The Searchers

 

RIGHT!, with a bit of luck, patience and perseverance my latest literary acquisition is the full set of the mini series of comic-books titled 'The Searchers'. I first found this comic-book back in 2008, and again picked up an issue in 2013. ebay can be your friend...!

 

Written by Colin Clayton and Chirs Dows, and printed in 1996 to 1997 by Caliber comics.

 

The Searchers - The shape of things to come

 

The Holy Grail Of SteamPunk Comic-books.

 

What immediately caught my attention, was the date it was published 1996, 3 years before "The league of extraordinary gentlemen” was written by Alan Moore and printed. And its use of Fictional Victorian literary characters, even the act of Magic that was use to pluck those characters from the very minds of their authors and making them real flesh & blood people, and seeing what their Grandchildren get up to!

Transposing Fictional literary characters, into a historical contents and their events, or creating a new alternative point in History or bringing a multitude of characters from different Authors together (for the World building), is quite a satisfying read when done well.

[Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes (printed in 1857), had the fictional character, of the school bully Harry Flashman, this character was taken by developed by George MacDonald Fraser, in total there are 18 books published from 1969 to 2005 collectively known as  "The Flashman papers, due to the Auther's death in 2nd of January 2008 there are no more.]

 

 ["Copyright" and "Public Domain" - In most countries the term of protection of copyright expires on the first day of January, 70\75 years after the death of the latest living author. In the USA Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.  The phrase “public domain” refers to works that have effectively become public property and are no longer protected by copyright law. This occurs when the copyright in a work of art expires.]

Now to look for 'War of the Worlds' comic books....

 

Travelling to find the fallen

 Travelling to find the fallen,

Not in Glory, but the few that stood against the many,

In a village were you would drive along its edge, on your way to a city, not knowing who rests there.

The location is of the Old Village Cemetery in Ruddington, in the county of Nottinghamshire, England, Great Britain.

Starting along the path, in the oldest part of the cemetery, heading in a Westerly direction, you will first see on the right-hand side of the path, facing you. As you walk down, you are greeted with a whitish Headstone.

 

MARTHA                                                          

The beloved wife of JAMES MARSHALL,

Who died January 10^th. 1916,

Aged 56 years. “At rest”

Also the above JAMES MARSHALL,

Who died November 5^th. 1930,

Aged 73 years.

“Reunited.”

A defender of Rorke's Drift

22^nd. -23^rd. January 1879.

 

 

Continuing down the path a little way, off to the right, in what looks like a row of a single headstone, you will see a short greyish brown headstone with a poppy motif at the top.

 

 

The inscription reads;                                                    

In Memory of CALEB WOOD

Died 20. 02. 1935

Aged 77 years

Rorke's Drift Defender

Zulu War 1879

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your travels back down on the path, will nearly take you to the middle treeline, but stepping off to your left just before the treeline you can spot nestled under the shade of a big tree, a headstone all on its own, it too has a poppy motif at the top . 

 

 

The inscription reads;

 

 

In Memory of ROBERT TONGUE                                   

Died 29. 01. 1918

Aged 61 years

Rorke's Drift Defender

Zulu War 1879

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Asylum 2009 Pt4

Outside at the Steampunk Festival -  'The Asylum' on the
impromptu Croquet Lawn one could find all types of inventors.

 There is Herr Döktor's Laboratory that one can see on the Book of Face.

 You too can own some SteamPunkery from this Imageneer at Herr Doktor's Emporium.

 More fun loving than the Eloi, this model maker and builder can be found at Herr Doktor's Thoughts and Musings.

 A contributor to the community,and a voice of civilised reason and encouragement "Herr Doktor" is a recipient of an honorary fellowship of 'The Victorian Steampunk Society'


 How to play Croquet...

The Asylum 2009 Pt3

More at the Steampunk Festival -  'The Asylum'
The next table down from Dr. Geof was 'The Steampunk magazine'

Ms. Hawksmoor was the Editor (No. 5 & 6) and a contributor (No.7) to 'The Steampunk magazine'.

