Steampunk

"Imagine it... The Victorian Age accelerated. Starships and missiles fueled by coal and driven by steam. Leaving history devastated in its wake."

— The Doctor, Doctor Who, "Tooth and Claw"

What is Steampunk? It is a retro-style Speculative Fiction set in periods where steam power is king. Very often this will be in an Alternate Universe where the internal combustion engine never displaced the steam engine, and as a result, all manner of cool steam-driven technologies have emerged, ranging from Airships to submarines; the plausible counterpart to magitek, with a Hollywood Science Hand Wave or The Spark of Genius. Largely, steampunk runs on Rule of Cool, with some supposedly "steam-powered" technology being more advanced than modern electronics. Sometimes combined with the work of Charles Babbage on mechanical computers to produce a kind of retro cyberpunk set entirely in the Victorian era or a close analogue, with Dickensian exploitation. In essence, it's answering the question, "What if the future happened sooner?"

Steampunk may be a modern reflection of the 1930s–40s trope of The Gay '90s, an idealized version of the 1890s. While various works may be more chronologically specific, any time from around 1860, through to the 1910s, can be considered fair game. Think of The American Civil War and World War I as acceptable bookends: the former is when the technological revolution really started to take off, and the latter when it first started edging into Diesel Punk. (Some definitions set the start date earlier, though, perhaps as far back as the 1780s, when the Industrial Revolution first began to take off.) The term "steampunk" was coined by K. W. Jeter to describe the speculative fiction stories in a Victorian setting that he, Tim Powers, and James P. Blaylock were writing in the early 1980s in contrast to the cyberpunk stories like Neuromancer that were saturating media. Steampunk's modern incarnation may be considered a reaction to the popular dystopias of that time: the positive power of the imagination and subversion of the New Technology Is Evil trope are common steampunk themes, although recent steampunk is increasingly likely to deal with dystopian societies, sometimes even drawing upon the works of Charles Babbage to theorize humans with mechanical brains and other things rendering them cyberpunk in all but the backdrop and visual trappings.

Elements of steampunk that are set in the American frontier are usually referred to as "cattlepunk". Some writers and fans refer to the "shiny happy" version as "Victorian Fantasy", "Gaslamp Fantasy" or "Victorian Futurism". Supernatural or paranormal tropes are more frequently included in this approach, in which case the Encyclopedia of Fantasy favors "Gaslight Romance".

The more Victorian branch of steampunk sometimes also incorporates vaguely Lovecraftian elements, as shown here. Another good example of the Lovecraftian/antediluvian influence on steampunk would be the design of the Nautilus, Captain Nemo's submarine, in the film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Expect to also see a strong, visible Irish influence, in terms of such features as stained wood, brass, and American frontier-style blown glass oil lamps. You will occasionally encounter some minor overlap with the post-Victorian Art Deco movement as well, particularly in terms of typography. The Zeppelin or rigid airship could also be considered one of the major icons of steampunk, due to the major public enthusiasm for the craft pre-1937. While they were much more commonplace in the Diesel Punk era, the first airship flew in 1852, predating both the Lincoln Administration and radio- and yes, it was powered by a steam engine.

Jules Verne, the first Speculative Fiction writer, is the king of this trope. He and H. G. Wells are often mentioned as the foundation of a literary steampunk's reading list. For added style, however, knowledge of the New Thought movement can help, as can Spiritualism, as both of those were very popular among the Victorians, and very influential on their thinking. In addition to being a science fiction writer, Jules Verne was also a Naturalist. The steampunk Naturalist, as exemplified by Verne and others such as William Beebe, is one of steampunk's most important subtropes.

If instead of industrial era technology, the setting has pre-industrial technology, see Clock Punk, and if it includes internal combustion engines in place of steam, see Diesel Punk, though there can be crossover between them if used purely aesthetically. Solar Punk can be visually similar, as it often shares architectural similarities and may even use steam (although it would probably be generated by burning wood or from geothermal vents). However, it has a very different take on technology, seeing a brighter future made possible by innovation, craftsmanship and renewable energy. If the steampunk results from Applied Phlebotinum, see Phlebotinum-Induced Steampunk. Many examples of steampunk mix in a few mutated monsters (probably in homage to Charles Darwin living roughly in the era depicted), thereby bordering upon Bio Punk. If it assumes the truth of Victorian-era science, it may also become an example of All Theories Are True. Visual media (and the real life steampunk subculture) will never miss a chance to showcase some seriously Awesome Anachronistic Apparel, and for fanservice's sake a woman in a corset must be involved at some point.

As might be expected, steampunk fashion/costuming has a certain amount of overlap with the Gothic subculture, although the Goth look tends to be somewhat darker, and not as heavily focused on machinery as such.^note “Steampunk is what happens when goths discover brown.” — Jess Nevins Conversely, steampunk fashion tends to incorporate more practical elements, such as goggles, helmets and leather aprons. It should also be noted that steampunk is not rooted in the Punk subculture.

Of course, the differences in values between the Victorian era and the present are rarely mentioned, unless the work is emphasizing the "punk" side of things more than most of them do, or consciously attempting deconstruction. This leads to occasional criticisms that steampunks are glamorizing the racist, imperialist culture of the Victorian era — though some of them can and will argue with that.

However, any Victorian-era society which actually tried to create steampunk technology would soon find itself in stark trouble. Barring magical intervention, the power requirements necessary to make real-world versions of steampunk devices (or at least Victorian-era versions of 20th century technology) would be enormous, and would soon exhaust all available supplies of coal and wood. A real steampunk society would have to either immediately transform into a fully modern society (with oil, gas, and nuclear power driving devices made of modern, lighter materials) or would quickly become, in all probability, a technological dead end. With this said, the recent development of a number of designs of rocket stoves beginning in the 1980s, have demonstrated that a highly fuel efficient steam boiler may in fact not be quite so impractical after all, at least on a small scale. On this point, it is also worth mentioning that the average contemporary power station still runs primarily on large coal-fired steam turbines, and that nuclear power still actually involves running a steam turbine as well, but simply uses the heat from (ideally) contained nuclear reactions to generate steam, rather than a wood or coal-fed fire.

To a large extent, it seems that the fantasy genre is quickly moving away from traditional medieval Heroic Fantasy settings and more towards settings inspired by steampunk. Some modern fantasy authors even combine the two.

Compare Cyberpunk, which has some similarities with steampunk, Tesla Tech Timeline, the result of moving one step further up the industrial scale, past the steam and gears and into steel and electricity, and Raygun Gothic, the aesthetic of SF from the immediate post-steam era. Compare also Low Culture, High Tech, especially if the story takes place in a real-life historical period. Also compare Zeerust.

