Belgian steampunk group Artifakt is organising an easy-going picnic in Antwerp (Belgium) on International Steampunk Day to celebrate the occasion.
On Friday June 14 they’ll gather at noon in the old hall of Antwerp Central Station (the one exiting to the Meir and Zoo, where the ticket hall is). Latecomers please notify a member of the organisation.
If the weather is nice the plan is to go to the city’s park, if it’s not they’ll stay indoors at the far end of the station as there is enough room and no one will be bothered. Of course proper behaviour is necessary to make sure of this, this goes beyond saying!
To attend, please RSVP, which is possible by leaving a comment here or on the Artifakt blog post about the event.
Bring your own drinks and something edible to share with everyone (it doensn’t have to be expensive or fancy).
There is a dresscode, it is of course steampunk, but any and all steampunk fashion styles are allowed, even casual steampunk.
For a bigger view of the flyer, click here.
Lady Sabre wants you
Lady Sabre has battled hordes of goons, faced down destroyer zeppelins, fought giant mechanical monsters and soon it looks as though she’ll have another victory under her belt — a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Writer Greg Rucka and artist Rick Burchett started the campaign on May 6 to crowdfund a print collection of their webcomic, Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether. When the goal was met in the first eight hours, the creators were stunned.
“It’s overwhelming,” Rucka said. “Webcomics live or die on the basis of who reads the comics, on the community you can build. I don’t think we had any idea that the support for the comic would translate so tremendously to the Kickstarter. It’s humbling, and it’s wonderful, and it’s — honestly — a little frightening. I’ve run out of words for gratitude. Our best way to say thank you now is to deliver a book that everyone will be proud of, backers and creators alike. Honestly, I’m still in a daze about it all. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine this level of support.”
With half the campaign still to go, Rucka and Burchett aren’t resting on their laurels. They’ve since added additional stretch goals that will not only make the quality of the printed book better, but will provide new opportunities to expand the narrative through annotated process books, ephemera from the storyworld, and other creations yet to be revealed.
“There’s so much of the Lady Sabre world that we’ve never even seen, so much we’ve just hinted at, and if all goes to plan with this campaign, we’ll be able to pull back the veil a little further, share that much more,” Rucka said. read more…
I know, I know, summer, and even proper spring, is still far away in most places in Europe even though it _should_ be nice and warm around this time of year. But the persisting fall-like weather aside, I shall still review a distinctive summery item today: the all leather fan holder by Japanese steampunk creation duo Poorman’s Gold Label.
Because you know, this still comes in handy the occasional day we do get temperatures worth of the season.
The brand new twelve song release of French steampunk band Victor Sierra certainly does not disappoint and is without a shadow of a doubt a fabulous addition to steampunk music worldwide.
With their mix of rock, EBM, ethnic influences and multilingual vocals Victor Sierra delivers another great full album and prove once again that they are an original band and not just in the steampunk scene, but generally seen as well.
Even though the band is French they sing not only in the country’s language but also in German, English and Spanish, which adds for more detail and flavor to their musical storytelling without breaking the coherence in their style and album line-up of the songs.
Speaking of said line-up, the songs are thus organized that you could either play the album in the right order so to speak or set it on shuffle and regardless of which choice you make you will maintain a coherent total of songs that differ from one another, not only by the language of the lyrics but also of the tone, setting and core arrangements themselves.
The amount of attention for detail the band has for their work is astounding, and a tribute to their skill and professionalism.
Yesterday’s Tomorrow is a fantastic album that thanks to its diversity never bores and has all the makings of a timeless steampunk classic.
I look forward to seeing Victor Sierra perform the new songs live at D.E.S.C. 13 this summer.
