• The excitement continues to build for Kevin’s return to the world of comics, and Kevin keeps making the wait a bit easier by dropping some visual tastes — This time, some incredibly cool pencils from the brilliant Terry Dodson — And just friggin LOOK at the two special guests that are showing up to cap off the final 3 issues of this series! Holy expletive — This one can’t be in our hands soon enough. Click the minis here for a much closer look.

• The recent events surrounding Hurricane Katrina here in the U.S. have all of us at View Askew sending our thoughts and prayers to the families and those affected. It appears to be the greatest natural disaster in our nation’s history. If you’re reading this, you (or perhaps your family) most likely have the affluence to give just a few dollars for the reconstruction effort. For example, a $100 donation to The Salvation Army (or a similar organization) will feed a family of four for two days, provide two cases of drinking water, and one household clean-up kit, containing brooms, mops, buckets, and cleaning supplies. Every dollar counts, mind you.

To aid in the relief effort for the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina victims, View Askew is holding a special edition of Auctions Askew. We’ve come up with what we think you’ll feel are five pretty cool prizes to bid on, with every penny earned going straight to the Red Cross. And whatever we earn, Kev will match himself!

Each item has a minimum starting bid, but that’s not to say each item will be won by that amount. We’re hoping the bidding goes higher than our minimums, so bid often and much! While starting bids may seem high, remember: this is all for charity. And it’s not like you’re not getting something in return: each prize is a one-of-a-kind reward for the largest charitable donations!

Here’s a brief rundown of the 5 amazing offerings for this special, important auction:

• A barbeque at Kevin Smith’s house in Los Angeles.
• A walk-on role in “Clerks 2” (you WILL be seen onscreen in the film, for sure!)
• A set visit to “Clerks 2” – Watch the magic happen
• A box of every single t-shirt the Stash sells (trust us…that’s a LOT of t-shirts)
• A voice mail message for your loyal callers recorded by Kevin Smith himself.

Give hope. Click here to place your bid, or, donate directly to the Red Cross or Convoy of Hope.

• Kevin made a surprise call-in appearance today on Fanboy Radio, a radio talk show about comic books. The featured guest was Jim Mahfood. Kevin called in and chatted a while with Mahfood and the hosts. It was a very cool, unexpected moment in live radio. They should have the program up for free download on their podcast site, www.fbrpc.com, later on this evening (if not already).
• Looks like there will be more information coming soon to the “DoDegrassi” website touting the upcoming DVD release of Kevin and Jay’s 3-episode guest stint. For now, surf over for clips, the trailer, a full rundown of the disc’s contents (seen just ahead here as well), and more:

Rated Extras:

– Five Minutes of Integrated Footage, Not Seen Anywhere
– Interview with Kevin Smith
– Bloopers
– Jay and Silent Bob Photo Album
– Degrassi Photo Album
– Actor Bios
– Character Profiles

Unrated Extras:

– Kevin Smith Exclusive Interview
– Commentary by Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Stacie Mistysyn, associate producer Jim Jackman and writer Aaron Martin
– Five Minutes of Integrated Footage, Not Seen Anywhere
– Reel Footage: The Canadian Ninja Scene
– Bloopers
– Extended/Deleted Scenes
– Jay and Silent Bob Photo Album
– Degrassi Photo Album
– Actor Bios
– Character Profiles

• Clerks gets a mention in “The Movie Blog Audio Edition 37” (of all numbers) — In the clip, the discussion turns to indie films, and about 8 and a half minutes in, Clerks gets brought up as they debate over Miramax being a true “indepdendent” studio. Listen to the clippage HERE.

• Hey, we’re poets and we didn’t even know it. Silent Bob Speaks gets a huge jump to present day this holiday weekend, as we get MAJOR MAJOR dish from Kevin on a ton of proejcts he’s just filmed (including a guest spot on “Joey” that totally comes out of left field, first we’re reporting it), and just heaps of details on everything else. With this update, starting with August 22nd and going all the way up to September 4th (yesterday), you’ll see just why the dude was so busy that updates had to be caught up in this fashion (in fact, we’re amazed he had time to get to this stuff AT ALL now that we’re reading this). Here’s the cliff notes and highlights from this batch ‘o updates:

• On the new Degrassi shooting and the proposed feature film: “…We spend the day shooting the two part follow-up to our three episode arc from last year, in which Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are back in Toronto for the world premiere of “Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh”. Today’s all stage stuff, and tomorrow, we go on location for the fake premiere stuff.

  I spend lunch talking to “Degrassi” creator/mastermind Linda Schuyler and her husband, exec producer Stephen Stohn about the “Degrassi” feature and the script revamp we’re working on, coming up with “It Goes There” storylines worthy of the “Degrassi” legacy. By lunch’s end, Jim hands me his cell, saying Jen’s on the line. Jen and I talk for awhile, until I have to roll back to the set and shoot.”

• On meeting “Joey”: “…In makeup, I meet Matt LeBlanc, who seems like a really nice guy. He gives me a heads-up that the writers rewrote our scene last night. I tell him I rewrote the scene last night, to which he responds “So that’s why you have all the jokes now.””
• On the NEW “Southland Tales”: “…Turns out Richard’s given the script a complete overhaul. What was once a film that played like a cross between “Pulp Fiction” and “Short Cuts” is now a quasi-sci-fi epic that plays like a cross between “Dr. Strangelove” and “Donnie Darko”. Whereas the previous draft was set in a recognizable world, this version’s set in the not-too-distant future, after a second terrorist attack on the U.S. Neither film is better than the other; both are pretty brilliant. This version, however, is more inscrutable – more “Darko”.”
• On his “Southland Tales” look: “…Three hours later, he has changed my look, entirely. Looking in the mirror, I see a sixty year old version of myself, with a long, gray bear, and wrinkled, war-torn skin. Louis is pretty amazing at what he does.I’m driven up to set, where I chit-chat with Richard a bit, who’s happy with the makeup job. He helps me get a bead on my paramilitary, paraplegic character, Simon Thiery before I climb into my motorized wheelchair to get a feel for the controls. Richard’s cool with me ad-libbing, but my dialogue is so plot-specific, I don’t alter it much – just flavor it up.”

