Steampunk, Dieselpunk, etc.

[LocktownDog]

Another piece of my childhood is dying. Gee, thanks for pointing that out Flat-Top.

 

[Feraud]

That robot looks like Bender.

 

[Doctor Strange]

FYI, see this page for the comic book robot that is generally considered the inspiration for Bender:

http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/pages/super-war/startling49.htm

 

[Story]

For your viewing pleasure

A little bit of X-Files intrigue, a little bit of Indiana Jones-style supernatural archaeology and a whole lot of steampunk gadgetry fires up the pilot episode of Warehouse 13.

A clever drama debuting July 7 on Sci Fi Channel’s soon-to-be-renamed SyFy Network, the show follows feuding federal agents Pete and Myka (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, pictured above) when they get unhappily reassigned from Washington, D.C., to South Dakota.

There, they encounter a cavernous warehouse filled with weird artifacts stored over the past century by the federal government. Rumpled manager Artie, played by Saul Rubinek (pictured above, center) welcomes the agents with an array of antique gizmos. Their mission: Track down a sinister artifact each week and bring the relic back to South Dakota for safekeeping.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/first-look-steampunk-gadgets-go-wild-in-warehouse-13/

.. and that looks like a Datamancer keyboard!

 

[Story]

One of the last remaining steamships operating in the UK is celebrating its return to service following a £110m restoration.

The veteran Sir Walter Scott, launched in 1899, marked the completion of the three-year-project with a VIP trip across Loch Katrine.

During the revamp the ship's entire superstructure was rebuilt and her coal boilers replaced with bio-fuel.* :eusa_clap

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8112377.stm

* Almost like S. M. Stirling's twist on 19th century technology in PESHWAR LANCERS, where things are refined several times over into the 21st century, rather than great leaps taking place.

 

[Story]

You wanted DIESEL PUNK?

http://jalopnik.com/5302246/awesome-defined-the-10+liter-radial+engined-goggomobil

 

[J. M. Stovall]

That is so cool!

 

[Jack R.]

I recently discovered steampunk by accident. I was in Barnes and Noble and picked up a book entitled, "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

I got it on a whim, and I've been in love with steam/dieselpunk ever since. I'm still working on getting at least one steampunk outfit together. It takes a lot time combing through attics and antique stores to find the gems, but I'm working on it.

 

[Story]

That is so cool!

Yeah - you gotta work it into your artwork somehow, JM. A 1940's Superhero's sidekick that drives something like that - like a tiny Renault with a salvaged rotary engine.

 

[Lou]

I'm glad to see this thread. I became interested in the steampunk aesthetic many years ago when I played the Thief series of PC games. It's set in a world that combines the Middle Ages and the Victorian era and is driven by steampunk technology. Along with being a lot of fun, the games were incredibly immersive. I didn't know until a few years later that there was a name for that type of alternate reality, or a group of people who were into it as a fashion. I occasionally check it out online just to see how it's evolving. It looks like a good time, but reading the literature is probably the farthest I'd actively get into it - not that I'd turn down that steampunk computer.

 

[DanielJones]

A little bit of X-Files intrigue, a little bit of Indiana Jones-style supernatural archaeology and a whole lot of steampunk gadgetry fires up the pilot episode of Warehouse 13.

A clever drama debuting July 7 on Sci Fi Channel’s soon-to-be-renamed SyFy Network, the show follows feuding federal agents Pete and Myka (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, pictured above) when they get unhappily reassigned from Washington, D.C., to South Dakota.

There, they encounter a cavernous warehouse filled with weird artifacts stored over the past century by the federal government. Rumpled manager Artie, played by Saul Rubinek (pictured above, center) welcomes the agents with an array of antique gizmos. Their mission: Track down a sinister artifact each week and bring the relic back to South Dakota for safekeeping.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/first-look-steampunk-gadgets-go-wild-in-warehouse-13/

.. and that looks like a Datamancer keyboard!

Saw the Pilot episode tonight. It has a lot more Steampunk computer stuff in it. Pleanty of little easter eggs for those that are looking for them. There's even a vehicle used at the end to truck around Warehouse 13.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Shangas]

One of the last remaining steamships operating in the UK is celebrating its return to service following a £110m restoration.

The veteran Sir Walter Scott, launched in 1899, marked the completion of the three-year-project with a VIP trip across Loch Katrine.

During the revamp the ship's entire superstructure was rebuilt and her coal boilers replaced with bio-fuel.* :eusa_clap

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8112377.stm

* Almost like S. M. Stirling's twist on 19th century technology in PESHWAR LANCERS, where things are refined several times over into the 21st century, rather than great leaps taking place.

