Kevin Smith to Start Filming Reality Series

When Dante Hicks arrived at the early that fateful morning — on a day he wasn’t even supposed to be there — he found the locks to the shutters stuffed with gum.

Unable to open them, the clerk instead erected a sign letting milkmaids and Chewlies Gum representatives alike know that the store was open.

It said, simply: “I Assure You We’re Open!”

That same sign is all that’s visible among the blacked out windows at in Red Bank and television crews will soon begin filming for AMC’s new comic book fanboy reality show of the same name.

Now, the story goes that Kevin Smith shot interiors of the Middletown convenience store in his debut movie Clerks when the store was closed at night.

The easiest way to answer the question as to why there was never any daylight in the store throughout this day-in-the-life portrait was to keep the shutters closed. The blacked-out windows this time, conceivably, are blacked out to make it easier for crews to film without having to worry about the sun seeping through the store’s tall windows all day.

Next to the “we’re open” sign, though less visible, is a disclaimer warning those who enter that they may be filmed or recorded.

and is expected to produce six episodes airing some time in 2012. Smith, who owns the comic book shop and has filmed a number of Jersey-centric films, like Mallrats and Chasing Amy, is the show’s executive director.