For a list of tropes common to steampunk, check out the Steampunk Index.

Oh, and gluing some gears on it doesn't make it steampunk. As far as hardware hacking or Makerism specifically are concerned (as opposed to the purely fictional stuff), the steampunk aesthetic exists on the basis of the idea that something looks good because it is good; i.e., a thing's image is an outgrowth of its (effective) fundamental design. This can be achieved in practice, by adhering to a proven engineering tradition, such as the UNIX design philosophy.

There is also a steampunk genre of music, an element of cosplay, and the intersection with the Maker movement as described above (with designers such as Jake von Slatt receiving some mainstream attention). The Other Wiki also has an article about steampunk as well.

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Example subpages:

• Literature
• Video Games
• Real Life

Other examples:

Advertising

• In this commercial for the California Lottery, a man is being asked about his dog just as he wins the Lotto. He and his dog transform into steampunks, and fly away in a hot air balloon airship.
  "His name... is Cornelius! And he invented long division!"
• In this commercial for Intel Ultrabook, a woman uses one of the laptops in a London Metro station. As she closes it and it converts to a tablet, the scene around her transforms into a Victorian train station and as a steam engine pulls into the station, a curious Victorian crowd gathers.
  Chimney Sweep: Is it powered by coal and steam?
  Woman: No... it's powered by Intel.
• This coffee commercial has a steampunk dirigible which launches pumpkin spice flavoring into a woman's coffee.
• In this Coca-Cola ad, a giant steam-driven steampunk machine creates a few ice cubes so an aristocrat can enjoy a glass of Coke.
• This commercial shows robots evolving - including a steam-driven T-Rex.
• This commercial from Italian liqueur maker Amaro Lucano plays whimsically with the steampunk trope. White tie party goers in 1894 engage in such modern pastimes as texting (with portable telegraph keys), selfies (with a folding plate camera on a selfie stick), and scratching (a DJ using two Victrola phonographs).

Anime & Manga

• The Case Study of Vanitas is a steampunk vampire fantasy set in nineteenth-century Paris.
• Although the tech is not the main focus of the series, D.Gray-Man happens to have a relatively good Science Division where everyone there operates by multiple flat screen television and massive steel plants. In the Victorian Era! And the chief of the Science Division creates enormous robots on a seemingly daily basis.
• A majority of Ergo Proxy is set around a wind machine called the 400 Rabbits.
• Fullmetal Alchemist combines steampunk and Diesel Punk and adds a healthy dose of Magitek.
• Last Exile is a mixture of this and Diesel Punk, with the Guild leaning more to Crystal Spires and Togas.
• A number of works by Mohiro Kitoh are steampunk, though with a greater emphasis on the "punk" aspect. These include the short story collection Wings of Vendemiaire and his currently-running series Futago no Teikoku.
• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is potentially the best known example in anime, being loosely inspired by Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Everything from the setting (1889 France), characters and costume designs, to oceanic travel aboard phlebotinum powered submarines, and Zeppelins from Another World, adheres to a 'Golden Age' aesthetic.
• In One Piece the Revolutionary Army seem to have a general Steampunk theme. They have steam ships, 19th century weapons, and British Navy-esque uniforms to counteract the more primitive pirates with their Devil Fruit abilities.
• Osamu Tezuka is one of the founders of modern steampunk, with works such as Metropolis in the 1950s and '60s.
• Princess Principal: With H. G. Wells Cavorite anti-gravity tech, pollution-filled London filled with factories, Dickensian poverty, and suave spy action, This is a Steampunk for The New '10s.
• The animated adaptations of the Sakura Taisen franchise are full of steam powered mechs, beautiful young girls, and cherry blossoms fighting against hordes of mechanized demons.
• Samurai 7 is a Feudal Future where giant steam-powered robots, spaceships (!), and Schizo Tech devices exist despite the majority of people living like Medieval peasants. The samurai have Charles Atlas Superpower abilities that put them roughly on par with Jedi and it all evens out.
• It's hard not draw comparisons between Secret of Cerulean Sand and The Secret of Blue Water, due to the sheer number of similarities, including the titles of both series. Likewise, each is based off a work of Jules Verne^note Secret of Cerulean Sand is loosely based on both "Facing the Flag" and "City in the Sahara" and has a pervasive steampunk aesthetic. The key differences being, that Cerulean Sand is set in London and the desert is presented as if it were an ocean.
• The version of Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Hound uses a variety of steam-powered contraptions. Some of them are fairly reasonable (a particularly large automobile, a steam-powered press for minting counterfeit coins), but others fall squarely into this (an airplane modeled on a Pterosaur or an amphibious paddle-boat with robotic arms).
• The feature-length anime Steamboy is required watching for any steampunk aficionado.
• Steam Detectives. Steam-powered cars, robots, etc, set against the backdrop of a city constantly fogged up; with villains using the dense clouds of steam as cover for their nefarious deeds. Machine Baron's motivation is collecting at least one of each kind of steam-powered robot. His episodes revolve around his attempts to steal the hero's Robot Buddy Goriki.
• Studio Ghibli films set in the future tend to have this aesthetic, although the 'punk' is often replaced or at least combined with environmental concerns. In particular, Hayao Miyazaki is incredibly fond of Zeppelins from Another World.
  • Castle in the Sky was a watershed for Japanese Steampunk, with the designs of the airships and the robot◊ becoming staples of the genre.
  • For other instances: The film based on Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (which tends to be more like Schizo Tech) and some bits of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea and Princess Mononoke.
• The Trigun anime has this sort of aesthetic mixed with Space Western. This is due to the fact it is a planet settled by human colonists despite the fact it's one big desert with minimal resources. As a result, it has a lot of Schizo Tech and people having reverted back to 19th century attitudes as well as dress despite all manner of supertech.

Board Games

• Forbidden Desert, a cooperative game based on the crew and passengers of a crashed airship trying to repair their ship and escape the title desert.

