• We received an excellent report on a recent appearance from George Carlin, which reveals the nature and size of his role in Jersey Girl – Sounds like we’ll be seeing quite a bit of Carlin this time around! Here’s details:

• Vincent’s got a fantastic appearance coming up, and it sounds like it’s a can’t-miss event if you’re going to be in the area — We’ll let him take it from here:

Sounds like a golden opportunity folks, and a great crew on stage to ask questions of – If anyone attends, be sure to take some photos and send in a report for us – We’d love to hear about it. You can view the trailer for “A Better Place” at the View Askew website.

• “Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers” has hit shelves, but is in very limited supply over at Amazon. The book features Kevin’s script for the Jay & Silent Bob story from Oni Double Feature 1, and is available in better comic book stores everywhere. The book also has a nice juicy superhero script by Neil Gaiman, 33 pages of Jeff Smith drawn script, and other contributions by Greg Ruck, Dwayne McDuffie, Trina Robbins, Kurt Busiek, Marv Wolfman, Steve Lieber, and Nat Gertler. Get your copy today!
• Blockbuster Video expects previously viewed VHS copies of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back to start going on sale in early April.
• And speaking of video, J&SBSB is at #8 on both Video Store Magazine’s Top 20 Rental Titles chart (for the week ending March 24) and on Video Scan’s DVD Consumer Sales chart (week ending March 16).
• Alternet.org, the non-corporate news site, ran a mock movie award contest based on…well, based on mocking other movie awards. Jay and Silent Bob came in second, to The Lord of the Rings, for most homoerotic movie of the year. You can read more about it HERE.
• Apparently, there’s some View Askew fans at the Sobe company — The fine folk at Sobe include little sayings under the caps of their beverages, usually little pop culture references with a lizard spin on it. A recent cap spotted of their “Liz Blizz” Pina Colada flavored beverage read “Jay and Silent Lizard”.

• Here’s one of the best web comic appearances of Jay & Silent Bob we’ve ever seen — Jay and Bob are in today’s edition of “Shoot Me Now”. Prior to this episode, some of the main characters were lost at sea and wound up at the lost city of Atlantis. The Atlantians are kinda like fish people. “Chuck” gets thrown into an arena to fight a monster which is basically a shameless rip-off of the Rancor in Return of the Jedi. In this strip, Jay and Bob (as Atlantians) take their turns fighting. This comic is well written and well drawn, don’t miss it!
• Clerks on the big screen again this weekend — St. Louis area folks, ‘Clerks’ will be playing again this weekend at Ronnies 20 Cine’ (ticket info – (314)822-2463). It’s Friday and Saturday at 11:30pm only.
• The alt.video.dvd newgroup reports that the ‘Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters And Marvels’ DVD released on May 7th features “director Kevin Smith and Stan Lee discussing the characters of many Marvel favorites”.
• Another strange appearance of Jay & Bob was spotted in this web comic HERE.
• Lots of folks are mixing their own tunes these days with PC mixing software — There’s some tunes in the audio section for “DJ Jay & MC Silent Bob” at the Consumption Junction website if you’re interested in checking them out.

• Finally today, we’ve been receiving tons of e-mails from folks celebrating the announcement of the 37 cent stamp here in the US – So we figured we’d finally give it a mention. One fan had an idea of what the Postal Service might want to use for the design. Have a great Easter folks, if we don’t talk to ya before.

• Well, it seems like ages since we’ve had one of these to post, we even missed this HUGE update from Kevin at the board yesterday. He’s got a lot to announce, including a cameo in Daredevil, and lots more. Here he is:

Talk about a bunch of fantastic news! We’ll do some checking into those DVDs, and hopefully have an early look at those for you as they’re put together. Any of you who have ever checked out one of Kevin’s live Q&A sessions know that there’s no way they’ll be disappointing. As for folks who have never seen Kevin speak, you’re in for a real treat when those discs hit shelves. Those of you attending Kev’s appearances this week, have a blast!

We’ll also hopefully be able to post some copies of those commercials for you to check out once they become available. They sound like an interesting bunch.

Of course, we’ll keep you up to date with all the latest on these exciting developments, and have that Roadside Attractions spot for you to check out next week in case you miss it or it’s past your bedtime.

• IMDB’s PeopleNews today ran this blurb on a deal done between Affleck and Kevin:

• And speaking of Affleck, “The Sum of All Fears” trailer has now been posted in Quicktime 5.0 format. You can find links to both at Apple’s Official Quicktime Movie Trailer page.
• And finally, an interesting little footnote to yesterday’s Newsbites — The guy who draws the Melonpool comic strip, Steve Troop, used to work for InColor, a color-seperation and comicbook coloring place in San Diego, and was the guy who actually did the coloring for the comic covers used in Mallrats and Chasing Amy. Interesting stuff! InColor also did the coloring for the Kitchen Sink Press Mallrats cards, amongst other things. Thanks to his old parter, Greg Skinner, for the info!