Visit the SBS Boring-Ass Life blog site for the full story, as always…We’re just here to make a few footnotes. There’s nothing like the real thing. We’re going over the news-specific stuff, but there’s lots of great bits including some background into the EA Sports hockey game that pops up a couple times in the earlier films. And this time, there’s exclusive photos that you’ll ONLY find at the blog site. Not here or anywhere else. So use it!

• The September 9 issue of Entertainment Weekly (#838/839) includes lots of Jason Lee goodness. The first is a 2-page spread ad for MY NAME IS EARL. The second is a preview for the upcoming season of AMERICAN DAD that reveals Lee will be a guest-voice this season. And the final scan is a preview of MY NAME IS EARL itself.

We’ve also heard that some issues also contain a “NBC First Look” CD-ROM which contains the complete first episode of MY NAME IS EARL. We’re not sure if the disc appears in newsstand copies of the magazine or if it’s subscriber only, but it’s definitely worth looking for. The show premeires on NBC September 20th.

• Some of you lucky fans may be there, as “Reel Paradise” celebrates it’s Los Angeles premiere tomorrow – As such, some excellent press coming our way for the film, from many reputable, widely read publications, such as the LA Times and LA Weekly. Check it out:

• For those of you fretting the loss of that previous Black Cat cover for issue four, Kevin revealed good news. That cover WILL return on the “Marvel Must Have” book that will collect issues #1 through #3 of the series, to catch those of you up who may have missed the first run, forgotten the story or, as Kevin quips, torn up your issues in anger over the delays. Click the cover for a closer look.

• Local UCF freebie newspaper/magazine “The Central Florida Future” had a very prominent scan of our beloved Buddy Christ with an article. The shot you see here is the best we have to show ya.
• In honor of Labor Day, AOL and Moviefone are running a list of “Top 10 Movie Jobs That Suck”. The hard working counter jockeys of Clerks make #5 on that list.

• Thanks to John for sending us this scan of Gmail’s new RSS feature in action. You G-Mail (Google mail) account holders can now make use of News Askew’s headlines and toss them right at the top of your screen. Many other web mail apps and portals are also adding the feature (We currently use My Yahoo’s RSS feature to toss our favorite feeds at the top of the start page — And of course, your favorite RSS reader (there’s a ton to pick from these days) can still deliver the latest news headlines to your desktop or phone, right as they happen. It’ll be something you want when Clerks 2 news starts kicking into high gear around here, trust us!

• Huge props and thanks to Veronica Mars supersite “Neptunesite” (who happen to be big View Askew fans, as well) for informing us that they’ve obtained the first ever still from Kevin’s guest stint happening on the program. Kevin will appear in “Driver Ed” as a clerk, of all things, in Season 2’s second episode. Now all we gotta do is nab the season 1 DVD set and catch up on what we’re hearing was one of the best new shows to hit the tube last year. Thanks again, Netptunesite.

• Beaten only by the cooless that is “The Terminator”, “Donnie Darko”, and “Resevoir Dogs”, Empire Magazine has named Clerks #4 in their list of the 50 Greatest Independent Films Of All Time…

Clerks (1994)

All told, the credit card bills and sundry expenses amounted to somewhere in the region of $25,000. That’s a lot of coin to pay back, but if Kevin Smith was ever worried about recouping his borrowed, begged but absolutely not stolen outlay for his first movie, then he didn’t really have time to show it. For Clerks was quickly picked up by Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein, who overlooked its dodgy production values, ropy acting and a story that resists the description ‘threadbare’ because he saw a raw vitality in its balls-out dialogue; a vitality and spirit and, more importantly, laugh out loud sense of humour that ensured that Clerks connected instantly with disenfranchised tweens and shop workers everywhere, and the rest is history for Smith, from Chasing Amy to the continuing adventures of Jay & Silent Bob, to Empire Awards and domination of the geek world. Or, as Wor Kev might say it, motherfucking cocksucking history.”

Clerks X was also honored at The 8th Annual DVD Awards, hosted by Leonard Maltin, for “BEST PC SUPPORT — INDEPENDENT RELEASE”. Check it, and all the winners, out HERE.

• One of the reviewers, Craggs, over at Film 411 cites “Jersey Girl” as a great first date film And considering all the girls we’ve watched the movie with or talked to about it, the dude’s right. Chicks dig the Jersey Girl. Seriously.

• Seems Google’s start page is another that offers RSS feeds (and the ability to add News Askew’s headlines right to it). Thanks Will.

• If you listen closely to this new unrated trailer for “My Big Fat Independent Movie”, you can hear Mewes’ voice on a tape recorder. The trailer itself is…well…bizarre. Looks pretty low budget, and they certainly mean well, but we’re just not too sure where this one’s gonna go. Looks like a love it or hate it kinda deal.
• And finally today, seems there’s so many movie sites out there, some just don’t get the message when projects change ‘eh? So August is over…Where was this film!?!? We wanna see it! Catch you next time.