Asbury Park Press - Director hasn’t closed shop on ‘Clerks’

By MARK VOGER

No, you won’t find Jay and Silent Bob in Kevin Smith’s forthcoming romantic comedy “Jersey Girl” starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Liv Tyler and George Carlin. The writer-director has sworn up and down that he’s set aside the characters he and Jason Mewes played in six films.

But Jeff Anderson — who starred as wisecracking Randal in Smith’s 1994 debut, “Clerks” — has his doubts. (Anderson recently became a writer-director himself, with “Now You Know.”)

“I know Kevin has always said that his Jay and Silent Bob characters — that he’s moving on from the ‘View Askewniverse,’ ” Anderson says, using Smith’s nickname for the fictional realm in which the characters exist.

“But I’ll tell you, when we get together with Kevin and we sort of talk about it — I still think it’s going to come out of him again.

“Somewhere down the road, we’re going to see all of these characters back, because they’re characters he knows so well and we just personally have fun with.”

In an online posting on his Web site (www.viewaskew.com), Smith seems to verify Anderson’s sentiments.

While warning “Clerks” fanatics that “Jersey Girl” will be different from his five previous films, Smith confirms that there is “Clerks” activity on the horizon.

Writes Smith: “Anybody who incorporates ‘Snootchie Bootchies!’ into their Internet postings or daily conversations might wanna wait for the ‘Clerks’ cartoon (which — take this as a promise or a threat — is next for us) and skip this one.”