There are several things that epitomise Steampunk to me – the use of steam, unconventional (or Victorian) modes of transportation, and quirky eccentrics who try new and potentially wonderful things. The Flying Kettle Project qualifies quite happily. It seems some Brits are having a go at creating a steam filled balloon, with the intent to prove the feasibility for future human carrying balloons and steam filled airships. Oh, how my heart leaps at the thought!

They’ve done several experiments so far, scalded some grass (naughty) and created quite a lot of both lift and interest! I really do wish them the very best of luck, because one day I would very much like to be taking to the skies on wings of steam.

Well, good grief – Fearless Griggs was brought to my attention by Mr I Williams, and I’m not entirely sure that Griggs is going to put up with any of my dillydallying in telling you! A graphic novel apparently in the works at the moment, The Aggressive Adventures of Fearless Griggs is a Steampunk work with a very modern, and, well, aggressive tone! I can’t really put it much better than the page itself describes it:

“At 112 years old, the aggressiveness of Fearless Griggs’ adventures is about to get ferocious. Join a man so fearless that death will not mess with him as he and the ghost-powered combat-robot Madeline take to the land, sea, and outer space in a two-fisted high-grade explosive journey into the heart of awesome. ”

So yes, take a bold gander at the website, courageously download the free 24 page short, and prepare to encounter the aged, in-no-way modest, adventurous and most of all, Fearless Griggs!

Andy_W of the Æther Emporium sent me a surfeit of links after our last post about steam bikes, so I’ll repeat the best ones here:

• The above, lovely photograph of a steam powered penny-farthing style bicycle and proud owner (and rightly so).

• Another, same model black and white photograph of a penny-farthing cycle, steam propelled.

• The mysterious ‘Pete’s Steam Bike‘ – owner as yet unknown and details surprisingly scarce.

• And lastly a link to the Patent Pending Blog – a quite stunning list of entries about steam powered vehicles both real and (in the singular case of Steam Man) imagined. Bikes, trikes, buggies, automobiles, buses, carriages, boats and amphibious devices.

I wonder if such cycles would be allowed on the streets today. It’d be a shame to have to wear a cycle helmet with them.

Found the blog of a most interesting looking comic that’s in the works at the moment – it’s called the Risk Society, and it looks deeply Steampunk. From the page itself:

“The Risk Society could be described as Ray Harryhausen meets Jules Verne, a Victorian adventure story with a mix of science and fantasy played out in a backdrop of industrial invention.”

Now, that certainly sounds Steampunk to me. From what I can gather from the image heavy (but information light) page, the two creators of the Risk Society are working on making a CG animated short of their work to show to the people with the money. Their last nugget of information was released in mid-August, so one can only hope that they’re doing well.

It’s looking very promising, Messrs. Watson and Davidson!

The Modern Compendium of Miniature Automata has been around for a while, but nowhere else can you create you own nano-scale cog-driven beasties that then scurry around yellowed paper. Sent to me by MChristian, I think I must have last seen it four or five years ago, but it now seems all the lovelier for its quirky Victorian styled title and Steampunk in microscopic form. Go ahead – make your own little nano-contraption, it’ll be yours to configure, name, describe and then let free on the great big papery universe.

Mr S. Addison described his work as the best Steampunk art ever – and while that’s high praise indeed, I’d be put in an akward spot if I were to be asked to say who my favourite was – but Harry Grant Dart would be in the top five, at least!

Originally a newspaper cartoonist (before photography in newspapers) Mr Dart would travel around the world to document important meetings and events. Eventually he became art director for his newspaper and created the comic “The Explorigator” – a series following a young child captain of an airship, with his equally young and adventurous crew. The page linked to there, has the Explorigator and its crew on the moon!

But Harry Grant Dart also drew some amazing ‘future’ flight machines, including the image above. Many looking like space-age sea-ships, despite being drawn at the turn of the 20th Century. Some were delightfully Steampunk (and so they should be – being Victorian Science Fiction au naturale) and others still generate wonder and curiosity more than a hundred years later. Lovely stuff.

May I introduce Babette – a steam engine sculpture by the artist Wm. Dubin. MikeST surely deserves some kind of medal for finding this gentleman, and someone really needs to tell Mr Dubin that he’s accidentally independantly discovered his own brand of Steampunk. Mr Dubin, it seems, was a sculptor of wood, initially, until he saw some beautifully made model steam engines and realised his work lacked precision. He then taught himself how to create beautiful, artificially aged mechanical steam engine art. I greatly encourage you to follow the link to Mr Dubin’s work – there you will be introduced to several other of his creations – Medusa, Persephone and Jenny. All are beautiful pieces of mechanical art.

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Several people pointed out the wonderful collection of user submitted photos of steam powered bicycles over at Make:Blog a few days ago – and it would be negligent of me not to mention them here. From the fictional Artimus Gordon’s steam-cycle in Wild Wild West, to the all too real and dangerous cycles of the “Motorcycles 1899″ book – adding steam power to a small, human-personal vehicle is terribly Steampunk. Do follow the link to see some of the inventive ways people decided to let the steam take the strain! Mere days later, another steam ‘bike’ photo was submitted to Make – though they didn’t know the origin of it. You’ll find it here, with more info. Apparently it was taken at the New England Wireless and Steam Museum Steam-Up – and the next one will be held a couple of days from now on the 30th September. It sounds like quite an opportunity to see strange and wonderful steam and Steampunk contraptions.

In Doktor A’s words, not mine, he’s been at the absinthe again – which is handy for us, as he’s made another wonderful Steampunk themed model! The above one is greatly inspired by Verne’s Nautilus – with a sea-going vessel and underwater diver/pilot. The attention to detail is amazing – there are even barnacles on the heavily patina’ed copper coloured hull! The good Doktor sent me several of lovely images of these two, but for fear of my bandwidth and usability, I’m only going to put my two favourites up. The one above, and a closeup of the pilot standing atop the vessel, with the hatch visible, here. Hopefully the Doktor will put some more images up on his Spookypop site. Thank you very much, Doktor!

Mr Addison found not only the peculiar chopper motorcycle, but the above beautifully detailed custom wheel. Created by a company called Capricorn Cyclo-Works, the above wheel not only looks stunning in stills, such as this, but quite mesmerising when rotated (video on their site). I’ve no idea what it would look like going at say, ‘modern’ speeds, but at perfectly Victorian speeds it would draw the eye and befuddle the mind like no other wheel, I’m sure. Steampunk doesn’t often do wheels, (preferring tracks, legs, balloons and wings) but I think this qualifies. How Stuff Works has a page on planetary gear systems, if you’re a little rusty on their purpose and function.