 The SteamPunk Magazine is a publication that was dedicated to promoting steampunk as a culture, as more than a sub-category of fiction. 

Download the steampunk_magazine  

Ms. Hawksmoor is a speculative fiction writer and freelance editor, more of her work can be found at www.cahawksmoor.com/

The Asylum 2009 Pt2

New to Steampunk Geof a fellow I met in Leeds once, was dipping his toe in 'The Asylum Steampunk Festival' in 2009. His art has been well received. 

 Geof's words on The Asylum 2009

 

More can be found at The island of Doctor Geof 

The Honourable Association of Tea Duellists 

Geof is a recipient of an honorary fellowship

  of 'The Victorian Steampunk Society'

The Asylum 2009 Pt1

Steampunks gather in the historic City of Lincoln for the first 'The Asylum Steampunk Festival' in 2009

About_The_Asylum_ now 

A young author named Toby Frost,  who back in 2008 had already publish the ever popular  novel Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith).

 space captain smith on the web 

Toby Frost On the Web

Space-Captain-Smith-The-Chronicles-Isambard-Smith

The Holy Grail Of SteamPunk Comic-books.

The Holy Grail Of SteamPunk Comic-books.

A lucky find the other weekend was Issue 2 of “The Searchers” (I do have them all as PDFs, but that just is not the same.), and it has been the Holy Grail Of SteamPunk Comic-books to collect(In My Opinion)as it was a short run of issues so long ago!




The 1996 comic-book that takes a mix of Victorian literary characters plucked from the very minds of the authors, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Sit Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Ryder Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, which brought there imaginative creations to life, back in 1896. One hundred years later the real-life descendants of their greatest characters are thrown together...




 [Note. A comic-book written by Alan Moore was printed 3 years later - "the league of extraordinary gentlemen"]





Revisit my findings in 2008
http://steam-trooper.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/searchers-shape-of-things-to-come.html

SteamPunk Review: The Difference Engine

The Difference Engine
by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling (1990)
Published by Gollancz in 2003 – ISBN 978-0-575-60029-4
After rereading 'The Difference Engine' all be it a bit at a time (after starting it mid November), I found that the depth of this early SteamPunk World still full of detail, and you can delight in it's fantasy of an alliterative historical England and the Empire, when calculating engines of brass and steel started the information age over a hundred years before the microchip and the industrial might that sparks the British conflict with the new Luddites has its moments!

It's now over 20 years after its first printing and this imagined World is now familiar, as well as fiction of alliterative histories and SteamPunk as a sub-genre of science fiction has had many enthusiasts and imitators, even the emergence of writers who's settings are solely in the Victorian era are well liked.
I feel that The Difference Engine's brass has lost a little of its shine, but it has its place in fiction and should always have a place on your bookshelf.

Film review: THE MAGIC BOX

THE MAGIC BOX
Staring Robert Donat; Made in 1951 for the Festival of Britian.

With Martin Scorsese's film 'HUGO' the adaption of Brian Selznick's novel 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret' still fresh in my mind I found, as sometimes we do on the the internet an absolute gem of a film (DVD) by sheer chance, in a bargain classic section (part of the Boulting Brother's collection)!

After just seeing the end of this film I just had to type, so rare to be educated and entertained these days.

From a side-show attraction to the modern cinematic technology of the 1920's, this enthralling and sometimes tragic film recounts the life history of the British inventor of the moving pictures on celluloid Mr. William Freise-Greene! A man driven to strive to perfection of the moving image and a pioneer of colour film for motion pictures. Robert Donat plays Mr. Freise-Greene superbly and is supported by over 50 of the cream of British cinema, far to many to list (if you wish to comment and list them after viewing the film please do so).

What better way to spend a cold wet Sunday afternoon than to sit down and be drawn in to a World of an inventor, a Tinkerer if you will that saw that people would want to see moving pictures not just photographs projected from a magic lantern, and had the vision that this was a new Art-form. Now that movies are made in High Definition digitally we should not forget who’s shoulders we have stood on to get where we are today.

