So called dieselpunk

[Ottens]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Bioshock -- the quintessential Dieselpunk/Art Deco game.

Supposedly, that is to be considered "Biopunk"........ I'd rather classify it as Dieselpunk though, as it's set in the early-Cold War and full of Art Deco.

[Flynn MacCallister]

You know, guys, this might hurt a little, but after some contemplation... if push came to shove...

 I might say that blimps are Steampunkier, while zeppleins are Dieselpunkier. Fits more with the history, and considering what materials make up each type of airship, rather apropos, wouldn't you say?

 Anyways, personally, I still want my zeppelin in my Steampunk, too.

Isn't zeppelin just a brand name?

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

I like my steampunk dark and gritty, so we can include some diesel-y elements, but transpose them into the past. And i like fedora hats. And the alledgedly-diesel-y airships. I can even tolerate the use of the infernal combustion engine in my steamy world, as long as it runs on distilled spirits of coal rather than petrol.
I still think steam's better though. The machines seems nicer, somehow.

[Captain_Minty_Gearhertz]

So, now I'm confused...
I always thought of diesel punk as industrial style clothing, greasy machines and well, in my mind, Barreling through a post apocalyptic wasteland in a huge iron juggernaut with machine gun enplacements  wearing  big goggles, huge boots and slightly WWII era helmets... Is that right for deisel punk? or is it something else altogether

[heavyporker]

Isn't zeppelin just a brand name?

 *sigh* Semantics. Very well, then let me clarify. Blimps, Steampunk. Rigid-frame airship, Dieselpunk.

 Happy?

[Atterton]

Minty: The basic principle is the same, dieselpunk is just used to describe it when the era being extrapolated is 1930-40s.

[Captain_Minty_Gearhertz]

Ah, I see. So my costume plans are correct... 

[Cory]

So, now I'm confused...
I always thought of diesel punk as industrial style clothing, greasy machines and well, in my mind, Barreling through a post apocalyptic wasteland in a huge iron juggernaut with machine gun enplacements  wearing  big goggles, huge boots and slightly WWII era helmets... Is that right for deisel punk? or is it something else altogether

Yeah, it sounds like you're thinking of Mad Max and Tank Girl here, which is post-apocalypticism. But in keeping with the naming conventions, I guess we should call it postpunk-apocalyptipunk. It's very important to have the "punk" suffix in there after all. It makes it sound both revolutionary and stupid ^_^

A fun William Gibson story on the subject of Pulp is The Gernsback Continuum, which is the aforementioned story from Burning Chrome. You can also read it online at http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1988/1/1988_1_34.shtml

[Captain_Minty_Gearhertz]

Yes. Always have loved post-apocalyptic.. Wish we could hurry up with the damned apocalypse though, still waiting! I want my grimy dystopia gosh darn-it!

[Mercury Wells]

I would say that

The Tale of X-9

(6.20-8.48) is Desielpunk (maybe Pulp-punk?).

http://www.tv.com/samurai-jack/l-tale-of-x9/episode/286608/summary.html

[Ottens]

So, now I'm confused...
I always thought of diesel punk as industrial style clothing, greasy machines and well, in my mind, Barreling through a post apocalyptic wasteland in a huge iron juggernaut with machine gun enplacements  wearing  big goggles, huge boots and slightly WWII era helmets... Is that right for deisel punk? or is it something else altogether

Yeah, it sounds like you're thinking of Mad Max and Tank Girl here, which is post-apocalypticism. But in keeping with the naming conventions, I guess we should call it postpunk-apocalyptipunk. It's very important to have the "punk" suffix in there after all. It makes it sound both revolutionary and stupid ^_^

I for one would very much welcome a different name for this genre.  Steampunk is fun as deviation of the cyberpunk concept, but adding dieselpunk just leaves the door open for a whole bunch of supposed subgenres... clockpunk, atomicpunk... You can pretty much punk everything!

I think it was Tinkergirl who proposed that we call it dieselpulp instead.  After all, punk seized to have anything to do with this long ago, and since Pulp fiction is the genre's prime source of influence, it makes perfect sense:  it carries both the genre's setting (1930s/40s/50s with petroleum as the "new" main source of power) and its style and themes (pulp, film noir, dystopian, etc.).   Dieselpulp, anyone?

[Atterton]

Then I´d say Pulp in itself would work just fine.

[Cory]

I agree with just calling it "Pulp" or "Pulp Fiction" or "Golden Age of  Hollywood/Radio/Travel/Comics/etc." or anything that doesn't involve fuel (which lends itself to silly dissections over what genre it qualifies as based on energy source) or the word "punk" (which lends itself both to ridiculous and awkward labelling of everything "-punk" and the pretentious pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric that seems to come with that). But then, nothing is stopping someon from liking Pulp just because someone else wants to call it some other silly label.

[Atterton]

If you want something else, what about technopulp.

[Ella Kremper]

Technopulp?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Captain_Minty_Gearhertz]

Technopulp?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

BWAHAHAHAHAHH! That is Hilarious!

