Dark Void.

Dark Void has arrived. After having played it, I have to admit – I found the game very much lacking – and, from the looks of it, most of the video game playing world agrees.

Still, if you are like me – you didn’t necessarily pick up the game initially because the flying, shooting, or adventure elements sported the tightest controls, best enemy AI, or the most fluid elements. At least as far as I was concerned, Dark Void gave me the long-awaited opportunity to play a video game as one of my favorite Pulp heroes – the Rocketeer.

Fighter plane motorcycle sidecar

Some guy bolted part of a fighter plane fuselage to a WWII-era or -replica motorcycle. It is awesome. That is all.

The Red Star

Now that this semester’s educative perils are relieved, let us re-visit our diesel roots in The Red Star.  This comic is likely one of the strongest examples of where dieselpunk can take the imagination.

Cornebuse et Compagnie

I’ve stumbled across a great Flickr set showing a children’s book from 1945 about two brothers who were born in a sort of society centered around aviation. The text is in French, but the illustrations are the real draw, here. Quick warning: the depiction of some natives on one of the pages is not what I would call “culturally sensitive,” so don’t let the grass skirts, totem, and spears catch you unawares.

Rebuilding a 1938 Novachord keyboard

Phil Ciricco recently documented his restoration/rebuilding of a 1938 Novachord. The novachord is an early, polyphonic keyboard made by the same company that made its more famous cousin, the Hammond Organ. From his description, it was a long, difficult project, but you can hear how well it turned out from the audio samples at the bottom of the page. It makes an incredible range of sounds, some very warm, some rather dark, and others reminiscent of the soundtracks from early video games. (via).

Here is an example of what it sounds like,  overlaid onto footage of the 1939-1940 World’s Fair, where it was introduced.

Women in the Fight

Life put up some fantastic WWII pictures about the better half and their part in the war, and we can’t help but share them!

http://www.life.com/image/2628526/in-gallery/23030/wwii-women-in-the-fight

Which ones are your favorite?  I for one want a pair of those gunner’s sunglasses immediately.

Dieselpunk sightings: Arisia SF Con 2009

*Update: Improbcat is the photographer, not the person pictured below. Sorry for the confusion.

I just happened to stumble upon Flickr user Improbcat’s great dieselpunk outfit from this year’s Arisia convention and had to share it:

Improbcat at Arisia 2009

The hat, tie, headphones, and armband are excellent touches.

The contrasts are easy to see next to the steampunk costumes that are in other pictures from that set. While the crew of Steam Trek looks quite good in tassles, gold trim, and other such extravagances, the military look in dieselpunk style takes on cleaner lines, simpler uniforms, and modern neckties. This outfit cuts a very distinct 40s-era airforce or navy look with a few well-chosen accessories. It looks great as it is, but if someone else wants to try a variation on the theme: add medals, some more early electronic equipment, try a shirt with buttoned breast pockets, chevrons and other military insignia, boots, map cases and period backpacks, etc.

Improbcat: if you see this post, we’d love to see a few closeups of that armband, the equipment you have on your tie, and are those straps for a backpack? Let us know if you have any detail pictures in the comments.

A Brief Observation of 9

So I finally watched 9. I’ll admit, it disappointed. Not because I thought it was a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but because the film really failed to draw me into the world in a way that other animated films in the past have (I am looking squarely at you, ‘The Brave Little Toaster’).

only very minor spoilers ahead.

The Second Industrial Revolution

We shall take a closer look at some of the technological leaps that helped give birth to the Diesel age that we adore so.

Ye Not Guilty: Giant Fighting Robots & Diesel?

My previous post dug around the video-game realm, and in it, I tried to suggest that despite not nailing the aesthetic in the same way that games like Bioshock and the Wolfenstein series do, Final Fantasy VII had skirted the line into Dieselpunk with its depictions of technology and military power.[incidentally, for those of you interested in Bioshock or Wolfenstein, the Gatehouse discusses them both briefly but effectively here.]

Because I find myself so drawn to Dieselpunk as a result of its particular visual nature – something I think comes through very clearly in my posts thus far – I have some time discussing subjects which I believe help to flesh out that nature. Today, I am going to make an attempt at the same argument, but in a new medium.

The medium is Anime. The subject is the Big-O. And I would suppose I would be remiss if I didn’t begin properly: ‘It’s Showtime.’