OK, this is the coolest beastie from this film, so I should hold it off, but I just couldn’t. Me likee the gillmen.

So nobody got the gag yesterday. This confirms the findings of the Damien Motd; numerology jokes do not fly at Jabootu.

Uh, OK, this will do for today, I guess.

I mean, OK, it’s just a short. But look at the production values!! Ten years ago this would have been all but impossible. Where will the next ten years take us?

As mainstream studio films grow more and more uninteresting and unsatisfying, I fully expect a revival among independent film making. In a way, we’re seeing a replication of the factors that lead to low-budget filmmaking in the drive-in and then the early made-for-video days. And since this product will be aimed at niches by people largely making films because they want to make films, it will be passionate and smart and quirky and fun. I can’t wait.

Here’s a DC villain who, in the New 52 (Hey, kids, comics!) is of course an insanely gross mass-murderer. Meanwhile, Marvel–presumably learning the lesson from their amazingly successful movies–is making waves with *gasp* comics that are actually clever and fun, like Hawkeye, Daredevil and Wolverine and the X-Men, the first X-Men book I’ve read in like a quarter of a century.

Oddly, the same guy is sometimes drawn as a Hammerhead Shark Man, like yesterday’s guy.

Between this and Sandy Petersen’s astoundingly successful Kickstarter, it’s been a very good week for our folks.

******

Discovery Channel travels to Houston, Texas, America’s barbeque heartland, for its new special “KING OF THE GRILL.” Meet Ritch Robin, owner of Gator Pit of Texas, as he creates the most out-of-this-world, high-tech grills and smokers. From a Houston Texans football team cooker to fully customized West Coast Customs “Bigg Dane” cooker, watch as he faces the pressure to build the next, one-of-a-kind grill for his clients – all while working alongside his eccentric family and friends. The hour-long special, “KING OF THE GRILL,” premieres Wednesday, June 26th at 10 PM ET/PT.

“KING OF THE GRILL” follows Ritch Robin as he builds a custom grill for his new client Galactic Coast Brewing. The owners plan to launch their new line of craft beer at space-themed launch party, but the event is only 5 days away and this leaves Ritch under a crushing deadline. Never ones to back down from a challenge, Ritch and his team design and build an 18-foot BBQ grill replicating a space shuttle complete with three working thrusters that shoot 10-foot flames into the air. It’s a race against the clock, complicated by a surprise visit from Ritch’s 73-year-old mother. Can Ritch make the deadline or will this extreme custom grill go up in “smoke”?

“KING OF THE GRILL” is produced for Discovery Channel by Wholly Cow Productions with Rick Silver, Lisa Silver, Marcus FOX and Ryan Senter serving as executive producers. For Discovery Channel, John Moffet is executive producer and Zander Kanefield is associate producer.

The Sci Fi Channel (as it was known at the time) also took a whack at the Shark Man idea. No Stan Winston creation, it was a CGI creation, at about the level you’d expect from the SFC.

It was surprisingly difficult to find a decent still from the movie; hence the better but smaller still above. To be fair, the movie does feature the always welcome Jeffrey Combs as a mad scientist.

Man, if the movie had been half as good as the monster suit…

Well, this was kind of obvious.

Some may remember that Sandy Petersen, gentleman, scholar, big time game creator and T-Fest host, had earlier this year launched a sadly failed Kickstarter for a proposed electronic Cthulhu game.

When that didn’t come off as they had hoped, Sandy and his compatriots decided to take the game in a completely other direction, making it an actual, physical board game.

The Kickstarter for that began a couple of days ago, and in a rather dramatic turn of events, quickly soared past the asked for $40,000. It currently stands at nearly ten times that amount. That amount of money calls for a ton of stretch goals, meaning that Sandy will not be traveling to India for a year, but staying home to attend to that.

So T-Fest 2013 is back on. See you in Dallas on Saturday, Nov 2nd.

Speaking of successful Kickstarters, it was a far closer thing, but a last minute surge of donations pushed the Kickstarter for Harbinger Down over the finishing line. That proposed film, sort of reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, will be made with fully practical effects, and starring Lance Henriksen. It thus seems to have targeted exactly to the Ken Begg micro-demographic. Congrats to those fine folks, and man, I can’t wait to see the movie.