• It’s the Battle of the Shanne(o)ns! On July 19th, Mallrats alum Shannen Doherty and J&SBSB alum Shannon Elizabeth will be on Game Show Network’s “Celebrity Blackjack”. It airs at 10 PM. Check their website for more info. That Shannon Hamilton guy is too busy winning other tournys to play in this one, we gather.
• If you’re interested in the latest going on with the seemingly unfilmable Superman project, E! Online has the latest. We STILL wish they’d take another look at Kev’s script.
• Check out a new Matt Damon interview in audio format here with a few View Askew references (as well as a Dogma link in the related articles section). NPR’s got it!
• Is Kevin’s popular female fashion accessory choice influencing girls across the nation? It did for this one, apparently.
• And finally today: In Entertainment Weekly, Frankie Muniz answer this question:

We’d just like to mention this for the record: We believe that the first disc to do this was MALLRATS: SE, many years ago. Just cuz we like knowing we’re on the cutting edge with DVDs. Right? See ya next time…

• Kevin was kind enough to drop us some images of what the currently closed, but coming soon, West Coast Stash will look like. Yep, it’s
  official, the building’s bought and now some familiar faces are lining the windows, enticing you with what’s to come and staking claim on the Los Angeles
  comic book industry. This will be THE place to get your books in the L.A. area, and of course, ALL of your favorite View Askew swag. Anyone lucky enough
  to have attended our stash here on the east coast can attest to the fact that a visit to the store is like a View Askew museum, full of amazing props and
  one-of-a-kind relics from the films you just can’t see anywhere else. Stash West has tons of that coolness in store for you. The new shop is located IN
  Westwood, ON Westwood, across from Chilis. No firm set opening date has yet been established, but you can bet we’ll let you know when that is, and we
  expect a BIIIG party’s gonna be held to celebrate it, too. We’ll keep ya posted, of course.

• View Askew’s popping up in news all over the country this week, with Jersey Girl still making the news, Liv with child, J-Lo hitched, and of course, the
  return of Jay & Bob in “I Love The 90’s. Let’s run down the mentions for ya:

• “I Love The 90’s” premieres on VH-1 tomorrow, and we promise, you’re gonna love this. VH-1’s series is full of fun and features Kevin and
  Jay throughout, and of course, the return of Jay & Silent Bob! These are NOT to be missed. You can read all about the show
  HERE. In the alphabetical rundown of reasons to watch, Kevin takes the
  “K” category:

  “K: Filmmaker Kevin Smith couldn’t have envisioned the mini-franchise he was about to create when he filmed 1994’s ultra low-budget, black-and-white
  slacker comedy “Clerks.” The film — which features language so profane it initially earned an NC-17 rating — featured bit characters Jay and Silent Bob
  (the latter played by Smith himself), which would be featured in all of the director’s ’90s work (”Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma”) before finally
  receiving their own starring vehicle: 2001’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.”

• Affleck had a few kind words to say about Jen’s recent nuptuals.
• “Jersey Girl” gets a very brief mention in this Star-Ledger article
  on Jersey movies.

• Jay Mewes made his debut on IFC’s new “Ultimate Film Fanatic” show this weekend. It’s reairing throughout this week, so check your local
  listings (a couple are coming up tomorrow night). Of course, Mewes provided the best moments:

The wackiness continues all summer long on IFC!

• Mallrats is mentioned in Wizard Magazine during an article about “Comics’ Greatest Love Triangles.” Click the scan for a look. Kevin is also being
  promoted for next month’s Wizard X. He will be answering the fan letters for that issue. Should be fun! We’ll have it for ya.
• An interesting rumor has surfaced that Eliza Dushku, who read for the Mary Jane part in Spidey, might return in the third film as The
  Black Cat. Just a rumor, folks, but a neat one at that.
• Late last week, on Jeopardy, under the category “Independent Films”, Clerks was the question to the answer which was something to the effect of “Dante and
  Randall’s occupations are the namesake of this 1994 Kevin Smith Movie”. Braianiac record breaking champion Ken Jennings did not get the correct answer,
  but a very cool redhead at the far right did. Take THAT, Ken!
• Just a reminder: Kevin’s scheduled to receive the first ever “DVD Visionary” Award
  from VSDA this Wednesday, July 14th. We’ll have full coverage.

• Here ya go, folks! As promised, a nice look at the print ad that’s going to start running in the trades to tout the Clerks X DVD release! This is the one that’s detailing all the features, and DOES erroneously mention the TV pilot inclusion (again, it ain’t on there). However, the feature list is huge and you can see our good pal O’Halloran is front and center to promote this, the biggest and most ambitious View Askew DVD release yet. Click the image above for a full screen look (and possibly a peek at the packaging, though we’re not sure that’s actually finalized just yet). Enjoy.

