• Howdy, folks! Had a fine day today at the wonderful Wizard World East convention. Even got us some nice early admission with our spiffy News Askew Press passes (thanks Jim!) and some nice new View Askew swag (thanks Ming!). Check above for a shot (pun VERY intended) of the Dogma barware that was also surprisingly for sale there today (more to come) as well as a new OPEN/CLOSED sign that any View Askew fan will love (we predict they’ll start showing up on comic shop doors everywhere). Looked like they also had an Askew t-shirt made up to celebrate the convention this year.

It was a packed crowd today, with by far the biggest turnout for Kevin, but also a never-ending line for surprise guest Brian O’Halloran, who we stopped to say hello to (I thanked him for getting me drunk in New York last month). He was very generously signing everyone’s exclusive B&W Dante figure, and pretty much anything else they put in front of him…Taking a lot of photos as well. Brian’s got some more appearances that he’ll be filling us in on soon, so watch for that.
Of course there were some other folks drawing a crowd as well: Alex Ross had a HUGE turnout and some beautiful but very pricey artwork for sale — Smallville’s Allison Mack also had quite a crowd but seemed genuinely happy to be meeting with the fans (pretty good show, that Smallville).
Kevin signed yesterday, and appeared for his Q&A at 3:30 in the largest room in the place. The lineup outside was MASSIVE. Now, of course we always learn a few things when Kevin gets in front of an audience. Today’s Q&A ran 2 hours and we did manage to gather a few tidbits of interest for ya:

• Kevin acknowledged that Jersey Girl has indeed been pushed back to 2004, but not as far as we’d thought yesterday. This was mostly due to the holiday competition, namely, Matrix: Revolutions. The film is now currently slated for a release here in FEBRUARY 2004, which should be just perfect.
• He never got around to his rewrites for Scary Movie 3, the film will open this summer but Kevin never touched it.
• The Clerks Animated Movie is still very much on the schedule of projects and still in the front line.
• Also on the front line: Fletch Won, which may very well be the next film, IF Kevin can talk Miramax into using Jason Lee in the lead role.
• The Clerks 10th Anniversary DVD is still in the works, and should be released in October 2004 (just in time for the anniversary iteself).

Kevin also brought two scenes from Jersey Girl to show the audience, very funny scenes from the film which got a HUGE reaction of laughter and applause from the audience (much of it drowning out the lines following the jokes). First up was a clip featuring Ollie (Ben) & Gertie (Jen) getting ready to attend the MTV Video Awards (which has one of the funniest and most Kev-like lines in the film), the second featured Affleck, Rachel, and a playmate of hers in an awkward but hilarious situation. Again, this one’s a highlight from the film, and one that’s best seen, not described. Those of you who’ve seen the film already will know what we’re referring to.
That’s about all we got for now, it was nice meeting some of you at the show — Maybe next time we’ll spend some more time behind the counter at the incredibly busy View Askew booth so we can meet more of you fine folks.