Abney Park

So I happened to catch a glimpse at 20/20 the other day and I can't help but notice this story (Probably Not Safe For Work, but I guess that depends on where you work). Crazy. I think I have life all figured out, then I see something like this and it's essentially back to square one. But that's not the point.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Abney Park. I don't really like them, but I feel I should. That's because they're the world's only Steampunk band. Since their goth roots in Seattle in the Nineties, they've decided to specialize somewhat and become exclusively Steampunk. This means that their onstage personas are that of probably the best literary archetype, sky-pirates. Their airship Ophelia has been the subject of at least one song and they dress appropriately. And by appropriately, I mean like this:

Anyway, aside from "Steampunk", their music is best described as industrial dance influenced heavily by world music. This places them firmly outside my personal tastes, which is a shame. But in the event that YOU might like them, I offer their 2001 album "From Dreams Or Angels", their 2005 album "The Death Of Tragedy", and their 2008 album "Lost Horizons". Which, I guess, was released last year. Happy 2009, all.

FreakAngels

It's not too rare that one can find legitimately free stuff online. It's easy to find free music for free from legal sources nowadays, and even television shows are just lying around for people to watch (especially older stuff. I've been watching Twin Peaks. WEEEEEIRD). With the growing amount of Gutenberg Project contributors, it's getting easier to find open source books or ones with expired copyrights. But for most of us nerds, the ultimate blend of literature and art remains the elusively expensive exception to the rule. There are, of course, webcomics, but look at them.

(I love you, XKCD)

But what about people who are looking for a smart, well illustrated comic-book quality graphic novel on the blogotubes? Well, I guess you could read Lackadaisy. But what if you wanted a name behind your comic? Like, say, the name of a man who wrote the superlative Transmetropolitan or the pretty good Preacher? Then look no further than FreakAngels, about twelve psychic post-adolescents growing up after the Apocalypse. It's got sex, violence and mayhem. Not to mention it's dangerously steampunk.

That's a steam-powered helicopter. She built it herself. Check it out here.

EDIT: JEEZ! Warren Ellis didn't write Preacher. That was Garth Ennis. Wow. I'm glad no one caught that but me. Ellis did write Hellblazer however, the comic that spawned the film Constantine.

Weta

Based on the Eye of Sauron in the background and the King Kong links and the New Zealand domain name, I'm betting that Peter Jackson is a fan of using the Weta Workshop. Their other credits include The Muppet Show, At least one (new) Zorro movie, Prince Caspian and the (new) Doctor Who TV show. Besides making some of the most convincing creature effects in movies today, they sell collectibles. Like those little statues for people who... I don't know who actually buys those. And helmets for fauns.

I think that the two large holes practically inviting an archer to shoot an arrow straight into Mr. Tumnus' frontal lobe is a pretty obvious design flaw, but what do I know? In addition to these items that pale in comparison, they offer something pretty cool. LASER GUNS! Who among us hasn't wanted one of these?

Pictured above, you see the Victorious Mongoose 1902a - Concealable Ray Pistol. Also pictured is the fine leather case it comes in, complete with brass snaps and an envelope of some kind. I have no clue what that is. Not pictured is the look of shock on your face when you see that this chunk of admittedly well-crafted metal and wood costs over five hundred American dollars. A look of shock that then turns to relief when you realize that in comparison to these other full-sized ray guns, that's nothin'. I admit, I would be more inclined to purchase the derringer-sized one, the other ones are huge. She could break a wrist.

EDIT: According to Wikipedia (so it must be true) Weta makes what they call "bigatures", miniatures that can get up to nine meters in height. The chain-mail work on a twenty-foot orc was apparently so intricate that a few people actually wore off the fingerprints on their thumbs and forefingers. WOW.

