Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Steampunk Starter Guide: Top 5 Film and TV Series

Once tucked into a science fiction corner, steampunk has infiltrated the Southern California underground and nowhere was that more obvious than at last weekend's Gothla US, where belly dancers dressed as though they had stepped out of Aubrey Beardsley posters, musicians played with a neo-Victorian flair and merchants like Clockwork Couture dealt in goggles and clock-part jewelry.

"To me, it's like science is art," says Clockwork Couture's Mich Fisher of steampunk. "It's taking science and technology and adding imagination and creativity and sort of spinning it into something completely different."

What makes steampunk unusual against other burgeoning cultures is that it isn't based in music. Sure, there are a handful of associated bands-- like Abney Park (who plays thethe eve of World War I, in a world parallel to ours, alchemy is the leading school of scientific thought and the search for the Philosopher's Stone, the elusive object by which alchemists could create without repercussion, is at the root of society's ills. Edward and Alphonse Elric are the pre-teen sons of a famed alchemist who left them years ago. After their mother dies, they use the science in an attempt to resurrect her, but the experiment goes awry and Alphonse's soul is attached to a suit of armor while Edward loses an arm and a leg. The two then join the quest for the Philospher's Stone to restore their bodies. Hiromu Arakawa's immensely successful manga/anime franchise is as thought-provoking as it is action-packed, constantly asking the