Comic Books

• 2000 AD:
  • The series Defoe and The Red Seas contain elements of this style, typically leaning towards the clockpunk variant, given the Restoration and Age of Piracy settings, respectively. Defoe actually include primitive automatons explicitly referred to as "Clock Punks", presumably in reference to the term.
  • The Nemesis the Warlock storyline "The Gothic Empire" featured a far-future empire which modeled its technology with a heavy steampunk aesthetic. We are introduced to a rebel faction known as the "Young Goths," who, inspired by mid-20th century television broadcasts, wish to remodel their culture along dieselpunk lines.
• Bryan Talbot wrote and drew The Adventures of Luther Arkwright in 1978, proving that steampunk is Older Than They Think. Also the sequel Heart of Empire, and a separate graphic novel called Grandville featuring a steampunk world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals.
• The Amazing Screw-On Head and its Animated Adaptation.
• Antarctic Press really went full throttle with this as a number of their comics in The New '10s focus on steampunk including Steam Wars, Steampunk Fairy Tales (which has included Cinderella, Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, the Snow Queen and a Lighter and Softer version of The Little Match Girl), and Steam Busters to name a few.
• Astro City: Dame Progress, an early twentieth century hero of Astro City, fights crime using a steam-powered flight harness and a steam-powered mecha.
• Atomic Robo has a steampunk brainwashed cyborg supersoldier, and more bizarrely a moving pyramid with steam powered robot mummies that is operated by a steam-based mechanical computer.
• The second part of El Eternauta, a long time classic Argentine comic, features Humongous Steam-Propelled Tanks made of timber. Quite cool and original, considering it was released in 1976.
• In February 2014, DC Comics released 20 books with steampunk alternate covers. Some of them are more steampunk than others. (The Green Lanterns in ruffs seem to be about 300 years out...)
• The Batman miniseries Gates of Gotham features the Architect, a Mad Bomber in steampunk Powered Armor. Red Robin even calls it "steam-punk-ish."
• There is a 1989 Alternate Universe comic of Batman, titled Gotham by Gaslight, in which the world's greatest detective has to do battle with Jack the Ripper. While it's mostly a straight period piece, the sequel is very steampunky, with dirigibles, automatons, and Death Rays.
  • Another DC Comics Elseworld, JLA: Age of Wonders imagines what might have happened if Nikola Tesla had worked with all DC's Omnidisciplinary Scientists: Barry Allen, Ted Knight, Ray Palmer ... and Lex Luthor.
• The 2000 Disney Ducks Comic Universe story "Outlanders" by Paul Halas has Scrooge McDuck and his relatives accidentally end up in a steampunk version of Duckburg. The local version of Gyro Gearloose has built a steam-powered mechanical calculator, and the city appears to have much more smog than regular Duckburg.
• The Five Fists of Science depicts Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla as action heroes... and gives Thomas Edison an Historical Villain Upgrade.
• Lady Mechanika is set in a steampunk version of England circa 1900. The heroine is steampunk cyborg detective.
• Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure is a Dynamite Comics Elseworld with steampunk versions of assorted Dynamite properties: Red Sonja, The Green Hornet, The Phantom, Vampirella, Captain Victory, Silver Star, The Six Million Dollar Man, Zorro and Flash Gordon. Dynamite followed this up with Battlestar Galactica 1880.
• In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992), the librarian comes up with the idea of building a hot air balloon to carry Link into Hyrule Castle. The balloon uses a ramshackle gadget to produce helium.
• The first two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (Later volumes are set in the 20th century). Lampshaded in volume IV which puts Mina in a comic strip parodying Minnie The Minx in which she's "leading a gang of Victorian literary characters against arch-fiends and martians while being mistaken for steampunk!".
• Marvel 1602 features Lord Iron, a steampunk version of Iron Man in an otherwise Clock Punk world. Because Tony is just that good.
• The title character of Neil Gaiman's Mr. Hero: The Newmatic Man is a steam-powered automaton from the Victorian era.
• Muse is set at the estate of Sir Vernère, a young boy who is a mysterious and eccentric inventor of steampunk contraptions.
• The Chris Bachalo drawn series Steampunk featuring a cyborg Action Girl version of Queen Victoria.
• Arcana Studios' Steampunk Originals anthology, and other titles in the Steampunk Originals imprint including The Steam Engines of Oz and John Henry: The Steam Age. The Steampunk Originals mission statement says "Goggles, gadgets, and gears: considering steampunk on those terms is no less absurd then imagining our reality populated solely by electricians, hackers, and astronauts".
• The origin of Alan Moore's science hero Tom Strong involves a steam-powered pneumatic automaton and a gravity chamber at the birth of the 20th Century.
• The Transformers comic miniseries Hearts of Steel was set in the 1800's with the giant robots turning into steampunk equivalents of their regular forms. It also had Mark Twain as a badass action hero who saves the town from a coal powered Ravage.

Cosplay

• The crews of the HMS Chronabelle, HMS Amaranth and MHS Hysteria (led by Captains Mouse, Vincent M. Dantes and Edward Von Arkham, respectively) are but three of the crews of dirigible aviators sailing the skies between their hometowns and conventions.
  • Also Captain Z and the crew of the Hatefish (a Nautilus-like submarine).
• The trope of the Airship Pirate has become so overwhelmingly prevalent and predictable that a group of fans rebelled against it by forming the Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron or IAPS, a delightfully intimidating group who entertain and educate about developing costumes and personae whenever they're not showing off flashy uniforms and shouting in pseudo-Austrian accents.
• Thomas Willeford's Brute Force Studios has made several successful forays into the realm of cosplay:
  • Perhaps the most famous is his robotic arm, worn by G. D. Falksen in an iconic photo and by Nathan Fillion in an episode of Castle.
  • Most recently, Willeford created a steampunk Iron Man suit, calling it "Iron Man 1889". It won top honors in the Marvel Cosplay contest at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con.

Fan Works

• In the NCIS fanfic Shards to a Whole, Tim and Abby decide to go with a steampunk-themed wedding. When Tim explains the concept to the others, Tony is initially less than impressed, since he thinks Wild Wild West is one of the worst movies made in the last twenty years. Tim gives the others a primer in steampunk aesthetic, using the Firefly episode "Shindig" as a visual aid.
• An Alternate Universe My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic, The Mare Who Once Lived On The Moon, takes place in such a place; the first four sentences are "Lacquered wood. Polished brass. Vented steam. These three things represented the pinnacle of the modern era, an era that shaped and defined Twilight Sparkle's library." Notably, in this fic, the canon magic is significantly nerfed; Twilight's still one of the most powerful unicorns around, in that she can exert as much force with magic as she can with her own four legs. Almost.
• See this blog for a very good steampunk rendition of Star Wars.
• There is an excellent "silent movie" parody of Star Trek — Steam Trek: The Moving Picture.
  In Space, No-one Can Hear You... At All!
• The Harry Potter fanfic Rebuilt takes place in an Alternate Universe steampunk setting.
• Captains Crash: ZigZagging with Launchpad's Curtiss JN-4, or "Jenny"; a steam-powered biplane. It flies — and in fact, there were real-world experiments into steam-powered aircraft from the 1840s till the 1960s — but it's noted that it's very inefficient in terms of its power-to-weight ratio, which is the reason why the technology never got anywhere on Earth. Launchpad himself notes that the "Jenny" is a result of him making do with the available technology on Equestria, with the implication that he hopes it'll serve as proof of product to get the funds to start pushing technology to recreate diesel engines.
• Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse: Dyna is a Fem Bot consisting of a Robot Girl head mounted on a body that can be best summarized as a steam-powered Spider Tank Mini-Mecha. Unusually, it's noted that the steam-powered body isn't her original body, it's a Super Wheelchair her head was installed into after her original body was destroyed, and it was done by a Mad Scientist who, brilliant as he was, didn't have any role in originally creating Dyna. It's implied that part of her reason for seeking out her lost home in the White-White Sea is to get a replacement body of her original design.

