New-ish from Airship Entertainment and designed by Cheyenne Wright (colorist for Girl Genius), it’s the ranger badge for the militant scientist in us all: The Tesla Ranger Badge.
Come on, haven’t you always wanted to enforce the laws of Science? (All right, I know, most of you would rather break them, but that’s why we need some trustworthy lawmen ’round these parts.) It even has a space to add your own individual badge number. Mmmm. DIY!
While I cannot attest to the quality of this specific pin, I can assure you that the Airship Entertainment pins, in general, are quality products. I have both a Jägermonster Insignia Pin and a Winged Trilobite Pin and am extraordinarily pleased with them. I wear them proudly on my vest and would recommend the pins to anyone who asked.
Early in the year there was discussion throughout the community over whether or not steampunk was dead. This was apparently spawned by a lull in the popularity of the word “steampunk” as a search term on Google. However, a look at Google Trends right now shows that steampunk is certainly NOT dead, and is, in fact, more popular than ever. Just as we have done in 2008, here we will take a look back at the last year and see just exactly how we have kept the steampunk community alive.
As with many things in this list, there were far too many steampunk events to mention, but arguably this year’s biggest and best was Steamcon in Seattle. Although not the first con specifically dedicated to steampunk, Steamcon seemed to set a new precedent for all future steampunk conventions. Too much happened to write about here, but there are manyreportsavailableontheaethernet.
The steampunk community was delighted when the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University adknowledged our form of alternate history by running an exhibition of steampunk art and inventions by creators from around the world.
The CGSociety concluded their Steampunk Myths & Legends contest in Februrary. We were treated to beautiful videos and images, and the winning entries can be seen here.
October was declared Steampunk Month on Tor.com. Authors and bloggers from the steampunk community joined up with Tor’s staff to discuss everything steampunk and share short stories.
Two of the most anticipated steampunk novels this year were Leviathan, and Boneshaker. Set in World War I Europe, Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld tells of Alek, an Austro-Hungarian prince on the run as his path crosses with Deryn, a common girl disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service. Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest takes place in the ruins of Civil War-Era Seattle. Briar Wilkes must rescue her son from zombies and airship pirates after he enters the city to clear his father’s name.
This year brought us the addition of two new periodicals. Steampunk Tales is a short-story fiction magazine released specifically for iPhone. Alternatively, exploring the non-fiction side of steampunk, Exhibition Hall made its debut this year as well. On a sad note, due to the depressed economy, The Willows, a magazine devoted to speculative and dark Victorian fiction, went out of business early in the year.
Abney Park was quite busy this year. Dancer and backing vocalist Finn Von Claret left the band, and was replaced by Jody Ellen. After months of delay, the anticipated new album Aether Shanties was finally released on December 1st.
Previously a solo act, Vernian Process spent the last year reinventing itself. With the addition of Martin Irigoyen in late 2008, VP is now a full-sized band, and have released a reworked version of their album, “Behold The Machine“.
In the world of gaming Atlus online released it’s first title, a free steampunk MMORPG called Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent. The biggest flop of the year may have been Damnation, a steampunk shooter released on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Our hopes for a great steampunk game were restored however with the announcement of the forthcoming game, Epic Mickey, along with some apocalyptic-looking concept art. Epic Mickey is expected to be released in September 2010.
A couple of web series made their debut. Riese, a production featuring top actors from the Sci-Fi genre, tells the story of a wandering traveler and her canine companion who are on the run from an evil religious order known as The Sect. Also, the League of S.T.E.A.M., steampunk ghostbusters, already famous for their con appearances, began documenting their comedic travails in “Adventures of the League of S.T.E.A.M.”
For new webcomics this year, check out The Continentals, about a group of special agents battling violent crimes, Sidewise, about a boy lost in time in an alternate Victorian London, and The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage teamed together as a crime-fighting duo.
There are scores of new steampunk websites out there, and three of them deserve mention here. Steampunk Empire is a social networking site just for steampunks where one can go to chat, post photos and video, and interact with other steampunks across the globe. Likewise, Dieselpunks.org has been created for the dieselpunks among us and on top of social networking, also features new and interviews in the worlds of both steampunk and dieselpunk. Finally, “Steampunk Events is a forum for advertising steampunk events anywhere in the world. Though currently a bit inactive, the site has much potential, as long as people start using it.
Now that you’re caught up on what’s been happening in steampunk, here’s a glimpse of what’s to come:
Anyone who creates or buys steampunk jewelery from old watch parts should be on the lookout for toxic radium paint.
Jane Irwin, who makes and sells jewelery from watch parts, has discovered that a recent batch of parts she received included trace amounts of the radioactive green paint. After looking into just how much of a risk radium can be, she is now offering everyone she’s sold jewelery to a free inspection and/or full refund of their pieces.