We as a nation should be very proud of this pioneer - Mr. William Freise-Greene 1855 - 1921

Merry Christmas!

Santa and his helper ride in Victorian splendour. Photograph taken on the spur of the moment..!

SteamPunk review: Captain Swing & the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island

'Captain Swing & the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island' By Warren Ellis, Illustated by Raulo Cacers. Published by Avatar (2011). ISBN 1-59291-136-6

Warren Ellis an English author of comic-books, who has written 'Excalibur' for marvel, 'The Authority' for Wildstorm (DC), and 'Ministry of Space' for Image Comics among others, has put pen to paper, and finally finished this four part mini-series after much anticipation, and now the Trade paperback is out too!

This neo-Victorian fantasy rides on the waves of the popularity of the SteamPunk genre. Set in 1830 the title character taking the immortal alias of the Luddite saboteur 'Captain Swing' who sounds more like a modern Advocate of Internet Freedom – with a rallying cry of “Knowledge should be free”, and the use of a technology possibly inspired from the film 'Stardust' makes an interesting figure.

You will follow Constable Charles Gravel an honest peeler, and see his character grow as he is swept up in a storm of political high adventure.
The woodcut style of the illustrations by Raulo Caceres are a welcomed sight throughout this comic-book and offset the artwork in the panels.

One for your collection I think.

Film review: Dean Spanley

Dean Spanley
A film given to me as a gift, and a surprise.
A drama of high whimsy, set in England after the second Boar War. Adapted from Lord Dunsany's novel 'My Talks With Dean Spanley', a most charming and well acted film, featuring the talents of Bryan Brown, Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill and Peter O'Toole. Released in 2008 and easily accessible on DVD.
Sam Neil as the Dean is one of his best performances you really do believe what his character is telling you after he has had his favourite tipple. With Bryan Brown playing the unlikely colonial purveyor of wine or any contents of a box (not cocktails, or F/Xs this time) brings a Victorian style all to his own, and with Peter O'Toole giving gravitas to this unfolding tale, as the father who morns the lost of his eldest son, as well as other losses.

It will make you think about Man's relationship with dogs (our best friend), and may I say some of the tale reminded me the animation 'Watership Down'!
A film not for the weak minded, but a film that you will warm to, now that the days get shorter and the nights grow cold. Like a good book you go back to again and again.

Victoriana: An Englishman's home is his.....

A fine day out walking with an old friend, I stumbled across this fine Des res, another Water company's Victorian building, no doubt full of machinery.
But the thought that popped in to my head was, what a nice private home for a bachelor!
As they say “ An Englishman's home is his Castle”
Just needs a trap door in the middle of the bridge to keep the Chavs out!
Oh dear I forgot about the waterline being so low, oh well.

Victoriana review: STONE'S FALL

STONE'S FALL by Iain Pears
Publisher: Vintage (2010)
ISBN-10: 0099516179
ISBN-13: 978-0099516170
First Edition;Publisher: Jonathan Cape; (2009) Hardback

On the cover of the book you can see the words Love, Murder, Espionage these are a poor approximation of the themes within this unravelling historical enigma.
Firstly set in 1909's London of the Edwardian era, then the second part in Paris in 1890, and the final part in Venice in 1876

As your knowledge of the main characters traverses forward in much in the same way as a viewer's interpretation of the film 'Rashomon', as the journalist Braddock is privately engaged to investigate the death of the capitalist weapons manufacturer John W. Stone and the mystery of his wealth, we are then moved on to intelligence officers discovering a plot to attack England and the Empire by a most modern notion. Interwoven into this tale is the mysterious Countess! What follows is an English inventor's meeting a businessman and that the World needs battleships and torpedoes.

This newly written Victoriana was such an intelligent read it has inspired me to reread 'The Difference Engine'.

