One of the highlights every year at the San Diego Comic Con is any panel that may involve Kevin Smith. It doesn’t matter if you love him or hate him, enjoy or loathe his movies, there’s just no arguing that the dude is funnier than a narcoleptic seagull.

This year, Smith’s big panel was for his upcoming movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and he brought an odd little bunch of friends along with him in regulars Scott Mosier and Jason Mewes, stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Ricky Mabe, and male-favorites Katie Morgan and Traci Lords. How’s THAT for an entourage?

Smith got the dance going with a clip which was preceded by a silent-but-hilarious little progression of words warning everyone not to record said clip. The scene shown took place at a high school reunion where the attractive Miri (Banks) is trying to seduce the guy she had a crush in high school. She seems to be having a hard time of it, and her friend Zack finds out why when he meets Miri’s crush’s date.

I don’t want to say any more about the scene or who’s in it (a great bit of cameos here!) because of spoilers, but the clip itself showed everyone what they’d expect: some hard, edgy, graphic dialogue in what promises to be an uber-sexual giggle-fest. Considering the MPAA is out to get Smith and has given this movie an NC-17 rating THREE times now, how could it not be? After the second time trimming where he was asked to, Smith is apparently going to appeal this latest censored middle-finger from the MPAA before likely (and reluctantly) having to go trim more for that R. Smith is contractually obligated to make an R-rated film out of this, so if he has to cut he will do it himself — otherwise, the studio will take it away and cut it. Smith said that the MPAA had two issues with the film: One had to do with “thrusting”, other part being something so unspeakable they don’t want it in the movie at all. Well, at least the DVD will be true to its unrated promise.

It was asked if Smith had this cast in mind when he wrote the script, and as some know, the part of Miri was originally written for Rosario Dawson after Clerks II, but she had to decline in order to do Eagle Eye, so Elizabeth Banks was cast after that, which of course worked out having already worked with Seth Rogen in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Rogen and Banks were also asked if they were worried about something as raunchy as this damaging their images. Banks responded that she was just worried about whether Kevin Smith would cover her bits and parts or not, but that the film is actually very sweet considering the word “porno” is in the title.

Rogen responded that he had no worries at all.

Also in regard to the raunchiness of the film, Smith assured everyone it was a whole new level. He went on to say that you’re not going to watch it and wonder “Who made this?”, but the big thing was that actual filming of sex; in Smith’s films the characters talked about sex a whole lot, but there weren’t sex scenes. Smith added:

In case you were wondering, no, Smith does not know who the final Cylon is (he has moderated a panel this weekend that Battlestar Galactica‘s Lucy Lawless was on, and he asked her).

Someone asked if any notes were shared between Smith (formerly attached to The Green Hornet movie) and Seth Rogen (currently attached to the film) and no, they didn’t really talk about it much. Rogen said that it happens more than you think and that he’ll get hired, then fired and a friend will get hired and fired then he’ll be re-hired and it’s all very “incestuous” (nice wording for a stoner-type, eh?), so don’t look for there to be much of a Kevin Smith tone to it, as Smith said it best:

Good news for comic fans, Kevin is going to be working on a Batman mini-series. Ooh!

Look for upcoming Smith movies to venture off into the more visual realms as we might get the much talked about horror film Red State after all and then he’s apparently doing a movie that he couldn’t talk about but it’s set in space… finally!

More specimens for the haters to hate and the lovers to love.

Oh, and if you recall a while back, Smith released an Internet-only teaser for Zack and Miri Make a Porno which the MPAA forced him to take down (because they have to rate trailers now, naturally). Well, we covered said trailer and it seems to be working just fine, so in honor of Mr. Smith and in dedication to the fine, fair folk at the MPAA, here’s the link — Exclusive Teaser: Zack and Miri Make a Porno — go and watch it over and over and over.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is set for an October 31, 2008 release.