• While it’s still not the long-awaited announcement of those Clerks 2 inaction figures, Diamond Previews has announced the “Night of the Living Kev” inaction figure which will hit shops in January, 2010:

  

  Never one to pass up an opportunity for blatant pandering, Kevin Smith and Graphitti Designs are proud to present their new Night of the Living Kev InAction Figure. Continuing the tradition of producing figures that lack any articulation or motion whatsoever, we immortalize in fine injected plastic, the man who made “inaction” a lifestyle choice. Based on designs by animator Stephen Silver, sculptor Jon Matthews brings to life (or brings back to life in this case), this colorful, zombiefied rendition of Kevin. Measuring nearly 5″ in height, this figure features zero articulation, zero accessories and zero signs of life!!

  While in the zombie mood, check out the Monroeville Zombies shirt and hoodie as worn by Seth Rogan in Kevin’s Zack & Miri Make a Porno. You can never go wrong when you hang with the undead!!

  
  We’ll of course remind you when release date gets closer, as the Stash will certainly have a nice autographed supply for ya. This also gets us interested in a followup on the Clerks 2 inactions, so we’ll check with our contacts and see what we can find out for you there, as well. While we’d love to see new inaction figures under the Christmas tree this year, the fact that Previews hasn’t officially announced them yet has us thinking we’re looking at a 2010 release for that lot as well.

• Kevin tells MTV movies, via this short video clip, that he would love to see a theatrical take on comic “Hot Stuff, the Little Devil” – Tongue firmly planted in cheek there…we think. Check it out, just a short blurb and a 30 second clip.
• If you’re in the video watching mood, Kevin recently tweeted a new video of him on KTLA where he’s pimping the new book. About 5 minutes in length.

• We dig this photo of Kevin getting up close and personal with the fans from the Dublin gig, part of the recent European tour. Over the course of 3+ hours onstage, Kevin’s been basically taking whatever position makes him comfortable lately, whether it be on foot, hitting a couch, or even just laying right on the stage, as you see here. Good stuff. Thanks to scooper Garth for the shot.

• Comic Alliance posted about a group of guys who make custom lego men of comic book characters — In a gallery search, we noticed someone took a shot at a lego Silent Bob and a funny little Lego Quick Stop – You gotta love that little sign. See ya next time!

• An important note about the October 24th Orpheum show this weekend — While their website still lists a start time of 6:30 PM, that’s just a doors opening time. We can confirm that Kevin will take the stage at 8:00 PM that night. Please be sure to schedule accordingly. Los Angeles is the place to be this weekend if you’re a View Askew fan, no doubt about it.
• Wanna see some live peeks behind the scenes of “A Couple of Dicks”? Our very astute scooper Hunter located this video of “The Ultimate Arm” camera rig at work on the shoot, as some second unit material is shot. No sign of Kevin in these clips, though you’ll get a quick peek at a few of the locations and sequences, and of course a few looks at the stars, too. The ultimate arm is a camera rig used for getting some fantastic in-car shots during action scenes.
• Has Kevin stepped back in front of the cameras again? IMDB lists Mr. Smith as the character “Big Larry” on their page of director Noel Clarke’s “4.3.2.1″. This evidence of a tweet and photo by Kevin and a companion tweet and photo from the director seem to confirm the role. We’ll of course let you know the details as soon as we got ‘em.
• We ran this link last update, but in case you missed it, Newsarama IS back online now (came back soon after last update, actually)…Still, their Seattle report is well worth the read. One of our faves from the tour so far. Check out a snippet here:

  
  “…In good time, we reach what has become the turning point for Smith’s current career direction. It is triggered by a pretty girl in the rafters who passes over the Q & A rules of standing in line and yells out something about Jesus. Smith jokingly suggests this could be someone about to jump. Then she yells about how much she loves “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Her question: Why doesn’t Smith embrace this glorious box office failure? And so the window has been opened. Smith toys around with the question like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. Why, of course, he’s always embraced that movie but let’s now go about opening up a fresh wound and see what we may find. Suddenly, someone yells to the girl, “Show us your tits!” To this Smith scolds, “And you guys wonder why you don’t get laid!” Not missing a beat, Smith takes flight.