All aboard and All Ahead Full! What an amazing story about what looks like a seriously beautiful boat. That article was mighty interesting. To think it's 110 years old and still steaming through history.

 

[Warbaby]

This WWII German experimental armored vehicle definitely qualifies as Steampunk transportation. I want one.

 

[Story]

Mark your calendars, English people

There will be a large Steampunk Exhibit at the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University, UK October 13 2009 through February 21 2010.
Art Donovan, Datamancer, Dr. Grymm, Eric Freitas, Haruo Suekichi, Herr Doktor, I-Wei Huang, Jesse Newhouse, Jos De Vink, Kris Kuski, Mad Uncle Cliff, and Tom Banwell will be featured, with the possible addition of a few others.
Please visit http://www.steampunkmuseumexhibition.blogspot.com/
for more information.

 

[Story]

You could describe the look of Shane Acker’s computer-animated adventure 9 as “postapocalyptic steampunk.” The human race has been exterminated: the villains are clanking machines that resemble the Martian spaceships from War of the Worlds, crossed with Doc Octopus’ tentacles, the “mutant toys” from Toy Story, and with maybe just a hint of Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000; our heroes are a (literally) ragtag group of mechanical dolls with soft, round, canvas bodies, gracefully articulated hands and feet, visible stitches, and wide, innocent WALL•E eyes. They wander a ruined, arid, rusted-out landscape filled with the detritus of the human race. The effect is at once impressively detailed and yet banal — it’s a movie whose entire aesthetic seems inspired by Korn album covers.

http://www.seemagazine.com/article/screen/screen-feature/90803/

It's this steampunk world that's fallen into disrepair that's been destroyed so it's as if the Victorian era or the industrial age had been allowed to progress for a couple hundred years beyond what it did. It's all analog. It's all pre-digital. It's a world that was in celebration of the machine and it's the kind of industrial revolution aesthetic where even within the machinery itself, there's ornamentation and there's beautiful detailing. So it's not about just practicality. It's about celebrating the mechanics and the industrial age. Then that world has collapsed.

http://www.reelzchannel.com/movie-news/4322/shane-acker-on-9s-victorian-apocalypse

 

[Roquentin]

A friend of mine used to be interested in Steampunk style. I was never as taken with it but I did attempt a short story set in a Steampunk universe. It wasn't that great, to be frank. I'm probably more intrigued with Dieselpunk, as it stands, but again more as a fiction subgenre than as something to dress like.

TV Tropes, which is of course by no means the sole authority on the matter (but is still interesting) says that Dieselpunk covers the space between Steampunk and Cyberpunk (another couple unsucessful story ideas of mine took place in cyberpunk settings) or in other words about 1900-1970. I would be interested in writing a story that took place in a distorted version of mid-to-late '60s Europe, perhaps. I guess it would be a speculative treatment of what the kinds of technocratic sentiments popular in the day (I'm thinking of the impetus behind the new concrete council flats that replaced the old slums in Britain) would have looked like if they really took hold. Just basic starting notions, really, but it might be fun.

 

[miss_elise]

Sebastian O?

I saw this comic book in a new & used book store and I was wondering if anyone knew much about this steampunkish comic?

 

[flat-top]

 

[Lefty]

fun stuff on oddee

 

[Story]

Drawing the line between polish and pretension is trickier, especially when last year’s costume can be this year’s classic, and next year’s yawn. Just consider the steady infiltration of 19th-century haberdashery into the 21st-century wardrobe. Garment after garment has arrived on the scene that one might think more Gilbert and Sullivan than Bergdorf and Goodman, only to be taken up by the young beards.

Not long ago, big brass-buttoned military coats looked a bit extreme. So did high-button, high-lapel vests and slim tweed trousers. And so did guys who tucked said trousers into high, old-fashioned hunting boots. Now these clothes (along with those ever-present beards and mustaches) look like downtown defaults compared with fall runway looks like cardinal-red tailcoats at Ralph Lauren, capes and bowlers at Alexander McQueen and knee breeches at Robert Geller.

As with home design, where curio cases, taxidermy and other stylish clutter of the Victorian era have been taken up by young hipsters, many of today’s popular men’s styles have their roots in the late 19th century. There are the three-piece suits once favored by mustachioed Gilded Age bankers; the military greatcoats and boots of Union officers; and the henley undershirts, suspenders, plaid flannel shirts and stout drill trousers worn by plain, honest farmers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/fashion/12CODES.html?_r=1&emc=eta1