Newsnight Review is an art critic show that runs after the BBC’s premier news analysis show after its Friday tradition. Often high faluting, and often missing the point, it has infuriated me on occasion when I happen to know a lot more about the topic than the panellists. Once I recall Acme Novelty Library as being rejected by one panellist for being too gaudy while the other stated that while comics could never be treated as literature they had some value, in that like From Hell, they could be made into films.

On Friday night however, we had a little switcheroo as Kevin Smith and Mark Millar guested on the show, as the programme concentrated on the mainstreaming of cult entertainment on the 30th anniversary of the Hitch Hikers Guide To the Galaxy and the publication of the first non-Douglas Adams book in the series.

We had the ending of season two of Buffy compared to Greek literature, FlashForward compared to a creating a new religion, the politicisation of science-fiction and the boredom of modern culture with Kevin Smith rubbing his nose in HD.

And then a short film with Mark Millar talking about geek culture, how it rose from his own experiences as a kid for being dissed by his peers for liking superheroes, through the internet to command respect, mainstream acceptance and current celebration and financial exploitation.

Look at his little choochy face there. He cited the way Hollywood has changed its hero stories to reflect the geek, how the female audience is rising to the fore and how Barack Obama, is a bone fide member too. All well and good. A nice sweet precursor to his own film Kick Ass.

And then the art critics launched, Kirsty Walk host, Jeanette Winterson, famous novelist and Natalie Hynes, comedian and author. Oh, and Kevin Smith…

Kirsty Wark: Mr Millar.. may say the geeks are all powerful now… but he’s still doing a lonely boy revenge fantasy.

Jeanette Winterson: It’s misogynist, it’s homophobic, everyone’s a fag or a cocksucker, there’s  absolutely no place for women except as cardboard cut outs, and the thing is just full of the worst kind of dripping violence, which is a kind of adrenaline injection which means you’ll utterly dead to life in its subtlety, its complexity, its possibilities of expansion of relationships. This is the kind of thing that’s the product of human emptiness

Kevin Smith: I just thought it was a comic book.

Natalie Hynes: Misogynist is a bit unfair, and also inaccurate, it’s the comic book world.

Jeanette Winterson: The comic book world is misogynist! It wipes women out.

Natalie Hynes: I don’t think that’s true any more.

Jeanette Winterson: It is in Kick Arse

Kevin Smith: I have a ten year old girl. I’m taking her to see the Kick Ass movie.

As conversation about the character of Hit Girl continued and how the image of females in comics has changed to be more representative, while the image in the rest of the media has become more stereotyped, we has this fantastic exchange;

Jeanette Winterson: You cannot swap a stereotype of sexual proclivity for a stereotype of violence and call that progressive.

Natalie Hynes: It’s a slight progress.

The show hilariously pronounced Mark Millar’s name correctly, until Kevin Smith pronounced it with emphasis on the “Arr” and suddenly all of Newsnight Review joined in, as if they’d been corrected by someone who actually knew what they were talking about and they didn’t want to contradict that. Art criticism there, folks.

British people can see the show on the iPlayer for the next seven days. Odds are parts will be chopped up and shoved up on YouTube fairly shortly.