Car Phones?

   Saw this and had to wonder, how many of our "modern wonders" are recycled from ideas that originated decades, even a century or more before.

  In this example, Car Phones...

 

 Imagine a world where all the modern niceties existed but in a much different world, an analog future in our past.

 

  How many other inventions were talked and experimented with that didn't take root until a century later? 

 

   A beautiful example of dieselpunk artwork;

 

  You start with an example of something that is the future, as seen in a different time when the future was seen as nothing but fantastic possibilities.

  The interwar period emerged from a war unlike any other and spent a few decades where anything was possible, steam power had given way to the petrol engine, ocean liners were competing with airships, and the future was closer than ever.

    This;

  Can become this;

  I've shown the second picture before, but the first one is where you can see the inspiration.

  Another avenue of inspiration is, well, not every invention that we take for modern convenience is exclusive to this century, but a hundred years ago we had something very familiar to the modern Waze or Garmin GPS, several decades before the first satellite was launched into space.

    Here's a closer look;

  It seems to have been as simple as road maps printed in scrolls very much like (some older readers may remember) the AAA Auto Club TripTik that the automotive traveler could have printed in convenient (far more than the gas station folded maps that used to be everywhere) little flip books to help them on vacation, or any long drives.

 

  You flipped pages up and could read little bits of trivia.

      By the end of the 20th century you could go to websites like Mapquest and print your own. 

    Then GPS units you could plug into your car's cigarette lighter, and finally the app you can install on your phone.

     The phone, of course, means you can use a smart phone's connection to your smart watch and...

 

        How cool is that?

 

 

D i e s e l p u n k

 

 

    In the realm of "Punk" fiction in all it's guises, In my humble opinion, I find the most immersion, the most creativity, and the most realistic suspension of disbelief in the worlds of Dieselpunk. 

    Science fiction has a pretty rigid set of rules by which we can all agree, things like artificial gravity, warp drive, and irritating things like sound in the vacuum of space or relativity, and this is concepts that compete against the storytelling device.

    But the scientific beliefs of the 20s and 30s were much more open to exploration, from psychic or paranormal phenomena, notables like Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini would attend seances, ideas that geomagnetic anomalies and ley lines and things like alternate dimensions that would give us the birth of a great many alternate theories that have not stood the test of time, but also many that did.

    On top of that, it was also the birth of Cosmic Horror that would influence so many of the writers that followed.

   A good example would be At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft, one of several authors who explored those alternate theories amongst Robert Howard (Conan) Robert Bloch (Psycho) as well as others, like Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) who would, with his Pellucidar series of books that ventured from airship to a hollow earth theory that still has fans today.

    For examples and a fantastic primer on it's siblings, Steampunk and Atompunk, I strongly recommend https://neverwasmag.com/ one of the better examples of the genre out there.

    Give them a visit, if you like these genres, they are very worth the visit.

    We all are familiar with Cyberpunk, from the Matrix to Ghost in the Shell, and all the stories that flow from that concept (thanks to William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Philip K. Dick, and the multitude of other brilliant writers who've explored these worlds)

    We are also familiar with the wealth of artwork, aesthetic beauty, and fiction that have grown out of Steampunk, which covers everything from Westerns (Wild Wild West to Brisco County Jr to Westworld) to Victorian tales from Sherlock Holmes to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and all the science based tales that emerged from the period from the late 19th century thru the early 20th century.

   Clothing and jewelry of the most amazing creativity and beauty and music as varied as Professor Elemental to Abney Park to a return to covers of Victorian era music like the compositions of Erik Satie.

  Bridging the gap between the Steampunk era to the Cyberpunk we have Dieselpunk.

 

 

  This is an age that blends the individual craftsmanship of early and unique motorcars from Duesenberg to Ford, clothing that anchors itself into the days where men wore suits, but with the wild exploits of flappers and vibrant nightlife with new inventions, scientific concepts from Darwin, romantic explorations of Egyptian Tombs and their curses, the cosmic horror of authors like H. P. Lovecraft in Pulp periodicals, books that would birth Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

    Add to the time,  these stories and characters are usually inhabitants of vast futuristic cityscapes as they would have been envisioned in those days a retro futuristic metropolis of every ailment and wonder as any modern city would promise.

 

   Jazz and Swing (brought back in examples like Postmodern Jukebox and Caravan Palace) created whole new genres in entertainment that would take the world by storm.

  Anchored in the Interwar Period between WW1, and WW2, we have a often overlooked era that can overlap both into Steampunk and forward into the Cyberpunk or Atompunk age, with examples that echo the same classic feel and hand crafted tactile artistry that feels rooted in both the Cassette Futurism of the Blade Runner films as much as they emulate both Film Noir and classic silent works like Metropolis.

 

  Stories with characters from Indiana Jones and Allan Quartermain to comic characters like Batman and the Art Deco inspired animated series that begins with searchlights shining down on a darkened Gotham from patrolling airships to Sandman and Hellboy.

 

  They can exist in a fantastic future past where flying cars stream between thousand foot tall skyscrapers or a muddy rainy alley that a battered detective pauses under a yellowed streetlamp to light a cigarette before getting a cup of coffee at the nearest Automat.

    Also;

   I plan give some examples with individual reviews in the future, from the artistically gorgeous films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (Delicatessen and City of Lost Children) to the HBO series and films of Philip Marlowe or the magical Cast a Deadly Spell to the Richard III updated to WW2 staring the amazing Ian McKellen, to properties like The Phantom, The Shadow, and The Rocketeer.

 

     In addition, I want to give more in depth reviews of Comics, Music, more focused tv series like Babylon Berlin, the HBO series Perry Mason, as well as older series like Boardwalk Empire along with others. the nearly forgotten TV Series, Tales of the Golden Monkey, and it's almost equally fun parallel in the animated Archer series, itself brilliant Season 9 Danger Island run (and probably the film noir inspired Dreamland the previous season)

    Stay Tuned.