Etsy

As a savvy consumer, I often just elect not to buy anything at all if it's not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. This has some minimalist leanings, but it's mostly because a dorm room is TINY. Regarding the more political reasons one might have for trying to consume as little as possible, a real, actual capitalism is what many crave. Unfortunately, there are precious few sites online that cater to both the financially-challenged and the bohemian shopper. Among the few, Etsy probably has some of the best selection I've seen (I should seriously be getting paid for this). This is because everything for sale is handmade. In many cases, if you don't snatch up whatever you see immediately, you might never find anything quite like it ever again. The products for sale tend to lean heavily in the "awesome" direction, but that's just me. If you're also into straightedge vegan everything and anything (a ponytail holder? Seriously?) you'll like it. But that's not all.

Yeah, there's plenty of stuff like that on there as well. Somewhat interestingly, I discovered the site beacuse of its high concentration of... STEAMPUNK STUFF! YAY!

At first I couldn't decide which picture to put up, but then I'm all like, "I OWN this space! I can put both up!" And so it was done.

Monocycle

So there I was, trolling YouTube, killing time, when I stumbled upon this slice of heaven.

"A monocycle?" I cried aloud, much to the annoyance of my boss, who was talking to me at the time. "What could this be? Could such a thing exist?" I instantly dropped everything I was doing and began to search for a purveyor of such a device online; all the while vaguely aware that people were still talking to me. These people, however, were not monocycles, so I considered them significantly less important. And find one I did. I fully intend to scrounge up the requisite thirteen thousand dollars so I can scoot about town, worrying that the wheel would get caught and I'd just spin around and around and around inside the wheel, all the while screaming "THIS WAS A BAD IDEA."

Kinda reminds me of the monowheel thing in Steamboy. Ever seen that? Why not? It's steampunk anime. If it's good enough for me, then it's good enough for you. Gotta go. Boss is saying something about a "pink slip".

Iron Man

While I tend to refrain from advertising anything on here that isn't free, I'm obliged to tell you to go pay to see the movie Iron Man. Marvel has had a shaky history of films before now, including The Hulk, Spiderman 3, and anything with the Fantastic Four in it (In related news, I'm officially considering Rise Of The Silver Surfer to be non-canon. It never happened). Where they're coming from now is a much different place. Iron Man and the upcoming Incredible Hulk film will be the first two Marvel films to be produced entirely in-house. All of the above (much worse) films were funded by outside studios, but now Marvel has complete creative control over all aspects of the movies bearing their name. It's a good thing.

Mild spoilers. It's really not even worth mentioning.

Moving on to the film. For those not in the know, Iron Man is billionaire weapons manufacturer Tony Stark, spectacularly portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. After seeing the carnage for which he is responsible (and escaping the antagonists using his prototype suit), he gets all "what hath I wrought" and decides to take the law into his own hands, blowing up some tanks and such with his new, shiny suit. Then there's some betrayal and drama and whatnot. It all ends with a young, svelte Iron Man and a hulking 10-foot steel Iron Man (dubbed the Iron Monger) duking it out on a crowded freeway. Many cars are hurled, and good times are had by all.

End spoilers.

Yeah, go see it. If you need some more persuading, check out the trailer (I would embed a YouTube vid here, but it deserves nothing more than the largest size your browser can handle). The movie also features a neat little cameo by S.H.I.E.L.D. (For you comic nerds). Now I've nothing to look forward to but Indiana Jones and Batman.

P.S.: A neat little Steampunky memory just popped up in my head. In one of the original Iron Man comics, Tony Stark found himself trapped in a 19th-century community, where he found it necessary to build a steam-powered suit to save the day (Thanks to Brass Goggles). Also, here's Black Sabbath's iconic "Iron Man". Now I'm done.

Jeff de Boer

I can't remember if I've talked about this guy before, and I'm too lazy to search the archives, so here you are: Jeff de Boer. I don't use the word "genius" all willy-nilly; I like to conserve my "genius"s. That said, de Boer is a genius. He is an artist, and although I'm sure he does other (equally impressive) works, what has endeared me to him so greatly is the fact that he makes suits of armor. For animals. The previous sentence can only be improved by repetition, so I say again: For animals. Just cats and mice, really, but still, who could pass up a 15th century Maximilian knight's armor designed and built for something that could fit in the palm of my hand?