Films — Animated

• April and the Extraordinary World is set in an alternate world in which many of the world's best scientists have disappeared over the years, stalling the world's technological progress so by 1941 the world is still trapped in the Steam Age. The movie takes a more realistic view of a world still using steam power; a Crapsack World where, after the world's coal resources have been depleted, the French government has started strip-harvesting Europe's forests to provide power and is now preparing for war against North America to control the forests of Canada. The skies are perpetually gray and sooty, and black lung disease is implied to be fairly common.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire has some aspects of steampunk in the beginning, considering that in 1914, the characters travel to Atlantis in a submarine so technologically advanced (at least in design and features) that it hasn't been made 107 years on. Oh, and the giant drill truck. Then again, this is the film that contains flying fish-like craft powered by Power Crystals, so...
• The Boxtrolls features the rickety car driven by Snatcher and his men and the contraptions built by the titular boxtrolls. Not to mention the massive Spider Tank Snatcher operates in the finale.
• In Dragon Rider, the villainous dragon-like monster Nettlebrand is heavily steampunk-inspired.
• In The Great Mouse Detective, Ratigan uses a pedal-powered zeppelin and a robotic decoy of the mouse Queen Victoria in his Evil Plan.
• The Steam Engines of Oz is set 100 years after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Tin Man is now the ruler of the Emerald City and has turned the city into a steam powered Utopia, driven by the eponymous steam engines. Now he seeks to expand his rule over the rest of Oz, and wipe out magic and replace it with technology.
• Treasure Planet features a really interesting fusion of steampunk and cyberpunk, merging steampunk-style culture, aesthetics, and physics with cyberpunk-level technology.

Films — Live-Action

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is widely considered a Trope Codifier thanks to Harper Goff's stunning design for the Nautilus.
• Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet features a lot of steampunky gadgets and esthetics both on the side of the protagonists and the bad guys, given that it's an Affectionate Parody of turn-of-the-century pulp novels and penny dreadfuls.
• Doc Brown's time-locomotive at the end of Back to the Future Part III: "It runs on steam!". Another example earlier in the movie was his steam-powered refrigerator (which was big enough to take up a garage by itself).
• In The Brothers Grimm the brothers wear steampunk-esque uniforms and use steampunky scientific instruments which really don't do anything, as they are con men.
• In Casper, the mansion's secret laboratory. The rest of the film, sadly, doesn't have the attitude.
• Gentlemen Explorers is about two freelance explorers who are recruited by a secret government agency to retrieve a powerful artifact.
• Although it was released in 1965, 20 years before the term was coined, The Great Race — set in Edwardian times with an evil mad scientist and a multitude of wacky inventions — can also be considered a Trope Codifier.
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a steampunk story about a powerful wizard, his daughter, and the rogue he decides to punish.
• Invention for Destruction (Czech titleVynález zkázy) a.k.a. The Deadly Invention a.k.a. The Fabulous World of Jules Verne, a 1958 Czech masterpiece by Karel Zeman. Zeman's The Stolen Airship and On the Comet also qualify, and even his Baron Munchausen has elements of the trope.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially Captain Nemo's inventions. These include a automobile, submarine, and a bunch of anachronistic World War I weaponry.
• Master's post-Blaster attire in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome could be considered steampunk.
• Mutant Chronicles is firmly entrenched in the steampunk genre, though it forgoes zeppelins in favour of flying trains. It actually looks more plausible than it sounds.
• Mythica: Admiral Borlund Hess and her Sky Pirates have a steam-powered air ship and a "war wagon" (essentially a steam-powered automobile).
• The Geographer's Guild in Paddington (2014) with its pneumatic archive tube system.
• Poor Things has a fantastical Steampunk setting with strong Art Nouveau influences.
• The Prestige crosses over into this when Real Life "wizard" Nikola Tesla enters the story.
• The movie version of A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) shows the heroes encountering a number of Victorian-esque adventurers who have since settled into retirement — as well as gotten themselves marked for death by Count Olaf.
• Sherlock Holmes (2009) can be fairly safely placed in the (soft) steampunk category, what with the few somewhat unrealistic electricity-, steam- and clockwork-based technologies that show up for their sheer coolness, and the quite accurately dark and gritty vision of Victorian London. Its sequel also incorporates plenty of steampunk elements, as it deals with Moriarty's attempts to bring about World War I.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes features Holmes battling steampunk mechanical dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons, exploding female automatons and all kinds of general insanity.
• The second fantasy sequence in Sucker Punch takes place in a World War I inspired setting - where the girls must combat German soldiers that have been resurrected by steam punk technology. Blondie and Rocket also have steam punk themed costumes.
• Tai Chi Zero is a fictional retelling of how Tai-Chi first got taught to the outside world. The antagonist of the film wants to bring modern (19th century) ways to the village — including a giant steam-powered railway-laying machine. The sequel, Tai-Chi Hero, continues the tale.
• The Time Machine (1960) and The Time Machine (2002), especially the latter — its "star" has a Difference Engine under the readout dials.
• Van Helsing is set in the 1890s and features all sorts of steam punk gadgets used to fight monsters. Notably an automatic crossbow and switchblade stake are used to attack vampires. Frankenstein's monster is given a steam punk design in this, too.
• Wild Wild West is definitely steampunk, including a steam-powered giant mechanical spider.
• Young Einstein is a deliberately In Name Only biography of the original with him as a Tasmanian apple farmer who invents atomic-powered beer and dates Marie Curie.