  
  What happens next is nothing short of amazing. Smith treats everyone to a night at the theater as he beautifully does what amounts to a one act play. In it, he relates what it is that currently spins his wheels. Jumping off the tragic yet wonderful experience that was “Zack and Miri,” Smith talks about how the star of his movie, Seth Rogen, helped to turn him on to marijuana. Feeling pretty bad that he failed to make a hit movie with the rising star of director Judd Apatow, considered “the next Kevin Smith,” he gains some relief by getting stoned. As he slips into a stoner lifestyle, he happens upon a really cool Canadian documentary about hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. As he learns more and more about the exceptional life of Gretzky, he keeps bugging his wife about what he’s learned. She is not amused and starts to wonder if Smith is smoking too much pot. It’s a good thing to wonder about but , in Smith’s case, it seems to have opened things up for him. The writing is better. Even the sex is better. Of course, what works for Kevin Smith is not necessarily going to work for Joe Blow. Smith seems to acknowledge as much and doesn’t come right out and endorse drug use.”

  
  Read the whole fantastic report over at Newsarama — And afterwards, kick yourself if you’ve yet to seek out Kevin Smith live.

• Brian O’Halloran’s new movie “Hooking Up” arrives on DVD December 8th. The flick co-stars Corey Feldman and Bronson Pinchot. Here’s a plot summary: “In this over-the-top comedy, the relationships of three girls and four guys – in affluent, adolescent suburban reality – intersect through the topsy-turvy world of love, power… and Hooking Up!” First we’ve heard of this one, but we love O’Halloran, so suggest you give it a watch on that basis alone.

• Here’s a rundown of the last couple of days of press that’s appeared in audio and written format around the webs — Kevin’s got a few days left in Europe before heading back to the US for the second leg of the US tour. Still, the web defies all geography, so here’s a mix of press from around the globe burning up our screens today:

  • Entertainment Weekly features a new interview where Kev talks about the SModcast book and “Hit Somebody”. Here’s a sample”

    
    “I was talking to him [Mitch Albom] about Twitter. He was like, “So I’ve got this book coming out, and my publisher’s talking about how it would be good for me to be on Twitter. She says check out your page. So I go on to your page and I read about how you’re planning to have sex with your wife, and if that doesn’t work you’re going to masturbate while looking at pictures of her. And I realized that I’m out of Twitter.” So there’s a nice little gap between me and Mitch. But we find this weird common ground. Both of our material has lots of heart to it. I’m just not as talented as Mitch, so I dress it up with a lot of dirty words.”

• Part 2 of JoBlo’s interview is now available, where he chats about dealing with the MMPA and why TWILIGHT is good, dishes on his new Batman character, Baphomet, “A Couple of Dicks”, and “Red State”. Here’s a peek:

  
  JB: I had heard that they wanted to change the name of your upcoming movie A COUPLE OF DICKS to A COUPLE OF COPS?

  KS: Yeah, that’s not even the MPAA. That’s Warner Bros. contacting the network saying…we were still in production…based on what I went through with the ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO title, we said, hey, we’ve got this movie called A COUPLE OF DICKS. It’s a cop movie and it stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Are you guys going to give us a hard time with advertising? And the big three networks came back and said, ‘yeah, you can’t advertise with that title before nine o’clock. So right away, Warner Bros, which is a huge corporate empire, said, let’s fix this title. This title’s got to go, because we just spent thirty five or whatever million dollars making this movie. We’re not just going to lose it all because we can’t advertise to our core audience. And who’s our core audience but people who watch sports on the weekend.

  So suddenly we had to think about changing the title. Marketing is trying to go in there and duke it out and trying to see if we can come to some sort of compromise about the title. One of the easiest ones would be that when you refer to “dicks” it’s detectives. It’s D.I.C.s for Detective in Charge. It’s not dicks. So if it is A COUPLE OF D.I.C.s is that OK to run before nine o’clock? Or are they objecting to hearing the voice over where it wouldn’t matter if there were periods or not? “Dicks. They just got harder.” Whatever.