[von Adler]

Calling it simply "Pulp" presents a problem, as pulp fiction as a genre didn't really exist. When you go through old pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, All-Story Weekly or Amazing Stories, you'll get science fiction, horror, detective stories, lesbian thrillers, sport stories, jungle savage stories a la Tarzan, stories about gangsters, Doc Savage, The Shadow, and so on and on; there's no single thing you could point to and say "that's pulp" (you can try, but all attempts to recreate a pulp story have only recreated a story in similar style within a subgenre).

[Atterton]

I have a strange feeling of deja vu.

[Ottens]

I must agree with Von Adler.  Renaming dieselpunk pulp would create several problems, with lack of clear definition of what constitutes pulp one, but the fact that dieselpunk, like steampunk, "updates" the past (in this case, often adventure pulp and noir-inspired detective stories) with modern technologies and perceptions. 

Calling dieselpunk "pulp" would be like saying that steampunk is no different from 19th century Scientific Romances and Voyages Extraordinaries.

[Cory]

you can try, but all attempts to recreate a pulp story have only recreated a story in similar style within a subgenre

Hey! You're right! Problem solved!

[von Adler]

you can try, but all attempts to recreate a pulp story have only recreated a story in similar style within a subgenre

Hey! You're right! Problem solved!

Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but that sounds a bit snarky... anyway, dieselpunk is as good a label as anything else, as everyone knows roughly what it stands for and the word itself evokes certain imagery, but if you say pulp, you need to get into the specifics and start first by defining what pulp is (which in itself defies definition). Silly labels, all.

[Cory]

Perhaps there was a bit of snark in there... I think it does resolve it's own problem when you point out that whenever anybody tries to make a Pulp-style thing nowadays, it's always this sort of Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, Rocketeer, Shadow, Green Hornet, Tarzan, Doc Savage, Buck Rogers, Blackhawk sort of thing. If that's what people think it is - so much so that when they make their own Pulp things that's always how it turns out - then there doesn't seem to be much of a problem. One can certainly point out that Pulps were a wide range of genres, but I have no qualms with making stories about... I dunno'... gay streamline robots.   

[heavyporker]

That reminds me, Cory. Did you do an exhaustive fifty page analysis of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" as it relates to classical mythology, but only because of some obscure legend of Zeus transforming into some kind of purple flower and boinking fifty virgin females that then went to have giant five-eyed men that had lightning for hair and clouds for fur, (but it's important, dammit, because somehow in a convoluted way, the super-genius villain of the movie was descended from them!)


 I kid, I kid. I'm just simultaneously impressed, confused, and terrified that you can read so MUCH into one particular movie or genre. I read one of your essays about once every two months. Any more often, and I would start having strange, strange visions while I'm awake.

[Cory]

That reminds me, Cory. Did you do an exhaustive fifty page analysis of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" as it relates to classical mythology, but only because of some obscure legend of Zeus transforming into some kind of purple flower and boinking fifty virgin females that then went to have giant five-eyed men that had lightning for hair and clouds for fur, (but it's important, dammit, because somehow in a convoluted way, the super-genius villain of the movie was descended from them!)

Nope, the thought hadn't occured to me actually. I just thought the robots were bitchin' rad.

I kid, I kid. I'm just simultaneously impressed, confused, and terrified that you can read so MUCH into one particular movie or genre. I read one of your essays about once every two months. Any more often, and I would start having strange, strange visions while I'm awake.

I'll blow your mind in November and December then... I'm hitting the Jules Verne hard and following that up with the Christian allegories in Sleeping Beauty. But I usually wouldn't do stuff on the scale of that Coleridge essay, just because that actually did come out of a term paper.

I just think that drawing out that kind of depth is a lot of the point. We do a huge disservice in English classes when we teach it like what mattered was the narrative structure or the poetic meter. The only reason literature (or film, or whatever) is worth studying is because doing so deepens our experience of life. Most of the time I'm content to be, but every now and then it's good for the soul to sit back and touch base with why all of these Scientific Romances and Gothic horrors do that. 

[Engineer Steelwolf]

Sorry to come back to point but I don't think theres is one thing that makes steampunk differ from Diesel punk. For one we are not reinacting, some of the things here are not physically possable but we don't care, this is fun. I do know my physics, so its not just lack of knowledge.
Two the ages didn't have stopping points themselfs even if you count the wars styles and machines where introduced and phased out. Only decades after can we say it was that era or this era.
I would say thats its basically a two out of three business. Clothes, machines and styles. A Victorian man in waist coat on a steamtrain is fine fighting a fascist regime. Some people will ware gasmasks and such like but while they still use steam engines and say "what, what" its fine. An airship can be Diesel powered as long as it has Victorians an it and has plenty of gears. I may get argued at for this but I think the point is that you keep it more in that setting than out. Then again I'm not sure I want it hammered out to the point where sub-sub-cultures can be created.