I strongly urge those who handle old watch parts, both buyers and sellers alike, to read her article and inspect your pieces to make sure they’re safe.
While it will be impossible to mention everything that happened this year, I will do my best to cover the highlights. It seems the theme for 2008 among the steampunk community was growth. Anyone who had any doubt in 2007 over whether or not steampunk deserves the title of subculture will have had these doubts fully extinguished by the events of this year. Indeed, steampunks even have a couple of their very own holidays now, including Air Kraken Day on March 17th, and Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day on December 8th.
Besides these public displays, there were several gallery showings as well. In August was the Steampunk Art and Design Exhibition in Bridgehampton, NY. On the opposite coast in September, Seattle got to experience Anachrotechnofetishism, a similar art show. Both shows featured work from many prominent national and international artists. In November, Chicago steampunks attended a Steampunk Runway Show which featured the latest in steampunk fashion.
Quite a bit happened in steampunk’s musical scene, the heart of any self-sustaining subculture. There is quite a bit of music that steampunks listen to, but as far as this article is concerned, I’ll only mention artists who identify themselves steampunk. January brought us the first Clockwork Cabaret radio show and accompanying podcast, hosted by the Davenport Sisters. On March 1st, Abney Park released “Lost Horizons,” arguably the most important steampunk album of the year, which features their hit song “Airship Pirates.” Abney Park also played several important shows this year though their scheduled unplugged performance aboard a real airship was cancelled at the last minute due to weather concerns. In their final and biggest performance of the year, Abney Park will ring in the new year at the Edison Bar in Los Angeles, along with Lucent Dossier. We also saw the rise of several new steampunk bands this year. In September, Ghostfire released their first album, “Drunk Lullabies”. Joshua Pfeiffer of Vernian Process and Allison Curval of another new band, the Clockwork Dolls, have teamed up to form Clockwork Process, whose first project is the production of a musical score for a forthcoming video game, “Shades of Violet: The Incredible Adventures of Violet Vendetta.” And earlier this month, the Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society released their debut CD, “Clockwork Dreams”.
In the world of the aethernet we’ve seen the rise of several new steampunk websites. Steampunk Wallpaper offers a large selection of images for your computer’s desktop. Steampunk Pics features amazing sets of pictures collected from a variety of sources. And perhaps the most annoying thing to happen in steampunk this year was the creation of our very own meme, DRGBLZ. Oh, the huge manatee! Finally, to further attest to the growth of the culture this year, the Brass Goggles forum, the most widely visited forum in the world of steampunk, spent nearly two months down after exceeding it’s bandwidth. Fortunately us steampunks didn’t have to suffer through withdrawals for too long, as Spare Goggles popped up as a temporary replacement.
And last but not least, we must never forget that steampunk has its roots as a literary genre. Joining the ranks of SteamPunk Magazine and The Willows, this year we saw the founding of the Gatehouse Gazette. We’ve also been treated to regular doses of audio fiction through SteamPod. In printed literature, 2008 saw the publication of two anthologies of steampunk short stories, “Steampunk“, and “Extraordinary Engines“, both featuring work from many of the genre’s greatest authors.
Sure, with all this growth we’ll continue to see more articles talking about how steampunk is getting old and cliche, or how it’s no longer original because its gone mainstream, but at it’s heart, steampunk is just beginning to flourish. As long as we have new and original artists, musicians, events, and most importantly, literature, steampunk will always feel fresh and new. Have a happy New Year and go out and party like it’s 1899!
A week ago on November 2nd, the bellydancing group Read My Hips presented a runway style steampunk fashion show at the Subterranean nightclub in Chicago. The show featured music, dance, and cabaret acts by eight different performance groups and clothing and fashion by eighteen different fashion designers.
I’m quite impressed with the quality of the designs that were presented. Below are few highlights from the fashion show, photographed by Brian C. Janes of bcj. Photography.
This is a bit dated, but still relevant as the election hasn’t taken place yet. Posting on the steamfashion LiveJournal group, a steamer by the name of Lux Alexander created the pin seen above after his friend complained that a store selling election buttons had specialty buttons for justabouteveryspecialinterestgroup except steampunks.
It seems however that some internet savvy Democrats have been paying attention because now at that same store you can find the following button:
Not surprisingly, I haven’t seen or heard a single bit of “Steampunks for McCain” election paraphernalia.
MTV had a recent article on steampunk, reporting on the growth of the movement as a subculture. As is to be expected, MTV focused the mainly on the fashion and music aspects of the culture and didn’t mention steampunk’s ideals at all. They also made a few mistakes, misspelling Jake Von Slatt’s name and making Steamcon sound like it’s taking place this month when it’s not until October of next year. The video (posted above) did a better job introducing steampunk than the article, and even included a couple of music videos by Dr. Steel and Abney Park.