• Let’s shift to some multimedia now — Video from Kevin’s appearance on BBC 2’s Newsnight Review is right here for your viewing enjoyment. The official website is here though we believe that it will be region-locked. This is sort of a panel show and a bit different from your usual Q&A — Kevin talks about the new mainstream appeal of geek culture in comics, theaters, and TV.
• How about radio interviews? We’ve got two of them today. First up, here’s a voice from the past, John DeBella, who once famously went up against Howard Stern in the Philly radio market, is doing a show on PA’s WMGK radio right now. Kevin called in to promo the SModcast book, and WMGK has kindly put the audio online for your enjoyment. This is a fairly quick one that spends a few minutes on each of the current and upcoming projects.
• And finally, bringing it back to the UK — Here’s a fresh podcast from Friday where Kevin appeared on BBC Radio 5 to sit in on Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews. View this page and look for the Friday October 9th episode or click here for a direct MP3 download.

Kevin brings the big show to Glasgow, Scotland on Monday. Then, the second London gig, his first appearance ever in Ireland, and finally back to Seattle Washington by the end of the week. Be there. Speaking of appearances, no new SModcast this week due to the Europe trip, but you GOTTA go back and listen again to the live SModcast, especially that last 20 minutes or so where they do the reading as each other’s part. One of the funniest things you will ever hear recorded, ever.

• The Onion ranks “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” as #26 among their “Best Movies about the Difficulty of Making Movies”:

  
  26. Zack And Miri Make A Porno (2008)

  Kevin Smith’s underrated 2008 romantic comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno put a raunchy but sweet spin on the trusty “Let’s put on a show” template that fueled many a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical (and breakdancesploitation cheapie). Only this time the show is a homemade Star Wars-themed porn movie and the plucky young upstarts a pair of down-and-out platonic best friends (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who decide to make the beast with two backs onscreen as a way of getting out of debt. The lusty neophytes struggle to make a porn film with no budget, untested stars, and funky, makeshift locations like a coffee shop, but the trickiest variable aspiring pornographers Rogen and Banks face is their growing romantic attraction to one another.

• Those of you curious about the “Kings Ransom” Gretzky documentary Kevin has been mentioning in tweets occasionally — Check your local listings as ESPN stations have been showing the documentary more frequently lately — Totally free and well worth your time. Look it up. It’s a fantastic hour of television.
• Total Film cites “Mallrats” among their listing of “30 Killer Movie Opening Lines”:

  
  The Film: Mallrats (1995)

  The Line: “One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck up his ass. True story. He bought it at our local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news.

  “It was embarrassing for my relatives and all, but next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with another trip to the emergency room.

  “So, I run into him a week later in the mall and he’s buying another cat. And I says to him, ‘Jesus, Walt! What are you doing? You know you’re just gonna get this cat stuck up your ass too. Why don’t you knock it off?’

  “And he said to me, ‘Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?’ My cousin was a weird guy.

• “Dicks” update: Kevin’s got 95% of his first edit done, which will come in at around 2 hours, 15 minutes. By the time he’s done, he’d like to trim another half an hour, for a final runtime of around 1:45.
• Who wants to submit artwork for possible selection for this October’s SModcast art exhibit at Gallery 1988? It can be a painting, a limited edition print, a sculpture or even a plush.

  
  Jensen and Gallery 1988 will be picking just ONE WINNER and they’ll need all submissions by the end of September. This is your chance to have your art seen and SOLD! Send all submissions to gallery1988@aol.com. Write “SModmission” in the subject line. Remember, this has to have a connection to any episode of the great SModcast.

• Brandon Routh, he of the famous “Zack & Miri Make a Porno” cameo, has joined the cast of the enjoyable NBC show “Chuck” for its third season.
• Watch for Askew alum Mark Hamill doing his Joker voice for the awesome “Batman: Arkham Asylum” game now out for all game consoles. The story for the game is penned by the great Paul Dini (with Harley Quinn also making an appearance). With a 9.5 review at Game Informer, this is one to play.
• Wanna know what Jersey Girl’s Raquel Castro is up to these days? Apparently, an aspiring dancer judging by this Youtube vid. Catch ya next time!