SteamPunk Review: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret By Brian Selznick (2007) Published by Scholastic Press – ISBN 978-0-439-81378-5
A book, although set in the1930's has a air of wonder from the past, of a boy living off this wits in a railway station, you can almost smell the smoke from the steam engines, how he bumps in to a young girl who’s godfather runs a small toy kiosk. The boy's father – a watch maker, one day finds an old and abandoned automaton in a museum's attic and vows to fix it, and of memories that a father gives his son.
How motion pictures for the fist time brought people's dreams and imaginations to life. You will read of magicians long since forgotten, in this most delightful illustrated book.

Enjoyable for parents with young children (Coglings), and those of young at heart with a euphoria of innocence. With a cinematic style of its own. - Now made in to a Motion Picture.

SteamPunk Review: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
by Mark Twain and original Illustrator Dan Beard
Published in 2007 by Penguin Classics ISBN 9780141919928

A defining novel of a modern World, all be it the 1880's, and a fine example of what the 21st. Century's hopes to achieve with fictional alternate histories such as the Worlds that SteamPunk fiction resides in. The worlds of “what ifs” leading to a sideways take on past events, pushing ahead to new futures, not all of them turning out to be Utopias!

On a Literary note with Edgar Allen Poe being the Founder of Science Fiction (later to be nicknamed 'The sham technical' by other authors), I find that Mark Twain dipping his toe in to the domains of Scientific Romances, when his character (the Boss) imposes19th. Century's political, economic, and industrial might on the Old England of King Arthur's realm and his Knights, is by our definition SteamPunk without a doubt.

Has modernisation shockingly moved to fast for the 19th. Century's Mr. Twain, and who would oppose science in King Arthur's realm, you will just have to read and find out!

Steampunk Review:

The Landships of Lincoln – The story of Lincoln's part in the creation of the Worlds first fighting tanks. (Sn Ed) By Richard Pullen Published in 2007 ISBN 9781873257791
With SteamPunkers looking to arm themselves with a pistol or rifle for personal protection or for piracy but oddly not war! This should inspire your imagination.
'The Landships of Lincoln' chronicling the William Foster & Co Ltd military vehicles, and the engineers behind them, with interviews from the factory workers and those that visited the works. This is not a book about those people that imagined in theory the invention of the Tank, like the predictions of H. G. Wells in the early 'Boar War' of the concept of 'Land Ironclads', no this is about engineers and designers of an armoured trench crosser(necessity being the mother of invention), a weapon that could end the war.

Steampunk Review: The Gangs of New York

The Gangs of New York ( An informal history of the underworld) By Herbert Asbury,
First published in 1927. ISBN 0099436744


Showing the darker side of of New York's history, so much so that street names and places have been renamed, and corrupt Politicians and Police have been forgotten!
From 1838 up to 1925 with foot notes about the 1700's as well, full of colourful characters that New Yorkers have unnoticed for to long. Looking at the rise and fall of the district known as the 'Five Points' a dismal slum.

Charles Dickens who visited and chronicled his observations for publication in 'American Notes' wrote:-
“Let us go on again, and … plunge into the Five Points….We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day, but of other kinds of strollers plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice are rife enough where we are going now.

This is the place; these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with, dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays.”

White-chapel in London features in Charles Dickens's novels 'Oliver Twist' and 'Pickwick Papers' is upstaged by the 'Five Point' for its slum and villainy!

The Martin Scorsese film 'Gangs of New York' centres on only a small period of time around the American civil war Riots in New York, with a lot of characters based on real historical people.

The colourful history was by and large gained from the Newspapers of the time, and thus prone to sensationalism, but there is no getting away from the rottenness and vile depravity of New York's slums and their gangs with their political masters.

The Campaign to Bridge the Gap!

Bridging the Gap! (part two and ¼)

Being a SteamPunk correspondent (sometimes undercover), it would be a good start to go to some Steam Rallies and working Steam engine open days..............more to follow..soon

Victorian Information Revolution

A fellow SteamPunk had found this Clip The Victorian Information Revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHVKwXi9evU