• Kevin appeared in the April edition of Classic Gamer magazine in a Celebrity gamers article. He lists his favorite games, including, not surprisingly, NHL ‘95. Kevin’s piece shows up on page 44, right above Roger Ebert. You can actually access the entire issue in downloadable PDF form via their website (Issue #1). We’re putting a scan of Kev’s bit for ya right here tho! We’re easy on ya.
• That Clerks UK screening we mentioned earlier has moved times, so take note: Clerks now happens on Sunday the 11th at 1:00 PM.
• Empire Online has another small blurb, stemming back to Kevin’s UK Jersey Girl promo tour (namely, the Q&A). Nothing really new, but read it HERE if you so desire. And what the heck, come on back here soon and we’ll do this update thing all over again. See ya then.

• Well, it seems that Comedy Central did NOT have a newly edited version of Jay & Bob put together, at least, not in the way we’d hoped.
  Scenes were excised from the film and dialogue muted, for the most part — The alternate takes that were filmed have yet to see the light of day. Perhaps
  if the film ever makes it to even MORE mainstream networks, we’ll get to see some of that other stuff. You never know. But hey, we always enjoy catching
  a glimpse of ourselves on network TV. It’s that narcicism. Jay & Bob airs in butchered form throughout the month on Comedy Central.
• Chicagoland View Askew fans take note: On Sunday, July 25th at 10pm, the Marcus Cinemas at 16350 South LaGrange Road in Orland Park,
  Illinois will be screening “Clerks.” Tickets are only $5.00! Visit their website for more info. Don’t miss out on your
  chance to catch this true classic on the big screen as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.
• This site’s been around for a while, but for those of you still bumming over the loss of the Clerks TV pilot on the Clerks X discs, you
  CAN read more about the ill-fated show HERE. It breaks down the entire episode along with pictures,
  mini-bios of the cast, and then some. Better than nada!
• There’s a small Kevin Smith reference in Chuck Palahniuk’s (author of Fight Club) new book, Stranger Than Fiction. A chapter in which
  Palahniuk praises another author, Amy Hempel, is entitled “Not Chasing Amy”. His stuff’s very fascinating, and definitely worth checking into if you can
  drag yourself away from the tube for a little while.
• Chasing Amy gets brought up in this Salon.com article regarding a book
  on film critic Pauline Kael.
• One of the best reality series of all time makes its Season 2 DVD debut next week – Yep, that’s right, it’s Project Greenlight 2! This
  show is one of the few that we’re actually riveted by whenever it airs, so if you missed its HBO run, do NOT miss this set. Here’s the details:

Greenlight 3 is in process now and should air on Bravo, though no airdates have been set up yet.

• The new interview with Matt Damon is now hitting newsstands in the latest Playboy issue. Subscribers should start receiving their copies
  next week. We’ll get a transcription of anything Askew-related up for ya here.

• DVD Supersite The Digital Bits ran a report over the long holiday
  weekend which detailed the extras included on the Clerks X DVD, due on September the 7th. They very kindly note that Kevin and View Askew
  always put a ton of work into their DVDs, so it’s nice to see that the community at large agrees that it doesn’t get much better than our
  special editions.

So, as for extras, there’s not much new here, aside from the fact that the documentary now has a clever title we hadn’t seen before: “Snowball
Effect” (as well as the fact that it runs a full 150 minutes, WOW). Now, the potential BIG news here was that the Clerks TV pilot was again
thrown onto the list. Well, we immediately did some fact checking, and we’re sorry to report that word has come down from above that the
press release is INCORRECT in that regard, and the Clerks TV pilot will NOT be in the set. Sorry, folks. We wanted to see it, too.

However, take a look at what the Bits had to say, we think it’ll have you drooling and marking your calendar days with glee as the 7th
of September draws closer:

We’re going to try and get our hands on both of these releases as soon as possible, and hope to give you some exclusive looks at all of the
amazing content coming your way in just a couple of short months. Stay tuned, more news later.

• We’d like to take a moment to wish everyone a happy Independence Day here in America — Have a great time with whatever you do today (and
  for a lot of us, tomorrow, as the weekend’s extended). Eat lots of grilled foods, drinks lots of yummy beverages, and watch lots of pretty lights in the
  sky. Just don’t blow yourselves up. And as always, DRIVE SAFE. Have a enjoyable holiday, and enjoy this bonus weekend update — We’ll see you again
  early next week.

• Wizard World Chicago’s already amazing schedule just got even better, as Jason Mewes will
  now be joining Kevin for the weekend. The con takes place from August 13th through the 15th. No set schedule has been announced, though we assume that
  Kevin (and possibly Jay) will appear for Q&A one day, and have an autograph session on the other. Kevin USUALLY does the signing on a Friday, and the Q&A
  on a Saturday, but like we said, nothing’s for certain yet. Once we have definite details, you’ll find there right here at News Askew.