• Den of Geek does it AGAIN, right on schedule — Their weekly Kevin Smith retrospective is back with the “Jersey Girl” installment, kicking in with a plot summary and then a short review, as always. Here are some highlights:

  
  “…there are more than a few stand out scenes, although my personal favourite is Ollie’s conversation with Will Smith. The scene is seamless and so well written when it could really have turned into a giant joke.

  Like most movies with children included in the cast, it does sometimes fall into its own sugary sweetness and you can’t help but notice the influence of the late, great John Hughes’ She’s Having a Baby running throughout. Both director/writers were influenced by their own families.

  As this genre of movie goes, you could, in fact, do a lot worse and if the critics put you off watching this movie first time round then take a look at it when it’s next on TV. And if you haven’t watched it in a while, wait until the next rainy afternoon and put it in your DVD player, you’ll feel better after.

  This is one of those flicks we hope that many folks, including critics, take a look at again with a lot of the Bennifer stuff now in the distance. And we’re really hopeful that many of you can one day see Kevin’s extended cut of the film, which we feel gives it an even stronger emotional connection and impact with the viewer. Kevin’s stated it’s a possibility for an eventual special edition Bluray, so keep your fingers crossed.

• The memorable Loki and Bartleby topline Empire’s article on “Avenging Angels: Which Seraphs Can Kick Ass” :

  
  Dogma (1999)

  Being an angel is a cushy job. You mooch around Heaven, taking time out to fluff your feathers, attend celestial choir practice and pose for the odd Renaissance painting. Unless, of course, like Loki and Bartleby, you get the Almighty heave-ho and find yourself exiled to Wisconsin. The smart-mouthed seraphs don’t take rejection lying down, though. Exploiting a Biblical loophole, they set off on a cunning quest for forgiveness that threatens to invalidate God. Considering God turns out to be Alanis Morissette, their failure is ours too.

  Angelic retribution level (out of 10): 7

  Chances against massed armies of Heaven: High. Well, one of them’s the Angel of Death and the other’s Jason Bourne.

• Empire also used the “Zack and Miri” theatrical poster to make an alcohol-themed “mash up”, though we assume a “Pernod” is something quite British, haven’t even come across the term here in the U.S.
• Jason Mewes is one of the many great guests announced thus far for this years “Horrorfind” convention in Towson, Maryland. The show runs from Sept 25 through the 27th. More info on the con is at the official site where you can find the full guest list and tons of details. This is one of the bigger, more well-attended genre cons on the east coast, and worth a trip — Especially if you’d like to meet the legendary Mewes. Other small Mewes news: The actor gets mentioned briefly in this article regarding his role in the new revenge flick “Vengeance”.
• Apparently there’s a few View Askew/Smith mentions in the new film “Funny Books” which follows the lives of 3 comic book store employees. Check out the review, and if it strikes your interest after reading, the film as well, which is screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX this monmth.
• Tech fansite io9.com cities Brodie’s comic book collection from “Mallrats” among their list of “The Greatest Nerdware We’d Steal From Our Favorite Fanboys”:

  
  You just know Jason Lee’s stash has some serious classics hidden in there. Plus, this is the collection that stated the rules we all try to follow: “Touch not, lest ye be touched.”

• Kevin’s made a lot of movies with Miramax and The Weinstein Company over the years, so we thought some of you might be interested in this detailed story on their upcoming projects and challenges – Next weekend’s “Inglorious Basterds” is a big one. By the way, first the awesome and original “District 9″, and a new Tarantino flick next week? It’s sure been some August for movies. See ya next time…

• Kevin shows up in the trailer for the John Hughes documentary, “Don’t You Forget About Me”, which was picked up for distribution a couple of days ago, shortly following his tragic passing. Kevin was a huge fan of Hughes, as many of us also were, and sent a twitter mourning the loss of this great writer/director last week. Learn more about the film at its official site.
• We don’t think we ever ran this, so for the archives — Here’s a lengthy, nice article summarizing Kevin’s 90 minute live appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con this year , courtesy of Wizard Universe. A few snippets:

  …

  Some of Smith’s upcoming film projects were the next topic of discussion, however Smith said that he is still looking for funding for “Red State” and that the script for “Ranger Danger” hasn’t been finished yet. The following question brought up the negative “Kevin Smith asides” in “Entourage.” Smith revealed that “Entourage” producer Rob Weiss throws those into the scripts because Smith once called him “Vanilla Weiss.” However, Smith reiterated that he isn’t offended by the jabs and in fact, he greatly enjoys them because they mean that “in that universe, I exist!”

