• A scooper visited the Stash last week and took a ton of pics of what you’ll find inside. They’re a bit on the blurry side, but you’ll see some new angles on stuff in the display cases and on the walls that we don’t think we’ve printed here before. Those of you who’ve never been to the store should definitely dig ‘em. If you’ve got the means and have yet to check out the Stash, we urge ya to make the trip in. It’s really a neat store to just hang out and take in scenery, and big and comfortable enough to do just that. Be sure and stop in if you’re ever near Red Bank!

• ABC has YANKED the sticom “Talk To Me”, which they opted to schedule over the Clerks Cartoon this past Spring. Back in our February 21st update, we gave the show 4 WEEKS, so we were damn close. 🙂 Here’s the press release.
• We haven’t heard from these guys in a while, but the people behind that familiar looking film, “Employees,” we mentioned a while ago have posted a “Wazzup??” flash animation with the Clerks characters. We really thought that it was getting old, but we gotta admit, it’s still funny. That audio just seems to translate everywhere. At any rate, take a look HERE and enjoy!
• The Dogma DVD is selling well, and being plugged all over the place on the online sites. It’s currently clocking in as the Number 4 seller over at Amazon.Com. Looks like most folks don’t mind buying one now AND buying the Special Edition later. We’re glad to hear they’re selling.

• Dogma hits shelves nationwide on VHS and DVD today. Remember, the DVD is just the bare bones version, which you can buy for about $15 at most discount and web retail shops. A Special Edition DVD set is due this Fall. The VHS tape is available FOR RENT ONLY, if you want to purchase it, it’ll cost you over $100. Most tapes arrive at a “sellthrough” price a few months after they are released, but no such date has been announced for Dogma at this time. There are no plans to release a Special Edition on VHS.

So, what are you waiting for??? Get out there and rent Dogma! Let’s see how high that sucker can get on the video rental charts! And, as a reminder, now that you can have a copy at home, you can safely play our Dogma Drinking Game. Just be careful!

• Does anyone ever take the Pepsi Challenge and suddenly have a chance of heart and switch their soft drink devotion over from Coke after having their eyes opened to that sickeningly sweet stuff? Commercials are BS! Coke forever!

Anyway, we’ve got a new poll topic (finally!) today, a bit late, but this is something Kev brought up on the web board, asking for a fan preference as for which day of the week Vulgarthon should be on (Monday or Tuesday). The boarders seemed to have an overwhelming preference, which we preferred, but we thought we’d throw the topic up here as well.

Got a few other things today that should be of interest to ya, including the DVD File interview (it’s always great when the DVD sites post interviews, the questions are always good), and a couple other points of interest. Let’s take a look, shall we?

• DVD File has posted the interview that we mentioned was coming last week. Again, they’ve done an amazingly thorough job with this one, with a wonderfully detailed intro and tons of great Q&A. It’s quite lengthy, so we won’t be reprinting the entire piece here. Surf over to their site and take a look. It’s well worth the read. Here’s a preview:

• The Chasing Amy e-mails the other day seemed to be just a misunderstanding. Actually, Reel.Com has sent out price reduction e-mails saying that 5 bucks has been knocked off the price. Very cool of them. So, it sounds as if the June release is definitely on, and more affordable at that. The disc is now available for $22.99 and up for a June 13 release. Thanks to the tons of you that e-mailed us about this.
• Those of you George Carlin fans longing for more after Dogma may want to catch him at one of his tour dates. The guy’s hilarious, and we can highly recommend checking out one of his shows.
• We usually don’t mention college screenings because they’re so numerous, but this one’s a rare one due to the fact that it’s in Australia, so we figured what the hell. The Macquarie University (which is in Sydney) Film Society is screening Dogma at 7pm on Friday 2nd June (with Pulp Fiction at 9pm), and on Sunday 4th of June it will be Clerks at 5pm and Chasing Amy at 7pm. It’ll cost members 3 bucks and non-members 5 bucks. You can find more info HERE
• In case ya missed Jay & Bob, “Scream 3” is slated for a July VHS & DVD release. The only details so far are that it’ll be a 16:9 transfer.
• Seems that some customers are losing their ABC affiliates due to problems with Time Warner and Disney. And just in time for the Clerks cartoon premiere, too. Uh-oh!
• Another Universe has a new story which goes into great detail on all the staff changes with DareDevil in the past. It mostly discusses David Mack’s run, but a few Kev mentions are there as well, naturally.

• Just a real quick one today, folks…Been very busy lately with a new website going up at the job and lots of other stuff, so sorry for the lack of chit chat and whatnot. We’ll try to catch up with ya on what’s been going on in the next update. Until then, here’s some news for ya:

• Since the announcement of the Clerks’ series coming on ABC at the end of this month after all, it looks like the final touches were put on the OFFICIAL Clerks Cartoon website, and it’s now online! There’s already a lot of new content out there, including some behind the scenes stuff, episode info, and more, with more on the way. Another slick-looking site to join the View Askew ranks. Ming did another fantastic job. Be sure and check out the new offical Clerks Cartoon site at www.clerksthecartoon.com.

In related news, artist extraordinaire Chris Bailey just announced that the final bits of the show were finished and “in the can”. Here’s Chris:

• As usual, a couple of View Askew mentions appear in the latest Wizard (#105):

• There’s a 2 page spread about the whole Clerks: TCM controversy, plus an interesting sidebar about all of Kevin’s conflicts in the past.
• We get a mention regarding our coverage of the Chasing Amy Manga comic (#120).

And there’s ALSO a story regarding the Clerks Cartoon staying at ABC over at the Wizard World website:

Kevin Smith Does Not Buy Back; New “Clerks” Animated Movie a Possibility

By Jim McLauchlin

The fate of the “Clerks” animated series? In the end, it’s as simple as “ABC.”

Fans of acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Smith rejoiced in 1999 with the news that ABC would air a “Clerks” animated series based on the characters from Smith’s surprise-hit 1994 independent film. But joy turned to disgust with recent news that ABC was slotting the series for a tough summer debut. A much-publicized flap between Smith and ABC led to Smith’s announcement that he was considering buying the series back to turn into a feature-length movie. Those movie plans have now been scrapped.

“The honest answer is the simple answer: We wrote six episodes of a television show, so it’s a television show,” said David Mandel, “Clerks” writer and executive producer. “There was so much stuff that was getting lost as we were trying to turn it into a movie. Even trying an amusing framing device like ‘Tales From the Crypt’ wouldn’t work. There were episodes that had specific TV endings, TV conventions, TV jokes, and it just didn’t translate.”

Mandel was happy with the support received from film company Miramax, ironically owned by the same parent company as ABC. “Miramax was really good about it,” Mandel said. “They were, ‘If this is what you want to do, fine.’ If we want to do a new ‘Clerks’ animated movie down the line, that’s fine too. If people see the show on ABC and respond well, maybe we will. But if we do, it’ll be all new and something that will be planned as a movie form the minute we set out.”

In the meantime, fans can expect six episodes of “Clerks” to begin Wednesday, May 31 at 9:30 PM. “Ultimately, I’m happy it’s going to be on the air,” Mandel concluded. “And hopefully, if ABC does their part and does some promo so that people will actually watch it, I’ll be really happy.”

Again, we highly recommend you check out the show. We think you’ll like it. Tell your friends to watch, too. Spread the word. It really is a good, funny, quality cartoon. Trust us.

• Nothing new, really, but The Digital Bits ran an item summarizing a few things we’ve reported here in the past regarding the Dogma DVD. Just thought we’d run the piece for those of you that may have missed some of these tidbits. Loyal readers to the site won’t find any new surprises here, though:

• We have heard rumors and confirmations on Chasing Amy DVD pre-orders being cancelled by Reel. We’re looking into this with Criterion, so no need to e-mail us anymore letting us know your pre-order got sent back. Last we heard the disc was still due in June, if we find out otherwise, we’ll let you know.
• Congrats to Ben Affleck for being voted one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” this year.

Sorry for the short one again today, everyone. Still not much going on, but we’re keeping up with all we can. We’ll see you next time. Oh, and if anyone’s got some good POLL TOPIC ideas, send them along to us. We’ll throw them in the mix for future possibilities. Thanks!

• Kevin reported today that he’s made a way cool change to the proposed Vulgarthon 2000 lineup this October! Seems now that lucky attendees will get a chance to see the Cannes version of Dogma, which runs about 15 minutes longer. This event just gets cooler and cooler. Here’s Kevin: