The Nerds of Color (NOC) recently interviewed writer Marjorie Liu on her Image Comics’ Monstress series. She talks about her inspirations and origins in creating the steampunk fantasy world of Monstress and working with artist Sana Takeda (X-23). Look for the Monstress #1 to drop on November 4, 2015 into comic book shops.
Image Comics: Monstress by Marjorie Liu
Steampunk Style
Over the years the science fiction genre Steampunk has exploded into books, comics and Steampunk conventions taking place around the country and now Titan Books with Steampunk Oriental Laboratory has put out an incredible magazine-style book on Steampunk fashion and gizmos. Steampunk Style: The Complete Illustrated Guide for Contraptors, Gizmologists and Primocogglers Everywhere! has everything a Steampunk wannabe wants.
The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock
James P. Blaylock is back with all new Langdon St. Ives adventure after a twenty-year absence. “The Aylesford Skull” takes us to Victorian England 1883 where scientist/explorer Langdon St. Ives and villain Dr. Ignacio Narbondo will face off again.
Langdon St. Ives is now living in Aylesford with his wife Alice and two kids – Eddie and Cleo, while unbeknownst to them, Dr. Ignacio Narbondo is setting his plans into motion by pirating a ship in nearby Egypt Bay and grave robbing in Aylesford. A mysterious man from the past appears to Langdon and finally tells him of Narbondo’s past and his plan to open a portal to the dead. The villain decides to kidnap Langdon’s son – 4 year old Eddie. The action begins as Langdon now races off to London to save his son and stop Narbondo’s portal to the dead from opening.
Interview with Author and Steampunk Pioneer James P. Blaylock
By now, most sci-fi and fantasy fans are familiar with the Steampunk genre, where works of fiction and art are placed in a world that features steam powered machinery and is often set in the time of Victorian-era England. In the last twenty years, we’re amazed to see how far and how creative “Steampunk culture” has pushed itself in various media, especially in literature, films, and fashion design. Though many recent fans could not even begin to explain how this genre had started out – how authors, screenwriters, and artists influenced by Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires and H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine created several whimsical and fantastic works in the 1960’s and 70’s. This then opened the door for three young authors, who were friends from the same college and were all mentored by the legendary novelist Philip K. Dick, to write their brand of Victoriana and eventually becoming, unbeknownst at the time, the pioneers of Steampunk.
Recently, we had the good fortune to have a chat with one of the pioneers, the talented James P. Blaylock, who is releasing a new Steampunk novel in his Langdon St. Ives/Narbondo series titled The Aylesford Skull published by Titan Books. It’s been twenty years since the last full novel in the series and we find out why it took that long for the book to be published, what sort of research goes into writing Victoriana, and his opinion on modern Steampunk culture.