  The final question returned to “A Couple of Dicks,” which is a departure for Smith in that it will be the first film that he directed but didn’t write. “I read it and fell in love it,” explained Smith. “This is the buddy cop movie I would have written if I had any interest in writing one. The script is really strong.” Smith mentioned that he is much more collaborative on this project and that he has learned a lot while making this movie.

• “Zack and Miri” is just now making its premiere in Germany this weekend, if you can believe that (long wait there, eh?). To celebrate the release, the magazine “Der Spiegel” has put up some stills on its website, along with a positive review (in German). Our scooper Jasmina was kind enough to translate:

  
  The Magic of Penetration

  By Christian Bu

  A romantic comedy disguised as a sex flick: Kevin Smith pulls of an impressive magic trick with his loser comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”: he lets tender feelings grow amidst filth and sperm.

  The city of Philadelphia didn’t allow the public display of posters for “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”. Officials argued that the word porno in the movie’s title might deeply disturb adolescents. This is a curious concern, considering that, online, every hardcore movie is only a mouse click away for the hands of sweaty boys.

  The brouhaha seems even more inappropriate when you watch the movie-turned-scandal all the way to the end: Quite possibly “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” is the most romantic comedy ever made.

  Every kind of filth and sperm just rolls off of the heroin and hero, while the world around them drowns in all sorts of bodily fluids. And that basically is what every romantic comedy is about: staying clean and steering towards a morally flawless happy end in an environment determined by temptation, depravity and brutalization.

  However, presumably director Kevin Smith doesn’t see pornography as such as something objectionable. On the contrary, it can be assumed that the 39-year-old slacker for life, who ,with comedies such as “Clerks” or “Chasing Amy”, is second to none when it comes to putting the pop cultural compensatory interests of sexually underfed boys into focus, is indeed rather fond of XXX-home-entertainment. He probably dusts off his porn stash under the bed just as affectionately as his Star Wars figures on the shelf.

  Keeping that in mind, you may think of the protagonist Zack (Seth Rogen, “Knocked Up“) in Smith’s latest movie as the director’s alter ego, because what does he – broke and permanently trapped in a McJob – do when he and his equally broke roommate Miri (Elizabeth Banks) want to fill their empty coffers by shooting an amateur porn? The very first thing he does is create a number of movie titles which artfully and knowledgeably combine his own pop cultural preferences with official porn-speak. For someone like him, coming up with the words is more important than the actual deed.

  Therefore I recommend you watch Smith’s porn romance in the original English if you can. Even if there may be a fitting German translation for Zack and Miri’s movie project “Star Whores”, things will get more difficult in finding one for “Swallow My Cockaccino.”

  The humor of “Zack and Miri“ is in the details. The story itself doesn’t exactly knock your socks off. And it doesn’t have to. It’s exactly as predictable as it has to be in a romantic comedy – or in a porno. One genre is as no-frills about advancing the consummation of romance as the other is about the consummation of the sexual act; there are hardly two other movie genres which are less secretive about their objectives.

  What is interesting about “Zack and Miri” are not the plot twists but the dialogues. Comedy unfolds masterfully, for example, when at her high school reunion Miri tries to talk a guy she used to have a crush on into a one night stand while he gently tries to reveal to her that he has become a gay porn star and that he chose to do gay porn because that corresponds to his sexual orientation.

  The one positive thing that Miri and Zack take home from this failed hook-up is the inspiration for their new business idea. They quickly recruit a crew which includes real-life porn veterans Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, who might be known to fans of that genre from movies such as “Open Up Traci” or “Desperately Horny Housewives.”

  It’s touching how a group of friendly freaks grows closer while realizing their independent project. It is even more touching how amidst all this uninhibited and enthusiastic going-ons Zack and Miri suddenly discover their love for each other.

