Outland: Beyond the Far West

Outland: Beyond the Far West!  Steampunk Wild West Porn!  

I was able to catch one scene.  Great costumes.  Lots of grunting.  That's about the best review I can give at the moment.

Leather Holsters to Become Modern Accessory

Just watch where you pull out your hogleg.  

See product link here.

All-Star Western Disappoints Again with #7

All-Star Western has finally left Gotham City with issue #7, but things haven’t substantially improved.  Amadeus Arkham is still Jonah Hex’s sidekick.  The action has moved to New Orleans, which is not quite the west.  The new villains are a group of anti-immigrant terrorists in improbably steampunk outfits (with lots of leg, of course).  There are a couple of new additions, or reintroductions, in classic DC western heroes Gunhawk and Cinnamon.  DC is keeping All-Star Western firmly rooted in the Batman family by suggesting that Arkham got the idea for a masked vigilante running the rooftops of a city from these two, although I believe this may be the first time that Cinnamon ever wore a mask.  Jonah Hex’s characterization is still odd.  At one point he runs into a burning building to rescue victims of a bombing; even one of the side characters notes how out of character that is for Hex.

I’d like to blame the writers for fraking this series up so badly, but I don’t think this is their fault.  Palmiotti and Gray could not have suddenly collapsed this badly moving between the Jonah Hex series and All-Star Western.  They write the backup stories in each issue (this one featuring Gunhawk’s origin) and those are well written and engaging.  DC’s New 52 is doing a tough job of realigning 60+ years of comics into something new and marketable, and for some fool reason Jonah Hex got shoved into the Batman family as part of it.  DC would have done better returning Hex to the Vertigo line, which is where Tim Truman and Joe Lansdale did such great work on the character in the 1990’s.

Of course, hypocritically, I will keep buying it, because I get the feeling that the comics publishing world is looking at the sales of All-Star to gauge whether to let another western from a major publisher hit the shelves.  It’s a crappy way to do business, but it is what it is.

You and me both, sister!

Leggy Victorians and the Quandary of Steampunk Fashions

If one is an astute observer of history, particularly historical costume (which I confess to being), one notices that the key statement made by Victorian fashions is a complete rejection that any part of the body below the neckline exists.  Coverage is key, and although fashions are fitted, they are rarely close fitted.  The legendary Prince Albert piercing, for example, was said to exist solely to keep a man from spoiling the lines of his pants.  Women’s fashions, in particular, seemed to deny the existence of the leg.  To show one’s ankles was scandalous; American merchants on the Santa Fe Trail were shocked to find ankle length skirts on Mexican women, skirts that rose up to the calf while dancing.  The horror, the horror.  With that in mind, I always find it interesting that today’s steampunk fashions so clearly display the women’s legs.  We celebrate both the buttoned up Victorian fashions and a fetish approach to lingerie with seemingly no contradiction- quite a feat.

And with that, here are some leggy steampunks.  

Justice League of the Americas

Gearhearts Steampunk Glamour Revue

I keep telling myself that I am getting too old to buy crappy comic books just because of a well drawn woman on the cover.  None the less, I still toss comics with a pinup flavor on the stack once in a while.  This one was actually a lot of fun, since it had a strong wild west flair to its steampunk pinups.  I think it came out in 2011, but you can probably find it on a shelf somewhere.  Below are some images from Chase Sheridan, a star of the book, and steampunk bounty hunter cosplayer.  Enjoy.  

Steampunk Couture

Ah, steampunk, we love you so.  Check out this lovely lady’s shop at http://www.steampunkcouture.com.

Clockwork Chloe

“I ain’t much for shootin’ unarmed men, so if you got an iron, you better slap leather.”

A great line from a fun short story in the western steampunk vein called Clockwork Chloe.  The story is simply one night in the life of Bert Tillory, a man who has “slept with every woman west of the Pecos” and tells everyone he sees about the deeds.  Bert spends most of the story in a bar recounting his exploits, including the great love of his life, Clockwork Chloe.  With one metal arm, one metal leg, and lots of gears and sprockets, Chloe was the one great love of his hednonistic life.

There isn’t much of the story past this, as the entire thing is less than 3000 words long (by comparison, my average post is about 500 words).  It is fun and zippy, though, with the author clearly stating in his plot outline that the story is an homage (or is the term “shout out” nowadays?) to Spider Robinson's Callahan series. 

Perhaps best of all, Clockwork Chloe is free to download from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.  At no cost and taking only a few minute to read, Clockwork Chloe is well worth the brief investment of your time to check out.  The author, Ian Healy, has turned out a number of other books as well, including some westerns (with elves).  One more crazy author to add to the stack…

Steampunk 101

I have blogged a few times about Steampunk, Steampunkism, and Steampunk Girls, but I am not sure that I have ever defined what it is.  I’m not sure that this video from PBS does a good job explaining all of it, but it is fun.  Stay til the end for the flying pugs.