For the past few years when ‘The Walking Dead’ has wrapped up each week, fans have found themselves glued to their television set watching the hilarious antics of Mike, Bryan, Walt, and Ming inside the confines of Kevin Smith’s own Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey. Every week the cast of AMC’s ‘Comic Book Men’ debate the latest and greatest in geek, meet their childhood heroes, or wheel and deal with customers looking to unload their collectibles or memorabilia. AMC’s ‘Comic Book Men’ celebrates the best in geek culture and mixes it with Kevin Smith’s trademark sense of humor (minus the dick jokes).

Season 4 of ‘Comic Book Men’ just debuted on AMC and promises to be the best season yet as the cast is joined in The Stash by fanboy icons Billy Dee Williams (Star Wars), Adam West (“Batman”), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters), Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster), Kevin Eastman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and Walt’s personal hero, Gene Simmons of KISS.

Bloody-Disgusting was able to chat via phone and geek out with Ming Chen at New York Comic-Con about comics, his favorite moments on the show, and what fans have to look forward to with Season 4 of ‘Comic Book Men’.

Bloody-Disgusting: I’m kind of envious that you’re talking to me from New York Comic Con at the moment. I wish I was there, rather than stuck in Brantford, Ontario, where you guys played in the Walter Gretzky Street Hockey Tournament a few years back.

Ming Chen: We all love Brantford. The poutine there is pretty good and I have to say that I’m still digesting an Admiral’s Junk Pile, so I’ll always carry a little piece of Brantford around with me wherever I go.

BD: Did you ever envision that the show would last this long and we’d be here talking about the premiere of Season 4 of Comic Book Men?

MC: No. Never. I remember when Kevin called me and told me, he said, “I know this is going to sound weird, but we’re going to do a reality show based around the store. No, I’m not kidding and I’m not high, but they want you on it.” Up until that point the only reality shows that they had shot out in this area was Jersey Shore. Kevin told me that they wanted to shoot it in the comic book store and I told him, “Who the hell would want to watch that?” Then I started to think about it, and I thought that it would be cool to capture Walt and Bryan as I know them on TV, and that’s exactly what AMC did.

BD: Season 4 of ‘Comic Book Men’ has a pretty stellar list of guests coming up including guys like Kevin Eastman, Adam West, and Ernie Hudson. I always thought that Ernie Hudson was highly underrated and deserved more recognition.

MC: Ernie Hudson definitely does not get enough props. People think of him as the fourth Ghostbuster, but he’s a Ghostbuster period.

BD: He’s such an underrated actor. He was great in “The Crow” and was fantastic on HBO’s “Oz”.

MC: The other one that we are very excited about was Billy Dee Williams. He might be a little bit older now, but he’s still every bit as cool as he was back in 1981 and 1983 when “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” came out. He might be even cooler now, and it was crazy just how much the atmosphere changed when he came into the room.

BD: Another guest I was excited to hear making an appearance on the show was Gene Simmons from KISS.

MC: Gene is quite the character.

BD: Did you ask him to spill some blood at The Stash? I always loved the story of the members of KISS spilling blood into the printing of their comic book series.

MC: We did ask him if that was real or not, but we left the bloodletting out of it.

BD: So since the show has taken off, how has life changed for you? Do you guys get recognized when you go out in public?

MC: Well I think that Bryan is the most recognizable just because of his size and stature, but I think the coolest thing that has come out of this is that we keep getting invited to comic cons across the country. I would be going to comic conventions anyways, so that is a dream come true. I love to travel all around the country, and I’m meeting a lot of celebrities from my childhood at these things. Meeting cast members from movies like “The Karate Kid”, “Point Break” and even the cast of “The Walking Dead” has been really cool. In this age of social media, it’s always cool to get photos with them.

BD: I was sad that I missed you the last time you guys came through Niagara Falls.

MC: We’ll be back around Canada again I’m sure. We love everything from the beer to the poutine. Kevin and I both are like Canada’s biggest cheerleaders, and I grew up watching “Degrassi: Junior High”.

BD: Have you had a chance to meet Joey Jeremiah from Degrassi at any cons?

MC: I did. Patrick was i
n Niagara Falls and he told us that he was a fan of the show, which blew my mind as I grew up watching him when I was a kid. Kevin has met them before, and he even got to direct an episode of the new ‘Degrassi’ series, but I had never met them before. Then, to find out that Patrick was a fan of our show was amazing. How many people can say they met someone that they were a fan of and have them say that they are a fan of something that they do? It’s just amazing.

BD: Coming back to the show, one of my favorite cast members has to be the resident collectibles expert Robert Bruce. He seems like he’s just a wealth of knowledge about comic book history and collectibles in general.

MC: We’ve known Rob for years, because he started coming into the store when we first opened. He would always come in and spill his knowledge on us, and he was just this weird guy that knew more about the stuff we were carrying than we did. We’re lucky to have him as our expert on the show.

BD: Can you talk at all about Robert Bruce’s companion series that is in development at AMC?

MC: I think they are still developing it. I believe they have shot a pilot, but that’s all I know. Rob is one of those guys that I see every day, and I think if they can show the Rob Bruce that I know to the masses, the show will work.

BD: Do you read any of the press that the show has generated? ‘Comic Book Men’ seems to be quite polarizing with some critics and fans. They either love or hate it.

MC: I get Google Alerts and I’m very active on Twitter and social media. I think when the show first came out people definitely had their doubts. Some of the geeks were worried about how they might be portrayed on the show, but as the series progressed most of them saw that we were cut from the same cloth and that we wanted to celebrate all of this. After that we slowly started to see a lot of our detractors become fans, which is great. I’m happy for that and we all wake up excited about toys and comics like everybody else out there.

BD: I think some people take things a little too seriously, and they forget that the show has an obligation to be entertaining.

MC: Well with Walt and Bryan you definitely get that entertainment. I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity to be around those two, Kevin and Mike.

BD: So let’s talk comics for a minute, and dive into what you’re reading at the moment…

MC: Well I’m definitely a big fan of DC’s New 52 books, and I’d have to say that Marvel’s “Hawkeye” series is definitely one of my favorites right now. I do think that DC does have it locked down on the comic book front at the moment, but on the movie front, it’s definitely Marvel. It seems like when one has something good, the other excels at something else. To be honest though, I would have to say that I’m probably reading more Image stuff than anything at the moment.

BD: I have to agree that Image is just killing it right now. They have so many amazing books coming out from “Walking Dead”, “Saga”, “Lazarus”, to stuff like “Fatale and “Revival”….

MC: “East of West” and all that stuff is amazing. I love superhero stuff, but I think as I get older I’m just concentrating on finding good stories. Image has got it with great storytelling and art at the moment.

BD: Rick Remender is doing great things over there. Jason Aaron’s new series “Southern Bastards” has been amazing.

MC: Absolutely.

BD: So coming back to the show for a minute, will the “Secret Stash” companion podcast come back when the show returns?

MC: Yes absolutely. There will be one for every episode where we expand a little bit more on what happened in each episode. We’re all in Kevin’s world so that means there will be podcasts and more podcasts.

BD: Could you ever envision yourself not talking about your life on a podcast?

MC: Podcasts are a great way to recap what is happening in your life. My hope is that my kids will stumble onto them one day and that it will be like a little snapshot of what I was up to at that time.

BD: So to wrap things up, what can fans of the show look forward to on the upcoming Season 4 of ‘Comic Book Men’?

MC: This might sound vague, but babies and ice cream trucks. If that doesn’t sell Season 4 of the show then I don’t know what else will.