Steampunk Digest - September 16, 2022

Our weekly roundup of news and other happenings in the steampunk world

Staff Report

Friday, September 16, 2022

The Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention (WWWC) has announced the location for the 2023 event, and contrary to the hopes of many fans, it won’t be happening at Old Tucson Studios. Instead, it’s scheduled for March 9-13 at the Casino Del Sol resort in Tucson.

“This year we were excited to possibly return to Old Tucson Studios, and we did a lot of work to get back there,” the organizers revealed in a statement on the website and their Facebook page. “Unfortunately for a variety of reasons, we’re not going to be able to make it happen for 2023. While we would love to return there, it’s not in the cards right now.”

The good news? “Casino del Sol has more rooms to accommodate our attendees than we have ever had before, and it’s very walking-friendly,” they wrote. In addition, “the event space is large enough to accommodate an impressive number of vendors and panels.”

Old Tucson, a movie studio and theme park, was the convention’s home from 2011 through 2020. The venue was a major draw for the steampunk event, but closed in September 2020 due to issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, American Heritage Railways signed a deal with the Pima County government to operate the facility, and it’s now set to re-open in early October.

The WWWC organizers added that they’ll soon be announcing special guests and other details for the 2023 gathering. See the website and Facebook page for updates.

It’s not quite autumn yet, but the fall event season is in full swing this weekend with steampunk gatherings coast-to-coast in the U.S. plus happenings in Canada, England, Wales, Portugal, and Finland. With so many events, we don’t have room here to describe them in detail. So we’ll just list the basics and then refer you to a recently posted story with more info.

Amherstburg Uncommon Festival – Amherstburg, Ontario, Sept. 16-18

Cogwarts Steampunk Spectacular – Llangollen, Wales, UK, Sept. 16-18

Colfax Railroad Days – Colfax, California, Sept. 17-18

Festival Vapor: A Steampunk Circus – Entroncamento, Portugal, Sept. 16-18

Gosport Steampunk Festival – Gosport, UK, Sept. 17

Southern Maine Steampunk Fair – Kennebunk, Maine, Sept. 17

Steam Punk Festival – Thetford, UK, Sept. 17-18

Steampunk Rendezvous – Winthrop, Washington, Sept. 16-18

Steampunk Riverboat Cruise – Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Sept. 17

Tampere Steampunk Festival – Tampere, Finland, Sept. 16-18.

Victorian Sci-fi Weekend – Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 17-18

Read the full story: Weekend Preview: Amherstburg, Cogwarts, Gosport, and a River Cruise

Ann Skelly in The Nevers. Photo by HBO / Keith Bernstein

Each month, The Steampunk Explorer posts a guide to steampunk-related movies and TV series that are slated to arrive on major streaming services. But most of the top streamers offer other steampunk programming beyond the new arrivals. So we’re offering what we call our “ultimate” streaming guide, with a look at all the steampunk-related content on Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix, Prime Video, and other services.

In case you’re maxed out on the paid subscription services, we’ve also listed ad-supported streaming services that you can watch for free.

Read the full story: Our Ultimate Streaming Guide

If you’re a reader of The Steampunk Explorer, you’ve seen the work of Letterhead Fonts (LHF) even if you don’t realize it. The type foundry’s creations include Signmaker 2, the font we use in our logo, as well as fonts seen elsewhere on the site and in our new video series, The World of Steampunk. Now LHF is offering two deals, including one exclusively for our readers.

The first deal is for anyone who considers themselves to be a lover of good fonts. LHF founder Chuck Davis recently relaunched the company’s Facebook page, and now he has to build a new following from scratch.

So the first 2000 followers (verifiable humans, not bots) will receive a free, limited-edition copy of the new LHF French Quarter font. It will be numbered, digitally signed, and embedded with the follower’s name. You can see a sample of the font on the Facebook page. This is a great deal considering that LHF fonts typically cost $40 to $50.

And exclusively for readers of The Steampunk Explorer: You can purchase any font from the LHF website for 15 percent off by using the promo code “steampunk” during checkout. This deal is good through midnight Pacific time on Sept. 30. The deal does not apply if you’re purchasing a package that’s already discounted.

