• The good folks at Genius Products, as well as our pals Zak & Joey, brought two bundles of joy to the News Askew offices late last week – First up, Zak and Joey sent us a personal copy of their exciting new documentary, “Back To The Well”, for an early preview. The next day, we got hooked up with, you guessed it, the Clerks II DVD itself, in all its glory! So, there’s a busy Sunday ahead, as we delve into all the nooks that we love about View Askew’s DVD releases, and write up a complete review and rundown of the disc and all its goodies. In fact, as soon as this update’s posted up, it’s couch time!

In the meantime, you can check out a VERY POSITIVE review of the disc over at Aint It Cool News! We’ll have a complete review of each area of the disc, screenshots, and much more up in the first half of this week. We’re gonna spend this rainy Sunday spinning up the disc and checking out all the bonus features, commentaries, and of course that highly anticipated documentary! Watch for our full CLERKS II DVD COVERAGE soon! And thanks again to Zak, Joey & Genius Products.

• Kevin will participate in a fundraiser with comic legends Stan Lee and Joe Quesada on SATURDAY, December 2nd at 7:00 p.m. in UCLA’s Ackerman Grand Ballroom. It’s a fundraiser for “Hero Initiative”, a not-for-profit organization that provides financial assistance for comic creators in need (what a fantastic idea). Tickets are $18 for UCLA students and $20 for non-students. Want tickets? SURE ya do! Get more info and purchase yours today. VIP tix, by the way, which get you into an exclusive reception at 5:30, can be had for $100.

• We’re really stoked with the news that Kevin will headline his own Showtime series. The uncensored nature of Kevin on a cable network show, a fairly well-known British import at that, is exciting stuff. Entertainment Weekly reported the news this week in this slightly catty snippet (though the writer does admit with new shows like this, it’s getting tougher not to add Showtime to the cable lineup):

We’re figuring once the guy sees “Catch and Release” he’ll see Kev’s potential. Anyway, the show does play quite a bit like a male version of “Sex and the City”. In the original, Kevin’s role of “Terry” (at least that’s what it was for the UK series) was the lead on the show. The program also starred Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy fame. You can check out the entire run of the British “Manchild” on DVD if you’re curious.

• We’re very pleased to bring you the best pic yet of that exciting Best Buy exclusive coming November 28th — The Clerks II Happy Meal! We originally reported that the box would contain a t-shirt, but were misinformed — Instead, it’ll have a Mooby’s visor in there. And of course, there’s the cup, the nametag, the fun games, and the 2-disc special edition itself.

Cinematical also runs a little blurb about this unique collectible. You can bet we’ll both be hitting the local Best Buy on our lunch hours to pick this one up in person. It’s a keeper.

• UK’ers: Catch Mallrats Mallrats on the U.K’s “FILM4” channel on Tuesday, the 14th of November at 22:45.
• More news today on JOEY LARUEN ADAMS and her new film “Come Early Morning” (her first writing/directing gig). First up, a nice version of the film’s trailer has just hit the popular Apple Quicktime trailer site. You can check it out in high-res HERE. You can learn quite a bit more about the film in this new interview with her, courtesy “Suicide Girls”. Here’s a few select passages:

• RAQUEL CASTRO has just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where she filmed a role for the new Ludacris/ Mary J Blige video “Runaway Love”. She starts in one of the three stories that take place in the video. The video should hit MTV and the other usual venues later this month.
• The IESB scored an exclusive look at the trailer for the long-in-production flick “Fanboys”. The flick charts a group of friends and their quest to see Episode I of Star Wars six months early. Kevin and Jay make a cameo appearance (not in the trailer, though).
• News to us! Seems FYE is now advertising a CLEAN VERSION of the Clerks II CD soundtrack. Not sure why you’d want it, but there ya go. It does indeed exist.

• View Askew came up on a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire rerun on GSN earlier this week. Click the screenshot to see. We hadn’t heard of this one when it originally aired.

• Page Branson’s project to create a 37th birthday gift for Kevin, in the form of a keepsake book, continues. The cover’s been finalized and finished, and is quite cool we might add (see the full image above). Learn how you can be a part of the project at this WWWBoard thread. Page does some nice work. You can visit her website to see more.
• Finally today, ever look at the history blurb at the top of our screen? Hard to believe that on this day, SEVEN YEARS AGO, Dogma was released! Seems like just yesterday. My oh my, how time does fly…