Live-Action TV

• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. blended weird sci-fi elements with the Old West in the 1890s.
• Castle had an episode set in a steampunk-themed club, and Castle went all-out getting into the part. The episode in question is held up as one of the few mainstream shows who got steampunk right, and was the result of an open challenge after the... less than stellar use of it in NCIS:LA mentioned below.
• Doctor Who:
  • The TARDIS doing steampunk:
    • The wooden Victorian-style TARDIS console room used in Season 14 of the original show looks pretty steampunk nowadays as well.
    • The Eighth Doctor's ridiculously sexy new steampunk TARDIS interior from the 1996 TV movie.
    • The Eleventh Doctor's first console room has some steampunk nods.
  • "The Evil of the Daleks" has a definite steampunk feel. Or would have done, if the 1967 audience had known about steampunk.
  • "Tooth and Claw": The Doctor brings up the concept, without naming it, while talking about what the werewolf could do if it managed to gain power over the British Empire in 1879, suggesting that it would accelerate technological development and specifically mentioning steam-powered starships.
  • "The Girl in the Fireplace" has clockwork robots in Gorgeous Period Dress. Beautiful and Nightmare Fuel in one package.
  • "The Next Doctor" (set in 1851) has elements of this, including a hundred-foot high steampunk Cyber-King.
  • "A Christmas Carol" is set on a human colony world with a Victorian era aesthetic, resulting in the expected steampunk trappings.
  • "The Crimson Horror" is set in 1893 Yorkshire, and as a result the villain's technology is very steampunk-looking.
  • "Deep Breath", set in 1890s London, has steampunk clockwork cyborgs.
• The short-lived 2013 Dracula starring Johnathan Rhys Meyers played around with the concept. In this version, Dracula is a technical genius who is able to provide a renewable source of electricity which would replace oil as a source of power. The fallout from such a device is the driving force for the season along with Dracula's quest for revenge against the Order of the Dragon (that made him a vampire).
• Firefly, while not strictly steampunk, does contain a lot of steampunk themes (mixing 19th century aesthetics with sci-fi elements and storylines) as well as steampunk character types such as the Wrench Wench, and went a long way toward popularizing the genre.
• Fringe: The episode "Brown Betty" has steampunk and Schizo Tech designs throughout the episode. Although the episode was more Diesel Punk as a whole.
• Lantern City takes place in an entirely steampunk parallel world.
• Legend had a genius inventor character based on Nikola Tesla who created all manner of steampunk gear, but the world at large didn't have it.
• Murdoch Mysteries: James Pendrick is a brilliant inventor and an eccentric entrepreneur whose inventions have definitely Steam Punk aesthetics with lots of gold, brass and metallic surfaces embellished with clocks, gauges and measuring instruments. The inventions include an electric carriage, a proto-aeroplane, a gliding suit, a rocket intended to reach outside the atmosphere (carrying a man no less) or a hyper-train called the Pendrick FLASH (FLASH being an acronym for Frictionless Levitated Accelerated Subsurface Hyper-train).
• Musica Piccolyno is an NHK music show short-format series for children and features the adventures of the crew on a steampunk airship travelling a strange world with steampunk hybrid life-forms. Each episode will have the crew introduce and play a song as well as give information about its significance.
• The Nevers: Penance Adair invents machines and gadgets that have steampunk design esthetics.
• NCIS: Los Angeles: In one episode, Abby goes to a "steampunk bar". But the steampunks are really just goths wearing brown, they all act rude like punks are expected to act and their vocabulary is laced with words borrowed from Harry Potter.
• The short-lived (six episodes) series QED showed an American inventor, played by Sam Waterston, coming to Edwardian Great Britain and having adventures there.
• Revolution: The Georgia Federation has reverted to this full-stop, converting buses and agricultural machinery to steam power in response to the loss of electricity. Miles notes that their standard of living is substantially higher than that of the Monroe Republic at least partly as a result ("The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia").
• The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne is a steampunk series on the Sci-Fi Channel set in the Victorian era.
• Stargate Atlantis:
  • In one episode, Col. Sheppard and Dr. McKay have been playing an RTS game they had found on the station, where they each built up and controlled neighboring countries. At least, they thought it was a game, until they finds a planet with countries built up exactly like they had specified. Dr. McKay's country is fully steampunk, with leather and brass, goggles, steam power and dirigibles.
  • While this is probably the only episode to invoke the trope intentionally, many other planets of the week in both Atlantis and Stargate SG-1 have cultures that are clearly at an 1890s level, from tech to fashion, though it bears little, if any, relevance to the plot. Many establishing shots of smoke-filled cities with skies full of airships, science labs full of brass tubing and smoked glass. The show's artists/costumers, at least, were clearly fans of the genre.
• Tin Man, a re-interpretation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, has a distinct steampunk feel to at least the architecture and machinery, with just a tiny bit of cyberpunk thrown in for higher tech purposes. Appropriate to the setting. See "Literature." The Oz books were loaded with steam-tech.
• Torchwood: Captain Jack, captured by Torchwood agents in the 19th century, is interrogated by means of a Patent Electric Torture Device, with the inventors' faces on the lid.
• Warehouse 13 plays with this, especially in terms of aesthetics, although it's a bit closer to Diesel Punk in terms of the artifacts being handled (like the Farnsworth). The field agents, however, use fairly standard modern tech aside from the aforementioned Farnsworths^note untraceable wireless video phones with brass casing, black-and-white only though and Tesla guns. Although when Helena is a field agent, she prefers her own steampunk equipment.
• The Wild Wild West is one of the earliest examples of steampunk on television. Practically every other episode featured a mad scientist outfitted with Verne-style tech.

