• If you’re heading to Chicago this weekend, Green Arrow artist Phil Hester says, “I’ll be in artist’s alley Friday and Saturday if any GA fans want to sneak a peek at some character sketches, etc. I guarantee my line will be shorter than Kevin’s.” Cool stuff. Someone bring us a scoop! Maybe ask him to give you a pic to scan for News Askew?
• This animated Windows logo startup site has created a Dogma-themed into screen featuring the Gologothan. You can DL it at their site or at our own Files Askew.
• A short non-spoiler review/synopsis of “A Better Place” appears at the Wormspeak website. Be careful though, kids, it’s an adult-oriented site.

• Finally today, here’s a shot of Kev & Jennifer at the “Coyote Ugly” premiere. Nice that he got invited, anyway.

• The View Askew references continue with each passing Daredevil comic, and they’re getting better and better. The latest issue (#13) features a sequence where Matt goes to a video store (pgs. 4-5). Who might be working the counter at the store? Why, it’s Randal of course, with Dante hanging around as well. There’s some great dialogue on Matt from the both of ‘em, and Dogma even appears on the Coming Soon area behind the counter. We’ve got a scan of the dialogue panel above. Click it for a better look. Bravo to the Marvel Knights team for continuing to put some great in-jokes into the book for fans of Kevin’s work. We’re continuing to buy the post-Kevin story arc books, and they’re still fantastic.

• Variety & Cinescape online, two very reliable sources, are both reporting that Ben Affleck is indeed close to signing on as the new Jack Ryan character. This would be the third Ryan to hit the silver screen, with the first two being, of course, Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford. If Affleck does indeed commit, the next film, “The Sum Of All Fears” will be fasttracked and begin production as soon as this Fall. It would certainly be interesting to see how the film plays out, as all of Clancy’s books have seemingly been written for an older Jack Ryan character. Affleck’s youth may either throw off the franchise or bring in an entirely new audience and a long line of follow-ups. We’ll keep our eyes on this one.

• Just wanted to throw a word up about the last update’s newsbite concerning supposed “new” interview quotes from Chevy Chase. The quotes actually stemmed from an old interview already covered on this site. Chevy’s had nothing to say since the Fletch Lives project was announced, and some say he may even be somehow involved with the project. Time will tell…

• Brian Lynch’s script “Nightcrawlers”, recently bought for production, now has an IPO on the Hollywood Stock Exchange website. This is a good sign for the film, though nothing’s definite. It’ll be interesting to see which of Lynch’s several scripts make it into the limelight first, with that film, his Muppets movie, Everybody’s Dead, and of course, Big Helium Dog all in various stages. BHD is set to make its big debut at Vulgarthon this October, which will be the first time everyone (including us) gets a look at the film.
• Those of you looking for .WAV files of the more classic lines from Dogma can now find some newly posted ones at Movie WAV Place.
• The trailer for Chris Rock‘s new film, “Nurse Betty”, is now linked from the ZENtertainment website.
• Dogma streets on VHS in Australia this weekend. If you had a tough time finding it in theaters there, you should easily be able to catch it now. Reviews around the continent have been quite good.

On behalf of News Askew & all the fans, happy birthday, Kev! Here’s to another great year of Askew, with the last bringing us Dogma, the Clerks cartoon, and some kick-ass comics, the next one’s looking to be even better, with View Askew 5, the Fletch project, Green Arrow, and more. Thanks for another fantastic year of entertainment. Here’s to many more.

Addendum — Kevin turns 30 TODAY, August 2nd (as I modify this) not on August 1st as the story may have led you to believe when it was posted late last evening. Happy B-day, Kev.

• The new Cameron Crowe flick, “Almost Famous” with Jason Lee in a starring role, now has the trailer online. The film is in FACT based on the life of the writer/director and his experiences, at a young age, being a cub reporter for Rolling Stone. Jason Lee is seen BRIEFLY in the trailer, one line, but he is credited 4th in the flick. The movie seems to follow the reporter as he bonds with a band, which he shouldn’t do, as he writes about them. You can watch the trailer online HERE (5.5 MB QUICKTIME). We’re predicting good things for this film, it looks like a good one.
• Well, it looks like Chevy Chase can’t keep his mouth shut about the whole Fletch thing. Now that Kev’s confirmed he’s doing a new film based on the character, he’s back to his complaing. This comes to us from Salon.Com:

As we mentioned the last time this happened, the whole honest Fletch/Chevy explanation from Kevin in our archives.

• There is now a Dutch Dogma website online HERE. If you speak the language or are just curious, you may wanna check it out.
• Kevin Smith as a college course? Some undergrads think so. Two fans are teaching a course entitled “The World According to Kevin Smith.” at Tufts University, just outside of Boston in Medford, MA. Tufts has a program called Explorations that allows undergraduate students to teach topics of interest to them. They designed the entire full-credit course on their own. It will meet once a week for 3 hours. It will be a discussion based class and will look into the films (obviously), some comics, some scripts, the cartoon show and some other stuff.

Their course description is as follows: “The World According to Kevin Smith. This course will use the diverse works of Kevin Smith as a foundation for discussing modern cultural and social issues. Topics such as the independent film industry, censorship, portrayal of youth in media, sexuality, and religion will be discussed.” Sounds like a fun 3 credits!

• Those of you who enjoyed the clips of Kevin at the webmasters panel in San Diego will be happy to know that the CHUD site plans to add more as time goes on. You’ll find new editions periodically right HERE. Enjoy!

• Finally today, Kev appears in a cartoon from this week’s TV Guide (with Clint Eastwood on the cover). Catch ya at the next one.