As anyone who's hung out with me for more than a short while knows, I'm a long time Tori Amos fan. Well Tori's latest project Comic Book Tattoo is an intersection of two of our favorite worlds here at The Steampunk Workshop; music and comic books.

From the Amazon product description:

Over 80 of the best creators from every style and genre have contributed over 50 stories to this anthology featuring tales inspired by the songs of multi-platinum recording artist, Tori Amos! Featuring an introduction by Neil Gaiman and an extensive roster of talent, Comic Book Tattoo encapsulates the breadth, depth, and beauty of modern comics in this coffee table format book.

Oh I do hope the first Tori song I ever heard Spark is among them!  Oh and Happy Phantom and Sweat Dreams and and  .  .  .

Here's an interview with Tori From the folks over at Comic Book Resources :

The plan, or at least, what I had been calling a plan, pretty much had ended here: the three metal parts had been designed and cut, with great thanks to the water-jet friend.  They fit together, but really weren't a machine, yet- rough and already rusty, it was time to figure out how to make this thing go.

Under the jump is the full story. I generally don't like jumps, but I figure it would be best not to completely bump my boss off the front page of his own site.

(image: Espie eyes up the cam follower)

I'll say right now where my machine expertise lies: old, beated down, barely working things that I can fix or at least mutate into some other whirling, spinning thing. Bicycles, covered in grease, hacked apart and put back together. Old Volkswagens. Unidentifiable hunks of wires and gears. Ethereal computer magic-box art making? Not so much.

When it comes to 2D art, I seldom work in the computer. If at all, I work only in photoshop, which i am rather good at. But never illustrator.

So when I had this idea of using rapid prototyping machines to make MY machine, I was simultaneously excited and dreading the point where i would have to be working on the computer. Im a ink flinger, a grease monkey, a wrench head- not a mouse jockey. Or a tablet jockey, in this case.

(image: the completed cam follower, with the cam. They rust like this about 5 seconds out of the waterjet)

More behind the jump- go on, read it. Everyone is doing it.

I was commissioned this year by the Burning Man project to create a very special project: a beating, kinetic, heart for none other than The Man. Being on the build team for Mr. Splinters (El Hombre del Fuego, Dude Man, The Great False Idol) I was honored and wanted to create something very, very special. I'll be chronicling the build of the heart over the next few days.

After much debate, I settled on a design from KMODDL, a wonderful, smooth, cam-and-follower mecanism that reminded me of the beating heart of some giant.  Since KMODDL provides CAD drawings, I could easily take some of the parts into Adobe Illustrator to elaborate on and, you know, make purdy. If you can figure out which model I used, you get a prize.

Above is the first part I made- the cam.With the help from a friend with a schmancy super-secret shop, the part was cut of 1/2 inch steel plate (side note: scrounging around in the scrap section of Alco Metals is about as much fun as a gearhead like me can have. I got filthy!) using that most excelent of machines: an Omax water jet  cutter. It came out..dare i say it? Pretty dang sweet. I made two, because, well, why make one when you can make two at twice the price?

Tomorow: The cam follower, electronics,  troubleshooting

This book arrived in the post just as I was leaving for vacation so I was actually able to read it over a period of just 3 days - a rare thing for me!  Ms. Sedia draws a detailed picture of an ancient city ruled by a tripartite balance of power between the Mechanics, the Alchemists, and the Duke in concert with the ancient race of watcher Gargoyles.  Her style of prose is direct and sparse, yet she evokes sounds, smells and qualities of light that brought the city alive for me.

Mattie, the protagonist, is an Automaton, a clockwork artificial intelligence - for this is a world where mechanics and alchemy have advanced to the level of magic.  Mattie is recently emancipated from her Mechanic creator and is starting a new career as an Alchemist, a pursuit to which she is dedicated and at which she is very skilled. Yet she is not fully accepted even by her peers in the Alchemist's Guild.

Throughout the book Mattie seemed very familiar to me and after some contemplation I think I understand why.  Mattie's situation reminded me strongly of how women in engineering and IT were often treated at some of the more dysfunctional companies where I've worked. I suspect that many women pursuing careers in technology will feel an immediate kinship with Mattie!

But not all of the Mechanics are bad and not all of the Alchemists are wholly good.  This is neither a Utopian nor a Dystopian city, but it is a whopping good tale!

More from the same house I found the radios a couple of weeks ago!  Here we have a classic Heathkit Shortwave Receiver, A Heathkit SWR meter (used for measuring antenna efficiency on transmitters) an RCA RadioPhone transmitter and a Timex Sinclair 1500.  My first computer was a TS-1000, the 1500 is basically the same machine with a chiklet style keyboard.

I wonder what the story is here?  Likely its a little sad, someone is finally getting around to clearing out 'Dad's' old hobby junk.

For our next instalment of Jay Leno Wednesday here at the Steampunk Workshop we have Jay stepping us through the start-up procedure for a 1909 Stanley and then giving us a ride.  Well worth the watch if only for the part where Jay burns all of the hair off his forearms!  He handles the explosion like a true mad scientist!

At Comic-Con this year, Phil Foglio was kind enough to give me a copy of the newest Girl Genius book. I've been a fan of the series for a while, flitting in and out as my time and internet connection would allow. But with this book, I'm hooked!  The story here, though quite aways in, is engagingly written and easy to drop yourself into. The writing presents with witty humor, science, and gadgetry- which adds to the greater, more epic drama that I can't wait to see unfold.

The real clincher for me, though, is that to feed my now regular GG joneses, www.girlgenius.net updates three times a week (!) with the beautifully illustrated pages.

The incomparable fiction blog Voyages Extraordinaires has declared August Steampunk Month!

Voyages Extraordinaires is a weblog for people of intelligence and good breeding who enjoy Victorian-Edwardian Scientific Romances and Retro-Futurism, Victoriana and Neo-Victorianism, Voyages Extraordinaires and Imperialist Romances, Gothic Horror, Pulp Fiction, the Golden Ages of Hollywood and of Travel, silent and early films, points suprêmes and real life adventures into places exotic and historic.

Go have a look, you will be pleased to find a great wealth of stories, reviews, and history on Steampunk and related Genres!

I'm sure you'll all remember The James Gang from the New York Times style section piece on steampunk a while back.  In the article they talked about a high end Steampunk boutique in Manhattan.  Well, TJG Engineering may be ready to come out of 'stealth mode' as they now have a on of a kind proto-type brass plated iPhone for sale on eBay. 

I would love to know the process for achieving that lovely patina!