Music

• The band Abney Park's whole image is based on steampunk, more now than it used to be. Worth noting that part of their image involves their own Cool Airship. They are drunk airship pirates, after all.
• Thomas Dolby exemplifies this trope and has since the early 80's.
• Doctor Steel plays rather heavily into the Mad Scientist end of the genre and was perhaps the first to bring Hip-Hop into steampunk music.
• Unextraordinary Gentlemen crossed over from Goth, and still skirt the line rather heavily, playing to steampunk's dark side.
• The Clockwork Quartet (Also found here) are entirely based around steampunk, have a steampunk synthesizer, dress in steampunk clothing, and one member has a business on the side selling little clockwork devices.
• The band The Cog Is Dead thrives on being mercilessly steampunk.
• Fate Gear is a Japanese band who bill themselves as the all-female steampunk metal band and they show the aesthetic in their costuming and occasionally in the location of the videos they shoot at such as at an airplane museum or atop a decomissioned warship.
• The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing have a very intentionally steampunk aesthetic, emphasis on the "punk". Their influences (as listed on their myspace) are "exploding boilers, Bethlehem Royal Hospital and her hilarious inmates, working class revolutionaries, [and] mad bombers with ink-stained cuffs." They even released a wax cylinder edition of some of their songs. The first wax cylinder recording made since 1922.
• Voltaire has crossed over from Goth to steampunk (but is still pretty Goth).
• Panic! at the Disco's third album, Vices & Virtues, seems to be vaguely influenced by steampunk, which is most clearly exemplified in their music video for "The Ballad of Mona Lisa".
• Professor Elemental and Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer represent a new genre of steampunk music called Chap Hop.
• Steam Powered Giraffe perform as steam-driven robots.
• Rush's latest tour is heavily steampunk-influenced.
• The video for "Turn Me On" by David Guetta featuring Nicki Minaj. Minaj as a clockwork robot in a corset and Guetta as her brass-goggles-wearing creator.
• Ladies and gentlemen, The Dolls of New Albion A Steampunk Opera. It can be listened to here.
• And there's this song, complaining about misuse of the term: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA
  • "Just glue some gears on it, and call it steampunk."
• The Incredible Machine by Sugarland. The title track was steampunk-inspired, as was the corresponding tour.
• German band Drachenflug has heavy steampunk and Fantasy influences in their work and style. Also, they're the organizers of Germany's biggest steampunk convention "Aethercircus".
• Lindsey Stirling incorporated a steampunk aesthetic in her video for "Roundtable Rival", including goggles, late 19th century fashions and an electric violin fitted with a trumpet bell.

Pinball

• Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey is one big love letter to steampunk and Jules Verne, with Professor Steam and his player-assistant building various steam-powered Contraptions to stop the evil General Yagov.
• As is Tesla, as the whole thing is made to look like what a modern-style pinball machine might have looked like if Nikola Tesla built one.

Podcast

• Has popped up on a few occasions on Twilight Histories:
  • “Roma Islamica” shows early signs of steampunk technology, such as steam powered lifts and carts.
  • While primarily dieselpunk, “True Aztec” shows some slight elements, such as Kaisa’s steam-powered prosthetic leg.
  • Thanks to your inventions (steamboats, gas lamps, single-shot riffles, ect), Greece in “The Winged Victory” can be considered this.
• Kingmaker, a fantasy audio drama set in an Alternate History Edwardian Era, describes itself as "steampunk, emphasis on punk".

Professional Wrestling

• Becky Lynch has an outfit and entrance that is very inspired by steam punk. She wears a pair of goggles as accessories, and a blast of steam comes up from the entrance aisle when her music plays.

Tabletop Games

• The Iron Kingdoms RPG published by Privateer Press is a fusion of steampunk and fantasy. It was originally a setting for Dungeons & Dragons 3.0/3.5 edition, before getting its own d6-based system in 2012.
  • Also by Privateer Press, the tabletop wargame WARMACHINE is set in the same world as Iron Kingdoms, and stars 12 foot tall steampunk robots.
• The Role-Playing Game Space 1889 (Space: 1889), as well as the even obscurer licensed audio dramas based on it.
• The Role-Playing Game game Mutant Chronicles (along with its tie-ins, collectible card game Doom Trooper, battle game War Zone and the 2008 feature film), although it takes place somewhere in the XXVIIIth century, is actually steampunk, as the Mutants and Dark Symmetry (a kind of evil power field) rendered all electronic devices unreliable and therefore practically unusable, so humanity was forced to rely on steam-powered ones. This was averted in later editions of War Zone, where the universe turned more to Diesel Punk and Cybertronic remained straight cyberpunk.
• Warhammer's Dwarves and Chaos Dwarves have loads of steampunk contraptions, including a chopper and for one character, body armour which helps him move. The Empire also has a steam-powered tank.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar continues the trend. The Kharadron Overlords, an entire faction of Sky Pirate dwarves with enormous fleets of Magitek dirigible skyships and entire flying cities, are some of the most Steampunk-stuffed creations you will ever find.
• The Alchemical Exalted are heroes of a clockwork world who are implanted with steam (and other weird materials) powered devices that make them more effective as hero figures.
• The D20 roleplaying game Etherscope is set in a Victorian, steampunk world complete with the usual paraphernalia. The main difference being the existence of the titular 'etherscope' which allows for the creation of computer-like mechanisms, amongst other things...
• While Dungeons & Dragons is generally a High Fantasy RPG, Gnomes tend to border on, or full-out jump into, steampunk.
  • The Spelljammer setting in particular uses this, where Gnomes even have "rocket ships."
  • In the Mystara setting, they've got biplanes.
  • 3.5 even features several Prestige Classes made for Gnomes which feature them as steampunk or Clockpunk mad scientists.
  • Eberron invokes this trope, along with Magitek, but is more magic-based technology than steampunk. Actual technology is rare and often not worth it, due to magic being so readily available and easy to learn.
  • Some of the more advanced realms in Ravenloft feature steampunk elements.
  • None does more in this regard than DragonMech, which incorporates After the End and Alien Invasion elements with its steam-driven Humongous Mecha and Steamborgs
• GURPS 3rd Edition had a Steampunk sourcebook, which included various steampunk devices, details of Victoriana, and contained three steampunk settings: Etheria (Planetary Romance); Eisen ("conventional" dystopian steampunk) and Qabala (a weird variant, essentially "Golempunk"). This was followed by Steam-Tech, with further gadgets including an automaton detective (which was not intended to resemble Mr Holmes of Baker Street in any way); there was also Screampunk, meant to mix steampunk and horror, and GURPS Castle Falkenstein, adapting the RPG below to GURPS rules. The 4th edition of the game has a developing line of PDF Steampunk sourcebooks which not only provide 4th edition game mechanics for material from the older books, but bring the game's treatment of the genre more into line with 21st century fashion-driven steampunk. It also added more steampunk settings, all of them, like the previous ones, interconnected through the Infinite Worlds meta-setting: Britannica-5 (British Empire Alternate History Wank where they mastered zero-point energy, thoroughly infiltrated by Centrum) and Tripod (the aftermath of the Martian invasion of Earth, introduced in GURPS Horror so you know terrible things are afoot). In GURPS Tech Level terms, steampunk is often considered TL5+1, TL5+2, or TL6+1 — that is, as far advanced as TL6 or TL7, but different.
• The Mage Knight "Black Powder Rebels" faction was highly steampunk, including steam golems and a steam tank.
• A Polish RPG now released in English, Wolsung: Steam Pulp Fantasy, is more Steam than Punk, and the authors themselves call it Victorian Fantasy. The setting is something similar to our world on the brink of the XXth century, but filtered through pulp fiction from the time, with a little bit of classic fantasy and lots of pop culture inspirations.
• Airship Pirates is an RPG based on the songs of Abney Park (see Music), with all the steampunkery that implies — indeed, the world it describes is arguably even more steampunk than the songs, since the band describe themselves as "the only Airship Pirates" which the game understandably... changes.
• Unhallowed Metropolis is set in the 22nd century, after a Zombie Apocalypse wiped out human civilization around 1900. Humanity has finally regained control of a few areas, and is going back to the last golden age of civilization, resulting in a "Neo-Victorian" culture with many elements of this.
• The French Ecryme RPG is set in an alien world with strong Victorian-era aesthetics and classical steampunk technology.
• Castle Falkenstein is a mishmash of Steampunk and Gaslamp Fantasy; whilst there's plenty of Steampunk style technology around, it's implied it may actually be Magic Powered Pseudo Science, and equally (if not more) prominent are the presence of arcane spellcasters, dragons, and all manner of The Fair Folk.
• Victoriana, an Alternate History RPG set near the mid-XIX century, has a definite steampunk element to it.
• Deadlands is essentially a Cattle Punk Weird West hybrid. It handwaves the typical technological limitation of steampunk technology by introduction of 'ghostrock', a kind of coal imbued with spiritual force that can give off tremendous amounts of energy and has other properties very useful to any Mad Scientist — it burns hotter and longer than coal, metal forged in a fire made of the stuff is far lighter and stronger than it should be, etc. Also, Manitous (evil spirits) whisper ideas for technology literally stolen from the future into the minds of Mad Scientists, who then attempt to recreate their visions with the technology they have available.
• In Genius: The Transgression steampunk is the latest fashion fad among mad scientists. Humorously the actual Victorian mad scientists didn't create much in the steampunk style but many of them did use Baroque styles based on idealized 17th century fashions (which was also not actually used by 17th century mad scientists).
• From Ravnica, in Magic: The Gathering, the Izzet often invoke this aesthetic, but what they do is pure Magitek of a Dungeon Punk "industrialized magic" variety.
• In Mage: The Ascension the Sons of Ether, the Magick tradition who tend the sphere of matter, have a largely steampunk aesthetic mixed with Raygun Gothic.
• One of the precursor races in The Splinter designed technology to run on steam because they just enjoyed the aesthetic. Because of this, steam punk settings and tech can often be found in The Realm.
• Dystopian Wars which features steam powered tanks, massive airships, huge landships, and Humongous Mecha.
• The FATE Jadepunk setting is Wuxia-toned steampunk that closely resembles the Asian-inspired Diesel Punk of The Legend of Korra, only minus the diesel. The book makes it clear several times that the core idea the writers worked to was to play up the 'punk' side and have the PC's go out to fight the corrupt authorities of Kausao City.
• Tephra is a customizable steampunk RPG created by Cracked Monocle. Set in a unique world populated by elves, satyrs, and gnomes, it utilizes a single twelve-sided die.