These are high-quality fonts for graphics professionals, and many are inspired by designs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They often come in multiple versions, with extended character sets, alternate characters, and variations that make it easier to create shadow and inlay effects.

The website groups fonts by style, including Art Nouveau, Circus, Old West, Railroad, Victorian, and Late 1800’s to Early 1900’s. LHF also has a collection inspired by the Sanborn Map Company. You can use the Typetester feature to see how specified text will look in a selected font.

In case you’re wondering, we’re not receiving any compensation for running this announcement. We pay the same prices for their fonts as anyone else. We’ve been a customer for years, and after the LHF Facebook page relaunched, we contacted Davis to see if he wanted us to spread the word about the LHF French Quarter Facebook promo. That’s when he offered the 15 percent discount for our readers.

John Longenbaugh of Battleground Productions informs us that his 2020 short film, Percy & Reggie and the Great Parisian Air Exposition, has been accepted into the New York Movie Festival and the Florence Film Festival in Italy. It will be screened at the Kraine Theater in Manhattan’s East Village and at Scuola di Cinema Immagina in Florence.

The film follows the misadventures of two upper-class bumblers who become involved in a feud between Captain Nemo and Robur the Conqueror.

Another Battleground production, Nightmoor Manor, has been accepted into the Phoenix FearCon horror film festival, which is scheduled for Oct. 15.

Phoenix FearCon is normally a full-fledged horror convention, but this year it’s been scaled down mostly to a film festival due to difficulties finding a venue. Ticketholders will also get access to a Saturday evening performance by musical guest Aurelio Voltaire at the Phoenix Center for the Arts.

Book News

Steampunk fantasy author Dana Fraedrich released Falcon’s Favor, Book 4 in her Broken Gears series. She describes it as a “queer, cozy mystery romance,” set in “an alt-steampunk world full of charming criminals, food cravings, and whimsy.”

The standalone novel tells the story of Falcon, “a young man recently cut off from his family’s funds, physically impaired from service injuries, and trying to do good within a broken system,” she writes. He “must learn to carve his own path and solve a robbery, with the help of his handsome new housemate.”

The new title is available in digital and paperback formats from Amazon and other booksellers. Learn more on the author’s website.

UK steampunk authors Paul Eccentric and Colin Edmonds will discuss their historical research methods during a talk on Thursday, Sept. 22 at The Chilterns Heritage Festival near London.

“The Steampunk genre may allow history to be altered, to a degree, but that doesn’t mean the setting; the language and the attitudes of the day should not be historically accurate,” states a description of the talk.

Eccentric is best known to steampunk fans as the author of The Periwinkle Perspective series, but he’s also a poet, singer, actor, and director. Edmonds is author of the Steam, Smoke and Mirrors series featuring three novels and two novellas.

The talk is scheduled for 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Aston Clinton Baptist Church in Aylesbury. See the website for more info.

Crowdfunding

Monitogo Studios LLC launched a Kickstarter campaign for Wandering Skies, an ambitious stop-motion animated “brickfilm” series set in a steampunk world. Produced and directed by Greg Tull, the series will tell the story of a single mother and her brilliant neurodivergent son in a world of floating islands. “Brickfilm” refers to animated films made with Lego bricks or similar materials.

Monitogo previously crowdfunded the brickfilms Bound and Atlas, but Tull writes that this is his largest project by far. He’s aiming to produce four seasons, each with at least 32 25-minute episodes. He estimates a minimum production budget of US$1.5 million per season.

Tull plans to use funds raised by the campaign to create a package to pitch to investors. The package will include approximately 7 minutes of the first episode plus promotional images and the Season 1 script.

Rewards include a download of the seven-minute video segment plus all of Season 1. Backers will get the short video even if the producers can’t obtain the full $1.5 million for the first season. It’s slated for delivery in August 2023.

The campaign launched on Sept. 13 and seeks US$15,000 by Oct. 23. Learn more on the Kickstarter page and the Monitogo Studios website.