Moments into a discussion of his plans for Marvel and Hulu's recently announced Howard The Duck animated series, filmmaker Kevin Smith realized just how much he was willing to give away. "I'm going to get a call from Jeph Loeb that says 'You're fired for saying too much!'" he said with a laugh, joking about his boss, Marvel's Head of Television.

However, Smith did clarify the designs and possibilities inherent in the Marvel/Hulu partnership which will see four animated series launch on their way to a crossover miniseries called The Offenders. For his part, the director says he got involved in writing the Howard series with Aqua Teen Hunger Force producer Dave Willis due to his interest in an entirely different piece of the Marvel TV universe.

"I'd gone in to see Jeph maybe two years prior to talk about [directing] a Daredevil [episode] or something like that," he explained. "Jeph was like, 'I don't know... you make those DC shows,' because I directed a lot of Supergirl and Flash. And I was like, 'Are you kidding me? Is this how deep the rivalry goes?' Then he said, 'I'll find something for you.'

"Then one day he reached out to me and said, 'I think I have it, but I'm scared to tell you. I don't want you to say no, but I can't imagine somebody better than you and this character.' I said, 'What is it?' and Jeph said 'Howard The --' but before he even finished, I screamed out, 'YESSSSSSS!'"

Smith professes to being a longtime fan of the character, going back to the original series written by Howard's co-creator Steve Gerber who dreamt up the foul-mouthed duck with artist Val Mayerik in the 1970s.

"I was familiar with the Gerber comics. If I could have voted, I would have voted for Howard for President back in the day," Smith said about the character's early status as a pop culture phenomenon. "My father gave me my first Howard The Duck -- and my father did not foster my comic book habit. He wasn't against it, but he never said, 'Here, read these!' We were poor, so throwing away money on comic books – even 25 cents – wasn't really in the cards for him. It was something that was done begrudgingly. But he did get me the first issue of Howard The Duck because he had heard about it on the news. The character transcended our medium of comics and broke into the mainstream.

"I wasn't there the moment that Howard launched, but probably by issue 4 or 5 when people started hearing about it, there was a local news report. One day my father gave me the comic, and I said, 'What's this?' He said, 'I saw this on the news. I like this duck. He doesn't take any guff.' And he didn't read it. He just saw the dude on the news talking about it, and he said, 'If you're going to try to do funny things, this is funny.' He knew I liked comedy and Saturday Night Live and comic books, so for whatever reason, this news report connected with him and he said 'I like this.' Any time he saw something on the news that he thought I'd connect with, he'd pay attention. He did it one other time when I was little with a story about Stan Lee. He said, 'I want to show you the man who makes Spider-Man. There he is,' and there he was on television. It was the first time I'd ever seen Stan in my life. I was maybe seven or eight.

"The one time my father jumped in for that made me feel affection for Stan my whole life," Smith continued. "It was a gift my father gave to me. He said, 'This man is important.' He handed it to me like a Fabergé egg. And the other time he did that was with Howard The Duck. He just gave me the book."

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Smith explained that he'd be feeling the pressure of adapting the character to animation much more if it wasn't for his creative partner on the series. "Mercifully, [Loeb said], 'and we're going to bring in this guy, Dave Willis.' I said, 'You don't even have to say any more. That's fucking Meatwad in Aqua Teen Hunger Force.' I knew that Dave's sensibility was perfect for what I'd want to do. I loved Steve Gerber's stuff, but my mind doesn't work exactly like Gerber's. But Dave's mind? It absolutely does."

The pair joined their own personal takes on the material to create the show that is just now coming together. "I've seen my outline for a season and Dave's, and we combined the two going forward. His stuff is brilliant. He comes from animation, and he knows how to do this job. I told Jeph, 'I'll do it! I'll take it!' because I love the character, but I don't know shit about cartoons, really. We did a Clerks cartoon years ago, and that was that. But once I knew I was working with the guy from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I knew we had a guy with both the sensibility and who could handle the workflow of animation perfectly."

Smith noted that Howard would likely be one of the later series out of the gate for the Marvel/Hulu deal, because the other announced series are well underway. "I didn't see a Tigra & Dazzler clip yet because they were still working on those, but I saw a clip of M.O.D.O.K. and Hit-Monkey, and holy shit...both clips were breathtaking. I'm not just saying that because I work for the company. Me and Dave got scared because this stuff is changing the game. The M.O.D.O.K. stuff was brilliant. I can't wait to watch that show. And then the Hit-Monkey clip looked like Kill Bill come to life. It was gorgeous. It looked like Akira! They're really spending money on these shows. It isn't like, 'Who cares? It's adult animation?" They're going all the way for it."

Smith promises, he and Willis have a grand design in mind for Howard, who will be getting his widest spotlight since his brief cameo in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and before that his much maligned '80s film. "I'm probably saying too much, but we're going to be the last of the series to go, probably, so we have some time. With Howard, we're working with the studio on the design of the character and all of it. But it is going to be pretty damn close to the spirit and the feeling of the Gerber run. That's what we've been looking at and going back to. Doctor Bong is our bad guy, and a host of other characters – if you know the world of Howard – his own rogues gallery that Gerber came up with back in the day make an appearance in our Season 1. We throw in everything and the kitchen sink. And our season finale hands things over to the crossover miniseries."

Overall, the filmmaker took little credit for how these shows came together, noting that the more adult-oriented take on Marvel properties is thanks to his new boss. "My hat's off to Jeph and [his team] over at Marvel because they had a vision. This whole thing exists because Loeb's just a big fan of Archer, and he wanted to do more in animation. It's all his brainchild, and thankfully he tapped me to go along for the ride.

"I'm not going to let people down. This is the first time outside of the comics they've handed me Marvel IP to play with, and I'm backed by the best." Smith promised. "I've go the good folks at Marvel behind me. I've got the good folks at Hulu who I worked with on Spoilers back in the day, and I've got Dave as my co-pilot. It's going to be amazing."