Theatre

• Wicked: The Musical has the Clock of the Time Dragon, which is part steampunk and part Clock Punk; the Japanese version cranked it up to ten on the steampunk scale.
• The Mrs. Hawking play series, in as much as it is more fantastical than your straight-up Victorian historical fiction. Mrs. Hawking's abilities are somewhat exaggerated beyond what a real human would be able to do, perhaps to the point of superheroism.

Theme Parks

• Following the 198-something revamp of Disneyland California, Tomorrowland was whole-heartedly turned into this, described as something "straight out of Jules Verne's works." Walt Disney World's Tomorrowland followed suit in the early '90s.
  • Discoveryland, the Disneyland Paris equivalent of Tomorrowland, was designed with the premise that the land is what Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and their contemporaries thought the future would look like.
  • Tokyo DisneySea has a VERY steampunk section known as the Mysterious Island, also based on the works of Jules Verne.
• Alton Towers, a popular English theme park, has lots of steampunk influences, mainly focusing on the theme of Victorian travel and discovery. One in-park hotel is steampunk themed, complete with a giant airship and pith-hated gent in the lobby, and one of the park monorails is painted to appear as a locomotive carriage, full of exotic contraptions and the like.
• At Universal Orlando:
  • The CityWalk restaurant, Toothsome Chocolate Emporium is more-or-less a steampunk goldmine, being themed as a 19th century chocolate factory that carries a very Jules Verne-style to it.
  • Fans of Halloween Horror Nights nerdgasmed when they discovered that one of the scarezones in 2010 was Saws n' Steam; fissures opening in the ground cause the oceans to dry up, forcing the homicidal citizens of New Yorkshire to take up steam-powered chainsaws and carve up passerby to extract the water from their bodies. The zone notably features a MASSIVE amount of fog in a small alley, as well as chainsaw-wielding maniacs with goggles and leather on each end and a stage with a steampunk police officer monologuing about how they plan on rebuilding their city; one section of the stage has a tank full of body parts that occasionally fires streams of water at the crowd. Said scarezone was so popular that the next year, a haunted house tie in was made. Saws n' Steam: Into The Machine actually brings the audience into one of the processing plants, though most of the steampunk design was lost in favor of a more traditional Industrial Revolution aesthetic (except for the facade and costumes).
  • Also from Horror Nights was a scarezone in 2015 called Scary Tales - Screampunk, which featured twisted fairy tales in a steampunk setting.
• Parc Astérix in France has L'Oxygenarium. Its backstory is that an inventor named Ferdinand de Teffélé has created in 1900 a machine to purify air.
• Le Mega Parc, the indoor theme park of the Quebec City’s mall center Les Gallerie De La Capitale, have revamped himself as a steampunk themed park with a huge industrial warehouse vibe.
• Lost Island Theme Park in Iowa has the Udara realm, a colony of inventors that once lived on a Floating Island above the rest of the island that build all manner of flying contraptions in an effort to redevelop their technology and return to the skies full time. Gear motifs are present on a couple of the flat rides and the pavement is littered with gears from failed experiments.

Toys

• Monster High has Robecca Steam, a robot daughter of a mad scientist. Her fashion style is somewhat outdated, but because it evokes steampunk aesthetics, it is quite chic.
• Mixels has the Klinkers, a tribe of mechanical-based Mixels. They're old-fashioned and out of date, yet claimed to be "captains of industry" back in their heyday. Their figures use the gear pieces very heavily.

