Just wanted to tease a special story I'm working on. James "Jimmy Claws" Gawley, the Canadian animatronic and gizmology master who was chosen to create the Wolverine claw props for all three of the X-Men movies was in town yesterday to promote the X-Men 3 DVD. He and I sat down for over two-and-a-half hours (actually that's just the time on my voice recorder, it was more like five hours) geeking-out and going in-depth over the whole process of making the claws, much of Jimmy's career with mechanics for movies like Jacob's Ladder (Vibration Man), JFK (yes, that effect), Johnny Pneumonic (the dolphin), and of course the other effects on the X-Men series like Lady Deathstrike's claws and NightCrawler's tail.

Jimmy actually has a machine shop on wheels that travels to movie sets with a lathe, ban saw, milling machine, the whole works in it. We also discuss a set of kinetic, pendulum clocks he's inventing. I plan to write out two versions of the day, a normal length edition for the majority of people followed by the full, extended, "I'm a comic book geek and tell me everything" edition. Oh and yes, I got to try on the claws, the actual ones from Jackman's hands. Excited? I didn't sleep all night. That's coming soon.

Jimmy Claws has a rule, if you're going to wear the claws, you gotta look mean doing so.