  As if by magic every exercise in penetration either of them has scheduled with another of the semi-pros gets canceled until finally Zack and Miri get some action with each-other during their shoot on some uncomfortable padding – while director Smith seems to let the camera float chastely upwards to the ceiling from the strictly functional porno close-up shot. This monogamous final act is almost a little conservative.

  But who would call all that immoral? The very first bizarre postures already allude to the heartfelt finale. Even Traci Lords, the grand old dame of eighties porn uses her body to create some romantic ambiance: In her first scene, she blows soap bubbles with her vagina.

• Though Total Film doesn’t seem to dig Affleck’s performance in “Bounce” , they do agree he was the bomb in “Phantoms”, yo.
• We’ve been following the Green Arrow/Supermax project for a while now, given Kevin’s revival of the character when he wrote some issues of the book a few years back. MTV is following movement on the project, revleaing that David Goyer may still be on board, for either an origin story or the “Supermax” project which would put an unmasked Green Arrow in a prison with a ton of B and C level villains from the DC universe, an idea we really dig.
• That pesky “Bromance” term is back yet again, this time in a new website article featuring male pals — In the past, Jay & Bob had been given the honor. This time, it’s Dante & Randal’s turn :

  
  He wasn’t, as was so often decreed, not even supposed to be there. But Dante, the clerk at the Quick Stop, had to spend his day off in the ninth circle of hell. Well, at the very least, it was with his best friend-come-shoulder devil, Randal who manned the neighboring video store. No, not really much of saving grace, but it did make for one bromantic turn of events. From the door being gummed shut, to the constant shooing of drug peddlers, Jay and Silent Bob, to a mishap at a wake, to a blown hockey game on the store’s roof, to a love-life disaster between Dante, Veronica, and Caitlin, to the death of a masturbating patron… and that’s barely half the day. It is a day that will never end, but through it all, even after a snack food fight, Dante and Randal begin to understand just what they mean to each other. But soon, a few years later, the two share employment at the Mooby’s fast food place (see, Randal burns down the Quick Stop), and they manage to get into a similar situation: Dante does not really love his fiancee, but rather his boss, and Randal just chooses to be the monkey wrench in the works. Eventually, after a donkey show goes horribly awry (seriously), they end up in jail where Randal spouts quite possibly one of cinema’s finest bromantic diatribes of all time. Yeah, they love each other.

• Amazon and Previews are now confirming a September 29th release date for Kevin’s next book, “Shootin’ the Shit with Kevin Smith: The Best of the SModcast”. We imagine we’ll soon have details on Stash preorders, which typically come signed by the man himself. Watch News Askew for details. As always, we highly recommend waiting for a Stash purchase, so you can get that book signature and support our beloved Stash.
• “Den of Geek” takes a loving look back at the indie classic “Clerks” today as they kick off their Kevin Smith retrospective. We imagine they’ll have more stories in the coming days. Here’s some snippets from this one:

  
  Setting up a world populated with characters that would run across the length of a further five movies, including a sequel, Clerks 2, you can’t help but feel, after about ten minutes of watching the movie, that you know these characters already. That’s the strength of Kevin Smith’s writing right there. And although a lot of what happens in the course of the day wouldn’t happen to the average person in the course of their lifetime, you do feel like you have spent a couple of hours with your slacker friends rather than watched a film. Personally, I think that speaks very highly of Smith’s ability to connect with his audience.

  Smith’s expert and legendary use of dialogue is quickly established in this movie, and again, is something that follows through the rest of his catalogue. Completely profanity-laden for the most part (a good example of this is the scene in the video store with Randal and the customer who is after Happy Scrappy Pup), there is also a sense of intelligence between the F-bombs. Even though there are a lot of F-bombs.

  The simplicity of the plot also works wonderfully for this film, from the discussion of whether innocent contractors died while working on the Death Star in Star Wars, to the customer who had hit a short fuse and was looking for the perfect dozen eggs. It all interlinks with the plot formation and the sense of how bizarre Dante’s life really is. Say what you like about shoestring budgets, but there’s skill here to the structure, and many, many, gut-bustingly funny moments.

