Kevin Smith's "Comic Book Men" on AMC Crab boats, hair salons, Louisiana swamps, tattoo parlors, Rachel Zoe's abattoir of fashion dreams: workplace reality shows tend to be set in places off limits to most of us because of geography or lack of training or an unwillingness to be humiliated. Kudos to AMC and Kevin Smith, then, for "Comic Book Men," in which the primary qualifications for inclusion are the abilities to stand for long periods while leaning against glass cases and to wield the sarcasm born of years of underachievement. David M. Russell/AMC Kevin Smith, left, and Ming Chen, during the shooting of "Comic Book Men." Actually, while there are no monster waves or hungry alligators in this series (which begins on Sunday night after the return of "The Walking Dead"), there's plenty of humiliation. A pecking order exists among the four main subjects - three employees and one kibitzer from Mr. Smith's New Jersey comic-book shop - and at the bottom of it stands the stubborn and combative sales clerk Ming Chen. In keeping with the show's faithful depiction of fanboy culture, much of the humor involves insulting, duping and generally dumping on Mr. Chen, who plays along by getting comic-book angry, in the style of a minor, likable supervillain. "Comic Book Men" grew out of Mr. Smith's portfolio of podcasts - in addition to making independent films and writing comic books, he's a confirmed new-media addict and experimenter - and the action of the show is punctuated by scenes of the cast members in the podcast studio, discussing what we've just seen or are about to see. This self-narration is a bit of a conceptual tease, given that there is very little action to talk about, even by the reduced standards of reality TV. The pilot episode has three narrative modes, reflecting different aspects of male arrested development: discussions of comics minutiae and the nature of the superhero; "Pawn Stars"-like negotiations with people trying to sell comics or collectibles to the store, thus opening themselves to on-camera ridicule; and a trip to a nearby flea market where Mr. Chen and two colleagues, Michael Zapcic and Bryan Johnson, compete to see who can make the most money selling worthless inventory. We never see a customer actually buying something in the store; there seems to be more money walking out the door than walking in. Technically speaking, the star of the series (besides Mr. Smith) is the store's manager, Walt Flanagan. But the show is dominated by Mr. Johnson, who's the Anthony Bourdain of this little world, a character rare on TV but familiar to any pop-culture-obsessed slacker: smart, disdainful, mildly threatening, kind of a jerk but funny enough to get away with it. Actually, everyone involved in "Comic Book Men" is a bit of a jerk in his own way, which is what makes the show, despite all the reality-TV staging, one of the more authentic portrayals of aimless post-collegiate American life that you'll see this side of Richard Linklater. It's diverting, a little sad, a little boring, full of geeky macho posturing and ultimately pointless, much like a Wednesday afternoon in a comic-book shop. Comic Book Men AMC, Sunday nights at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time. Produced by Original Media and Snoogans. Kevin Smith, Charlie Corwin and Elyse Seiden, executive producers.