• It’s here folks! Another week of fantastic merchandise that you can own at eJ—Wait a sec, well, it looks like the wrong folks caught wind of the whole “eJay” title, thus that is no more. Now simply known as “Auctions Askew”, this week we’ve got some fantastic items, including a very rare Dogma crew hooded sweatshirt, Kevin’s actual shoes from that film, signed posters, and more. As always, this stuff is just a bid away, and it could be all yours! Surf over to the View Askew Auctions site for more details on this week’s stuff, as well as to place you bid. Good luck!

• We’re proud to announce that a trailer has been cut for Jeff Anderson’s hilarious flick “Now You Know”, and is now awailable online! A small website has opened with information on the film and a link to the trailer, and we’re also mirroring the file right here on the News Askew server.

“Now You Know” was screened for a bunch of us at Vulgarthon early this year, and now, more lucky View Askew fans are going to get the chance to check out the film! We’ll have more information on that screening and how you can attend soon, though seats are very limited due to theater size. We highly recommend you check out the film if you have the opportunity. Until then, visit their mini-site http://www.lpfilms.com/html/now_you_know.html at Lumberyard Productions and download the trailer from us. You’ll need a RealMedia compatible player to watch it.

• TS3K Productions have released a new “Editors Cut” version of their “Clerks Animated Trailer”. You can check a local copy out right HERE. If ya like their work, check out some other stuff from them HERE.
• There’s a webcomic called “Melonpool” in which Jay and Silent Bob make a cameo (in last Sunday’s strip). Check it out right HERE.
• Yet ANOTHER Jay & Bob web comic appearance in this web comic, “8 bit college”, HERE.
• On the Newgrounds website, there’s a game located HERE. Click on “Say Something Stupid” and it says “Kevin Smith is a bad director”. Stupid indeed!
• Australian readers – Copies of the Green Arrow hardcover (selling for AUD 60.00) were spotted at a store called Kings Comics in Fox Studios, Sydney. They also had the individual books, selling for AUD 6.50 each. If you’re having trouble finding them at your shops, there’s a lead for ya.
• A couple of Askew-related bands have some gigs coming up: This Saturday night, Soul Asylum is playing at Otto’s in Dekalb, IL. As you know, Soul Aslyum appeared on the Clerks soundtrack, and Dave Pirner was the composer for Chasing Amy. Fory anyone in the area, tickets are $10 and can be picked up at the door or online at www.ottosdekalb.com. The lineup for the Beale Street Music Festival, aka Memphis in May, has been released, and the “Greatest Band In The World”, Morris Day and the Time, will indeed be performing. You can check out the complete lineup at www.memphisinmay.org. Looks like another three great days of music in Memphis — May 3rd,4th and 5th.

• Kevin gets a mention in the new May issue of “Beckett Hockey Collector” magazine. In their review for the new flick Slap Shot II, the author wished that someone who loves hockey like Kevin Smith could have done the film justice. See a scan above.
• And finally today, May 4th (the day after the big Spider-Man flick opens) is “Free Comic Book Day”. Go to a participating store, get a free comic! Cool stuff.

• If you want to see a good solid action/horror flick, do yourself a favor and check out “Blade II” – It’s a dark, violent, action filled flick that was a lot of fun this weekend. MUCH better than that “Resident Evil” crap that came out a couple weeks back, and the best action/horror since “From Dusk Til Dawn”. You won’t be disappointed.

Next week brings “Panic Room”, but of course, everyone’s got their mind on the Oscars tonight — Hopefully not all the predicted winners will take home the statues in the big categories tonight, as there’s certainly some talent up there listed as underdogs that would make some fine winners – Chances are the smear campaign going on won’t hurt “A Beautiful Mind” that much (except possibly for Crowe), but here’s hoping that “Lord of the Rings” takes that best picture honor, Denzel Washington takes best actor, and Chris Nolan wins for that brilliant “Memento” screenplay. As much as it’d be great to see David Lynch upset for Best Director, chances are that one’s going to Jackson or Howard, with the latter most likely. Will we see the director/best picture split again this year though? Stranger things have happened.

We’ve got a long awaited review for ya today, along with some newsbites to round out the weekend and get back to the work week, which is a short one for many of us due to the Easter holiday. Oh, and check out the new poll topic too, it’s about time we changed that one, ‘eh? Let’s rock:

• Well, we suppose the old adage “Better late than never” certainly applies here, as we’ve finally completed the DVD review of “Drawing Flies”. You can check it out right now in our ever-expanding DVD area. The flick and disc are full of stuff, as you’d expect for a View Askew DVD, including fun cameos, 2 solid commentary tracks, extra scenes, and more. If you’re a View Askew DVD collector, or even just a fan (you must be if you’re reading this), this one’s worth picking up. Read our review and learn more about this rare gem of the View Askew collection.