  It’s a very nicely written piece about a film that’s been written about for many years, and that’s saying something. We’re looking forward to what else the Den might have to offer as part of this special feature.

• This week, Film.com offers up some suggestions for DVDs to watch, instead of going to the movies. Instead of seeing a film called “Humpday”, they wisely suggest renting J&SBSB or Z&MMAP:

  
  INSTEAD OF: Humpday, in which two male best friends decide to have sex on camera for an amateur porn festival, the hook being that they’re both actually heterosexual…

  WATCH: Almost any “bromance” would do, since that subgenre is always about sublimated male sexual attraction anyway, but certainly Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is most explicit about that: Jason Mewes’ Jay describes Kevin Smith’s Silent Bob as his “hetero life mate.” Smith touched on the same sort of unexpected sweetness and discomfort involved when friends contemplate becoming lovers in his Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which — like Humpday — isn’t as lascivious as the premise makes it sound.

• When will they ever take these death traps out of shopping malls, huh? See ya next time, fellow Mallrats…

• DC Comics has announced that, much like they did with the last Bat-book, two rare variant covers will be made available for issue #1 of “Batman: The Widening Gyre”:

  
  This August, writer Kevin Smith returns to DC Comics for the new six-issue miniseries BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE!

  Now, DC Comics details the variant covers for the debut issue of this hot new miniseries.

  For every 25 copies of BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #1 (JUN090143) ordered, with a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, retailers may order one copy of the BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #1 Variant Edition (APR098339), featuring a cover by Gene Ha.

  For every 50 copies of BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #1 (JUN090143) ordered, with a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, retailers may order one copy of the BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #1 Sketch Variant Edition (APR098340), featuring a pencils-only version of the variant cover by Gene Ha.

  
  Penciled by Walter Flanagan, Smith’s collaborator on BATMAN: CACOPHONY, and inked by Art Thibert (TRINITY), WIDENING GYRE takes off when Batman encounters a new vigilante under his wing amid what Smith describes as a “backdrop of romance, intrigue, and geek-bait guest stars galore.”

  BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #1 is set to arrive in stores on August 26th. Comic shops can place their orders now. Both variants will be quite rare at those levels. The Stash will likely be your best method to collect them all, so we’ll keep you posted once we have an idea on pricing and inventory with the books.


• Here’s a much closer look at that “uncensored” slide-out cover that’s going to appear on the “Zack And Miri” disc in the Netherlands. While there’s nothing new on the disc content-wise, this could make it a collector’s item for die-hard View Askew fans (like us).

• Speaking of that very film, it will finally hit theaters in Mexico this Friday, the 12th, under the name “Hagamos una Porno” (Let’s Make a Porno) and the tagline “Todos deberíamos hacer una” (“We should all make one”). They’re using the original poster to promote the movie without any controversial backlash at all.

• It’s not every day that you’ll see Mallrats’ Jeremy London doing a signing, so we thought we’d let you know that he’ll be part of an event in San Jose this weekend. It’s called the “Frank & Son Collectible Show” and happens over the next 3 Saturdays. Jeremy as well as his brother Jason are listed for signing appearances on the 13th, THIS Saturday. Bring your Mallrats gear and get a rare signature added to it! Admission and parking are free. London’s schedule has him there from 11 AM til 4 PM.

• Variety reports that TBS in in talks to bring back “My Name Is Earl” for at least 13 more episodes. Talks are only in the preliminary stages, though it’s progress. Might we see Lee, Suplee, and the Camden County gang back next year? Let’s hope so.
• Mooby’s showed up as a choice in the most recent IMDB poll, which asked ‘At which of these movie restaurants would you most like to eat?’ . We don’t see the final results anywhere on the site, though folks are discussing the question on the poll boards.

• “Zack And Miri Make a Porno” soon hits DVD and Bluray in the Netherlands, with a cool custom DVD package. You can slide the cover revealing an uncensored version (which we believe is a photoshop job done to the poster). We’re awaiting a copy from overseas to grab more photos, but it sure sounds interesting. We’re also hearing this DVD will have many of the special features of the US version, a first for a Netherlands Askew release.