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Smith gets steamed when he thinks about the Dogma protests. "Every week I go to church, and sooner or later the priest makes a joke! How come a priest can mix religion and jokes, but if I do it, I'm anti-Catholic? That just burns my ass, because I'm out there trying to get people to think about God. I am working the good cause--and I'm anti-Catholic? I tithe! I don't bend down and tie my shoe when the basket comes around!"
His life can now return to bustling normality. He will continue with his comic-book writing, scripts for Miramax and Warner Bros. (a Superman draft didn't work out) and a prime-time cartoon version of Clerks for, of course, Disney. "It's just rife with irony, isn't it?" he says. "Let's see if we can deliver the PG my mother was always lookin' for." But his biggest project is to enjoy time with his new wife Jennifer Schwalbach, a former writer for USA Today, and their newborn daughter Harley Quinn. "I want to take the next year off and raise my child," he says. "Do something noble."
Smith has already done that by raising profound issues in a pop context, bringing God to the mallrats, making a good movie. That should be O.K. with the Lord.
--Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles