Spent the first week in LA, working on ‘Coyote Ugly’, which was offered to me as a directorial assignment as well. I passed, of course, sighting the usual ‘I didn’t originate it’ code-of-conduct. It was tempting, but a man sets up a few guidelines for himself early on, he oughta adhere to at least a few of them (to wit, other guidelines I’ve NOT followed were ‘I’ll only cut on film’ and ‘Video tap? That’s for sissies who don’t trust their d.p.!’). All in all, I think it’ll be a good flick. I’ll let you know who signs on to direct when I hear about it.

Went to Malcolm’s AFM premiere as well. I’d say it was a success. The entire cast showed up (Jake Busey, Breckin Meyer, Denise Richards, Tanya Allen, Elizabeth Berkley, and Lisa Marie, paramour of Tim ‘Kryptonite’ Burton). It went over well, I believe they just closed a deal with an American distributor (which I’ll let Malcolm fill you in on later). The weirdest moment had to be Berkley coming up to me and doing that ‘Showgirls’ dance move I ripped off for ‘Amy’. Strange. Anyhoo, congrats to all involved.

The second week, I was secluded up at the ranch where our awesome mix team of Gary, Tom, and Ethan designed some killer sound for the flick. We’re under the aegis of Richard Hymns (the two-time Oscar winner who’s up for another this year for ‘Saving Private Ryan’), who’s now started working on ‘Fight Club’ – the new Fincher flick. These guys have lifted the movie to a new audio level for Askew flicks (though in deference to all those mixers on our previous flicks, we never had a film that warranted this much wall-to-wall sound). I think you’ll all be impressed.

And while we’re on the subject, ‘impressed’ describes me as I watched – open-mouthed – the new ‘Episode One’ trailer (which our boy Gary mixed).The producer, Rick McCallum, invited me over to check it out, and shit, is it great. Makes you want to see the movie the instant it ends. After the trailer, I shot fanboy question after fanboy question at Rick, who answered them all gracefully and candidly, spilling dirt and spoilers galore (the only one of which I’ll hint at – and has been hinted at on other sites – is that a certain armor-clad wookie-scalp collector will be featured prominently in ‘Episode 2’).

The next day at lunch, I said hello to Rick and his friend – some guy in a beard who owned the joint. I think his name was George or something…

I’m sure most of you have seen the animated series news. ABC, hunh? Go figure. Let’s see if it takes (I’m optimistic, but I have my doubts too; lots of them). Mid-March, Dave Mandel (exec-producer, along with me and Mosier) comes down, and we’re going to churn out the first six scripts. Dave’s a great guy who did time at ‘SNL’ and ‘Seinfeld’ (he did the ‘Bizarro Jerry’ episode), and ‘gets’ the flicks and the comics. The only downside to this whole development is that Mosier and I kicked and screamed four years ago to do this show, back when it was just ‘The Simpsons’ out there, and we were told animation wasn’t viable. But I guess ‘To everything there is a season…’ and all that.

From the moment I got back, we’ve been working on the Stash-Bash – getting everything in place and ready. Sadly, Affleck won’t be attending, as he’s starting rehearsals on ‘Reindeer Games’ (but you can catch him tonight on ‘Dennis Miller Live’, I think). The guest list is comprised of the usual gang of idiots (myself included), and a few new ones (Jimmy and Joe, if their schedules permit). However, there may yet be an ace up my sleeve.

Unfortunately, that ace is going to reserved for the later groups (we have to make up for the last two tours being at night, with low visibility on some of the outside stuff). Not counting any chickens here, but there may be somewhat of a surprise in store (no pun intended).

I hope you’re all going to enjoy the modest outing we’ve put together. It’s no ‘Vulgarthon’, but I think it’ll be something to remember and talk about. Besides – I’m saving my call-in chips for the next big event: the free ‘Dogma’ screening, sometime in the fall, which we’ll open to a lot more than just three hundred or so, but still reserve for board-posters only (so post, people; POST!… but make it relevant, or Smalls will beat you to death with your mouses… or mice… or meeses… you get the idea).

See you ticket-folks on Saturday.

Bluntman and Chronic,’ Dini creator-owned project debut May’s Oni Double Feature #12 promises to bring big-name talent. Do Kevin Smith and Paul Dini ring any bells?

“Chasing Amy” filmmaker Smith’s “Bluntman and Chronic” make their comic debut while Dini, co-producer of “The Batman Adventures,” rolls out a new creator-owned project in the issue.

“People have wanted Kevin’s ‘Bluntman and Chronic’ from the beginning,” Joe Nozemack, Oni co-publisher said. “We’ve eased readers into Kevin’s work over the last year, and thought now would be a perfect time to give them what they’ve been asking for.”

So Smith and artist Mike Allred (Madman) have produced a 15-page story. The plot? When a punk decides to rob a jewelry store in Smith’s hometown of Red Bank, N.J., “the town gets turned into a war zone,” Nozemack said.

Jay and Silent Bob must become the heroic (but bungling) Bluntman and Chronic to save the day.

“And,” Nozemack added, “you’ll get to see the Bluntcave.”

Also in the issue, Dini will debut the first chapter in his two-part story “Honor Rollers.” Newcomer Tom Fowler will be drawing a story where three loser, party-hearty kids in a prep school plot revenge against a teacher who’s thrown out one of their buddies.

“They come up with a great plan to get the teacher fired, they iron out all the details…and they blow it,” Dini said. “They screw up beyond their wildest dreams. These guys—regardless of all their plans and dreams—are screw-ups.”

Dini says he has more stories with Oni Press lined up, including a Christmas-themed character, Jingle Belle. And Bluntman and Chronic? “We’ll see more of them somewhere, sometime in the future,” Nozemack said.

—Chris Hutchins

This is David Mandel. I’m the other writer/executive producer on Clerks that Kevin has been so kind in mentioning from time to time.

Like Kevin, I’ve been very upset about what happened to the show and it’s NEW time slot. But he curses better than I do, so I haven’t written before.

But this letter from Anonymous Loon has me pretty pissed off, so I figured I’d get off my ass and post– I used the word “ass”.

Kevin’s point by point response to the Anonymous Loon is right on, every word of it. But I wanted to add one other thing to the discussion. And that is…

This letter was CLEARLY written by someone we FIRED from the show’s animation staff.

Having read the letter a whole bunch and talked with Chris Bailey, here are a couple of things for you to chew on.

1. Anonymous loon blames us for the sheer number of unheard of retakes. Yes, we had a bunch. But as Kevin, Chris and anyone else who has ever worked in prime time animation will tell you, that’s standard. I have good friends working at the Simpsons, Futurama, King of the Hill, and even Mission Hill who I spoke with back when we started the show, and they all explained how especially early on, the animation studios in Korea would have a hard time with the look of the show. Expect 80-90 % retakes they said.

But notice I said this is standard in “Prime time animation”. What it is not standard in, is regular daytime animation, like Duck Tales, Goof Troop and Pepper Anne. This is the stuff Disney TV animation had been doing. We are the first prime time animation they have done, and when they helped us to staff the show, it was with Day Time animators who wanted to work on prime time.

2. The Budget. Again, Anonymous Loon is horrified by our budget of 800 thousand dollars. As Kevin pointed out, it was closer to 750 thousand. The Simpsons and Futurama are over 1 million. IS it a lot of money?? Yes, but again, it is standard for– say it with me– prime time animation.

Anonymous Loon clearly shows once again that he comes from the day time animation world where animation is waaaaaaay cheaper and costs are cut. He/she has never seen money like this spent on a show.

3. The script delays and constant revisions. Yes we worked hard on the scripts and sometimes it took longer than we wanted. And we made lots of changes so we could make it better. Both are no-brainers. But…

Daytime shows don’t have the budget for revisions. They aren’t done at all. And they usually make 65 episodes of a daytime show at once–it’s called a strip show because it can air every day. They have a tight, tight schedule and usually make all 65 in less time than it took us–or any PRIMETIME animated show– to make 6.

Also on Daytime shows, the scripts aren’t usually written by writers of Kevin’s or any of our other writers’ caliber (I suck, and have no caliber). Most day time shows are pounded out by kids right out of school or the animators themselves. they are great for what they are, but at the end of the day, they are making a show for kids. Not for a prime time audience that can read.

4. Anonymous Loon makes several wrong statements–as Kev has pointed out– about how ABC and network scheduling works.

Why?? He has never worked for ABC primtime programming. His experience is with day time Disney afternoon shows. Or Saturday morning stuff.

So where am I going with all this???? Well, as you can clearly see, this criticism reveals Anonymous Loon to be a day time animation guy from Disney animation.

But he clearly has working knowledge of the show–twisted and evil as it is– and has more knowledge early on when he talks about designs not being done and scripts being late/long.

Designs weren’t finished early on, but obviously did get finished. And the scripts got shorter.

So this guy–most animators are guys– was involved early on, and hates us.

Who would be involved early on and now hates us??? Hmmmmmm???

How about a Disney daytime animator who was assigned to the show, had never done primetime work before, and couldn’t cut it??

Our show has a very unique look and style, plus the jokes themselves in the script are somewhat unique (except for the stuff we stole from the Simpsons).

Chris Bailey had to fire a couple of guys who couldn’t draw the way he wanted or make the characters animate properly.

Specifically, there were 2 guys.

Both have since left the company, but neither liked the show and were angry at Chris for not liking their work and frustrated that Kevin and I changed things.

We know who they are. So don’t worry.

But I thought you would like to know. And hopefully when you guys see the show and like it as much as Kevin, Scott and all the people who have not been fired from the show do, you will see that Anonymous Loon is just… well, sad.

Thanks for your time,

David Mandel

Just as he took to the skies in 1998’s amped-up summer blockbuster Armageddon, the increasingly busy Ben Affleck may sail the high seas in Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer’s World War II epic, Pearl Harbor. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Affleck is currently in negotiations with the director-producer team to star in Disney’s $130 million-plus range action drama alongside Cuba Gooding Jr., the first confirmed member of the cast.

Bay and Bruckheimer recently received the go-ahead from Disney to get rolling with casting and preproduction, and several actors have since been rumored to be circling the project. Affleck could be one of the actors in line to play one of a pair of pilots dueling over the heart of a young woman – Harbor’s romantic subplot set against the backdrop of the historical Japanese air raid. Other names flying around in recent weeks for possible love triangle members have included Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line), Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, and Felicity’s Keri Russell and Scott Speedman.

All those actors may or may not be actual candidates for the parts, but one thing’s for sure – Kevin Costner, who was reportedly in talks with the Harbor camp for another lead role, won’t be appearing in the film. Bay told E! Online that Costner “wanted too much money . and we think we can make this without any big names.” (Besides Affleck, it would appear.) E!’s Ted Casablanca also claims that Alec Baldwin has just been cast in the role Costner was eyeing. More Pearl Harbor news should be dropping from the skies before long, as Bay and Bruckheimer will soon be shifting into “full speed ahead” production mode to hit their Summer 2001 release target date.