• As usual, a couple of View Askew mentions appear in the latest Wizard (#105):

• There’s a 2 page spread about the whole Clerks: TCM controversy, plus an interesting sidebar about all of Kevin’s conflicts in the past.
• We get a mention regarding our coverage of the Chasing Amy Manga comic (#120).

And there’s ALSO a story regarding the Clerks Cartoon staying at ABC over at the Wizard World website:

Kevin Smith Does Not Buy Back; New “Clerks” Animated Movie a Possibility

By Jim McLauchlin

The fate of the “Clerks” animated series? In the end, it’s as simple as “ABC.”

Fans of acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Smith rejoiced in 1999 with the news that ABC would air a “Clerks” animated series based on the characters from Smith’s surprise-hit 1994 independent film. But joy turned to disgust with recent news that ABC was slotting the series for a tough summer debut. A much-publicized flap between Smith and ABC led to Smith’s announcement that he was considering buying the series back to turn into a feature-length movie. Those movie plans have now been scrapped.

“The honest answer is the simple answer: We wrote six episodes of a television show, so it’s a television show,” said David Mandel, “Clerks” writer and executive producer. “There was so much stuff that was getting lost as we were trying to turn it into a movie. Even trying an amusing framing device like ‘Tales From the Crypt’ wouldn’t work. There were episodes that had specific TV endings, TV conventions, TV jokes, and it just didn’t translate.”

Mandel was happy with the support received from film company Miramax, ironically owned by the same parent company as ABC. “Miramax was really good about it,” Mandel said. “They were, ‘If this is what you want to do, fine.’ If we want to do a new ‘Clerks’ animated movie down the line, that’s fine too. If people see the show on ABC and respond well, maybe we will. But if we do, it’ll be all new and something that will be planned as a movie form the minute we set out.”

In the meantime, fans can expect six episodes of “Clerks” to begin Wednesday, May 31 at 9:30 PM. “Ultimately, I’m happy it’s going to be on the air,” Mandel concluded. “And hopefully, if ABC does their part and does some promo so that people will actually watch it, I’ll be really happy.”

Again, we highly recommend you check out the show. We think you’ll like it. Tell your friends to watch, too. Spread the word. It really is a good, funny, quality cartoon. Trust us.

• Nothing new, really, but The Digital Bits ran an item summarizing a few things we’ve reported here in the past regarding the Dogma DVD. Just thought we’d run the piece for those of you that may have missed some of these tidbits. Loyal readers to the site won’t find any new surprises here, though:

• We have heard rumors and confirmations on Chasing Amy DVD pre-orders being cancelled by Reel. We’re looking into this with Criterion, so no need to e-mail us anymore letting us know your pre-order got sent back. Last we heard the disc was still due in June, if we find out otherwise, we’ll let you know.
• Congrats to Ben Affleck for being voted one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” this year.

Sorry for the short one again today, everyone. Still not much going on, but we’re keeping up with all we can. We’ll see you next time. Oh, and if anyone’s got some good POLL TOPIC ideas, send them along to us. We’ll throw them in the mix for future possibilities. Thanks!

• Since the announcement of the Clerks’ series coming on ABC at the end of this month after all, it looks like the final touches were put on the OFFICIAL Clerks Cartoon website, and it’s now online! There’s already a lot of new content out there, including some behind the scenes stuff, episode info, and more, with more on the way. Another slick-looking site to join the View Askew ranks. Ming did another fantastic job. Be sure and check out the new offical Clerks Cartoon site at www.clerksthecartoon.com.

In related news, artist extraordinaire Chris Bailey just announced that the final bits of the show were finished and “in the can”. Here’s Chris:

• Just a real quick one today, folks…Been very busy lately with a new website going up at the job and lots of other stuff, so sorry for the lack of chit chat and whatnot. We’ll try to catch up with ya on what’s been going on in the next update. Until then, here’s some news for ya:

• The Eagle Awards were presented at the Comics 2000 festival over the weekend in England. Daredevil’s 1-8 won for “Favorite Story” (the award officially went to Smith & Quesada). Congrats, guys.
• Here’s that Dogma video review from Entertainment Weekly we mentioned earlier this week:

• In case ya didn’t go and see Scream 3, we’ve gotten a hold of the 10 second sound clip from the flick where Jay & Silent Bob appear. Click HERE to listen. (Courtesy http://i.am/ghost.face.
• This Friday, the new movie by Mike Figgis called “Time Code”, opens in 5 big cities. One of the stars is Salma Hayek, and it’s a very cool concept. If ya live in a big city, check it out.

• Finally today, some View Askew-related fan art from the Wizard site.

• We chatted with Vincent Pereira briefly today about the “A Better Place” Special Edition DVD that’s coming soon. Seems that the disc is now scheduled to arrive on JULY 22nd, as Vincent has hooked up with some folks from Skywalker sound and is getting the final plans in place. He’s heading up to New York this weekend to lay down a bunch of the soundtrack, and then it won’t be long before he’s off to the Ranch to supervise the brand new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. It’s gonna be a great disc. We’ll have an exclusive first look of all the goodies on this thing soon.

• Kevin reported today that he’s made a way cool change to the proposed Vulgarthon 2000 lineup this October! Seems now that lucky attendees will get a chance to see the Cannes version of Dogma, which runs about 15 minutes longer. This event just gets cooler and cooler. Here’s Kevin:

• Congratulations to Clerks for being one of the 500 nominated films for the AFI’s 100 Funniest Movies list. The special, which announces the 100 winners chosen from these 500, airs on CBS in a couple of weeks. Sadly, Mallrats, Amy, and Dogma are not among the 500.
• A comic called “Quantum & Woody” (issue #21), written by Christopher Priest, contains a slight View Askew/Marvel Knights sorta reference. One of the characters, Woody, sues “Marble Comix” for “Black Kitty”, which suspicously looks a lot like Marvel’s Black Panther (also written by Priest) for ripping off his life. There’s a cameo by Jimmy Palmotti and Joe Quesada. Later, after when negotiating with an editor, Woody says “Well, maybe I’d settle for a jet, a house in Paris, a Rolex — and, oh yeah — I wanna meet Kevin Smith!” We’ll try and dig up a scan.
• Thanks to all of you who wrote in on the “Go Fish” price — You can get the flick at a sellthrough cost — Under $15 online and in most shops that sell video.
• A trivia question of sorts on Jay & Bob’s “Scream 3” appearance shows up over at Entertainment Ireland under the WEEKLY COMPETITION area.
• And finally today, in the May 5th issue of Entertainment Weekly, a small review of Dogma appears in their What To Watch video section. They give the film a B this time around.

• Thanks to our good friends at Columbia/Tristar, we were fed-exed review copies of the Dogma DVD! So, we’re proud to present an early look at this disc. Remember, this one will pale in comparison to the massive special edition that they’re preparing right now for this Fall, but all in all, if you just want to watch a damn good movie, this disc is certainly a worthy purchase. Check out our detailed review, menu screens, and cover art of the Dogma DVD here. The disc streets on May 2nd, one week from today.

• As we mentioned briefly earlier last week, Jimmy Palmiotti, a very cool guy we’ve had the pleasure of hanging out and chatting with on a few past occasions, is leaving Marvel Knights and, thus, Daredevil. Here’s the official press release on the matter, and again, we wish Jimmy the best:

• We’ve added a new Dogma WinAMP skin to Files Askew, or click here to download it. The skin replaces the look of your current WinAMP MP3 player.

• Guin Turner‘s “Go Fish” is seeing a re-release on VHS on May 2nd. We’re not sure if it’s at an affordable price or justfor more video stores to grab a copy, but look for it.
• An interestingly weird new shockwave Jay & Silent Bob game has appeared on the web HERE. Seems that Mooby has been murdered and you gotta find the killer. Looks a bit odd to us, but we thought we’d let ya know about it.

• Sometimes video box & poster art from other countries is a lot different than the U.S. counterpart. Check out the British video sleeves for Clerks & Amy, and a very different German Chasing Amy cover above.

See ya!

• Howdy folks! Hope all of you had a nice Easter (or just a nice weekend, for those of ya that don’t celebrate). We’re back today with a late update and just a few Newsbites. Again, as Kev mentioned on the board recently, it’s just a quiet time for View Askew right now, and a welcome break from the craziness. We’re still keeping up with the stuff that’s going on, but apologize if it’s minor.

Howard Stern fans may find it humorous to see that this year’s top recommended People Online “Most Beautiful Person of the Year” write-in vote is for “Beetlejuice”. You can surf to their site and write him in.

Also, we’d like to congratulate our Philadelphia Flyers on their first round playoffs win. The guys played damn fine without their head coach or Eric Lindros, and beat one of the best goaltenders in the league. The series against the Pens starts on Thursday, and we’ll be watching!

Alright, here’s a few tidbits for ya today: