d spent all the time, and I think he likes it.
Finally, how would you like the film just to resonate with audiences?
I think that it will depend right on how you come into the film. I can picture a younger audience member maybe identifying more with Brandon with that youthful optimism, and then kind of maybe learning something about when it comes to people who are naysayers to your dreams. Try to bring them on board in some different way like find that common connection. I think for a lot of us who are maybe more my age or anywhere, 35 to 55 this movie is kind of asking “are you doing what you want or is there a way for you to engage more with your passion and kind of remember that the worst thing that you can do?”
There’s a book called The Death of Ivan Ilyich that I read in philosophy. It’s to be in your deathbed, thinking like, gosh, if I had just done this or that and you know have all these regrets. Don’t be that guy because you can prevent that. It’s work but you can make sure that you say “I gave it a chance; it didn’t work out but I will never be sitting there wondering, what if”, because I tried. So what I want audience members to take is to find that passion and make sure that when you look at your weeks and months that you’re at least taking some time to do something that you really love in your passion.
Absolute pleasure talking to you and I hope the film is a success and we’ll chat again soon for the next one.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and the well wishes and fingers crossed. I really hope people like it it resonates with people. So thanks for having me.