As great as that was, try to contain yourself when you witness the majesty of a piece he calls his "Samurai Siamese".

Whoa. You can check out his website here. Also, here's a set of rather steampunkish atomic dueling pistols, so there's that.

Stephane Halleux

I've always wanted to be the guy who could just crank out artwork every day. Just go home, pick up some metal, and make a little guy who would just stand there on my desk. I wanted to be Stephane Halleux.

I love this guy the best. He reminds me of Batman.

Eccentric Genius

With such an ambitiously named website, you would expect nothing short of eccentricity and genius from Kaden Harris. And that's precisely what is delivered, with amazing little brass and wood kinetic art pieces appropriately named "Antiques From A Parallel Universe."

Marvel at a tiny little desktop trebuchet or guillotine. Witness the majesty of my favorite piece, the The Original Model 420 Pneumatifor Infumationizer. (Infumate: verb; act of drying in smoke. Pneumatic: adj.; of or pertaining to air, gases or wind. I'll let you figure out what the 420 stands for.)

Yep. Anyway, this guy always has a little something on his site for sale. Plus he has a book (with some projects on the linked site. I'm gonna make a fog machine).

P.S.: He seems slightly hesitant to call his art Steampunk, not wanting to put a label on his art. However, I already have a Steampunk category, so in it goes.

The Tinkertoy Computer

I can only presume it's operated by magic, but I found a link to an article about a tic-tac-toe playing computer composed entirely of Tinkertoys and string. No electricity, no wires. Check it out here.

Steampunk Watches

In what is becoming kind of a trend here, I wish to present, for your approval, some more steamjunk, my personal noun for steampunk artifacts. The steampunk watch! No intrepid explorer would be caught dead without one of these neat-o timepieces. Also submitted for your approval is my personal choice, the model I am forced to call the "Submariner", because the entire site is in some squiggly Asian language.

Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea

Far be it from me to pass judgment on a fellow human being, I believe that Eric has self esteem problems, because Steampunk Star Wars is a SPECTACULAR idea.

You may remember that last year (hee hee) I posted about the Steampunk phenom (for lack of a better word). Well, on my never-ending search for crap online, I stumbled upon Eric Poulton's website. I haven't seen a lot else of it, but the steampunk pages touch on a pretty great idea, best summed up in this picture:

(That picture is my current desktop) Whoa. Seen here is Lord Vader. "He is a master with the traditional weapon of Force champions, the Phlogisticated Aether Torch, more commonly referred to as the phlogisabre." WHOA. You can read up on some of his other ideas here.

See if you can guess who those two scruffy nerfherders are.

Steampunk

I've always loved the steampunk genre, ever since I read three H. G. Wells novels in less than a week for a late school project (I got an A-minus. Shiny). For those unaware, it began as a literary genre exploring what the world might have been if technological development stopped at the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, hence the name. Everything would still be powered by steam engine. There are those, however, who believe it should be more than a genre. It should be an entire culture, with it's own fashion, language and social groups. It stems from a love of the antiquity of artifacts from that era. As an example, trains, when invented, were messy, inefficient behemoths. As they progressed technologically, they became works of art, with gilded inlays and mother-of-pearl... things on them. In our generation, technology skipped that Golden Age. I'm paraphrasing from another source that I can't now find, but computers went from "buzzing beige cubes to buzzing shiny cubes". Steampunk is an attempt to recapture the non-existent antique past of modern technology. Here's more from my personal hero, Datamancer:

If you'd like to know more about steampunk, try Brass Goggles. It's a wonderful blog (shown briefly in the video) about the subculture, and has dozens of links.

By the way, if you've seen either "The Wild Wild West" or "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", I would like to say that though the technology is exemplary of steampunk, the plot and acting of both have nothing to do with us.