Visual Novels

• Engine Machines from Shikkoku no Sharnoth are some weird form of technology that has granted Victorian England technology on par or superior to our own in many ways, especially militarily.
• Code:Realize takes place in an alternate Victorian era in which steam technology has significantly advanced due to the invention of the "NeoSteam engine," which greatly improves upon the power and efficiency of steam engines.
• Detective Hank and the Golden Sneeze has a couple of very steampunky moments, including a steampunk... mobile phone.

Webcomics

• During the final arc of Casey and Andy, the titular duo are back in the time of Grover Cleveland and lacking their usual gadgets to work with for their upcoming plan. When Jenn points out anything they make with the current supplies would technically fall under this, they perk up and get right to it.
• Annyseed: Welcome to the delightful home of professor Tripadiculous! Page 49 - 64. Also, Count Tarrorviene's blood machine in other pages.
• Black Rose, mixed with Dark Fantasy with the main conflict being an corrupt, industrialized steampunk society versus a more rural territory where magic remains a dominant power.
• Girl Genius — though its creators would rather you call it "Gaslamp Fantasy", as it has as much "luminiferous aether" and "elan vital" as it does steam, and the closest thing it has to "punks" are those gooftastic Jaegermonsters. What it does have is Mad Science. Which rules the world. Badly. From there, the rule is anything goes, as long as some geeky Mad Scientist might possibly consider it Cool, Funny, or awesome enough. Seen to date are elaborate clockwork robots, Humongous Mecha, Zeppelins from Another World, Frankenstein Monsters, Time Travel, and hand-held Death Rays.
• Sfeer Theory takes place in a Victorian-ish era culture where scientists study the workings of sfeer theory in imperially funded universities. As of yet we haven't seen a lot of steam power itself, but other tropes are present, most notable Awesome Anachronistic Apparel. And unlike other steampunk stories, this series will delve into at least some Values Dissonance in the plot.
• The Continentals: A steampunk murder, mystery, scifi adventure webcomic set in post Jack the Ripper England where Continental Operative Jeffrey Tiffen Smythe and his gender bending partner the adventress Lady Fiona Fiziwigg investigating a series of brutal "mangling" murders uncovers a tangled web of intrigue, adventure—And murder!
• Broken Space features cars, starships, and buildings powered by equal parts steampunk boilers, Clock Punk gears, and Magitek glyphs.
• The titular Freakangels rely a lot on steam and Clock Punk devices in their post-apocalyptic London. Why coal is easier to locate than gasoline hasn't been explained yet.
  • Britain isn't known for its oil reserves but has plenty of peat and coal.
• The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is set in an alternate universe where Real Life programming pioneers Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage successfully created the computer in Victorian Britain.
• In Jayden and Crusader the character Sir Reginald Derby is a mad scientist of Steam Engines and claims to have a Steam powered time machine.
  • Sir Reginald recently appeared piloting an apparently steam powered walking tank.
• The Becoming takes place in a world that relies on steampunk technology and it’s citizens generally dress in a Victorian fashion.
• The alternate versions / identical ancestors/whatever of the Narbonic characters in The Astonishing Adventures of Helen Narbon & Co. are in a steampunk setting.
• Apparently, in the world of Adventurers!, everything is powered by steam. Ardam wonders if electricity wouldn't be better.
• steampunk Soiree, as the name suggests, contains obvious references to steampunk in character costuming, the types of technology used, and the overarching Victorian setting.
• Word of God has said that the sqids, Sam Starfall's race in Freefall, are like this, using zeppelins and exoskeletons similar to the tripods of The War of the Worlds Martians.
• Clockwork: So far, the comic seems to take place in a post-industrial era with steampunk technology. There are airships—Arcadia's main military advantage over Mercia—as well as various mechs and smaller craft.

• One of the main characters of Shadowbinders alternates between our world and a steampunk world.
  • Where she ends up on a Cool Ship, that can fly thanks to a magic ring that refuses to leave her finger
• Unearth which comes across as a mix of Jules Verne and Jane Austen.
• Boston Metaphysical Society: Scientists Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Granville T. Woods and magician Harry Houdini team up to fight mysterious spiritual forces in 19th century Boston.
• Sleepless Domain: A former Magical Girl named Steampunk Princess is referenced at one point, who had retired at some point before the story began. What her powers might have been is unknown, but it's mentioned that she previously made a prosthetic arm for Mingxing.
• Steamgear Inc, a steampunk action comic. Everything in the world is steampunk themed - from the "phones" (which are wireless telegraphs) to the weapons (Terry's steam-powered propeller-katana) to the fashion (Ax's Victorian-styled outfit).

Web Original

• The Ernest Glitch Chronicles (unholy crossbreed with Crypto History). First is about an overclocked horse, second is "Victorian Nitrogen Laser", and so on.
• The League of S.T.E.A.M., a fantastic steampunk comedy troupe. In addition to their live performances, they have a little collection of videos on their YouTube channel — including steampunk Ghostbusters parodies.
• In the Chaos Timeline, Germany invents and deploys steam-driven tanks in this timeline's World War I. And wins.
• Tink and Clara of The Guild find a steampunk booth at their game convention. Tink dismisses it as "Euro trash for nerds."
• Statless and Tactless takes place in a steampunk setting apparently advanced enough to support cars and giant robots.
• The Rise of the Steam Soul from The Wanderer's Library plays it for horror.
• Arms Race: Escalation^note starting at the original Arms Race 5-minute short features an alternate version of the Crimean War, fought with steam-driven Humongous Mecha and automatic firearms-including a man-portable, steam-powered minigun.
• While not strictly steampunk, Agamemnon Tiberius Vacuum is a goggle-wearing mad scientist popular in steampunk circles.
• In October 2013; TV Tropes briefly changed its logo to a holiday logo featuring old fashioned lettering and a steampunk jack-o-lantern◊.
• Homestar Runner did a decidedly skewed "old-timey" version of their characters in The Ballad of the Sneak (sung by da Vinci's Notebook).
• The animation Invention of Love is a short story set in a steampunk world.
• Dirigible Days is wholly set in a steampunk Alternate Universe.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Mark Twain, in which the titular Twain attempts to chase Halley's Comet through outer space in a steampunk airship. Then it gets weird.
• Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears is filled with steampunk style mechanical oddities such as airships, submarines, massive wind and water generators and the venerable quick car. All of these machines are operated without electricity.
• The villain Mechanicles' shtick in Aladdin: The Series. Improbable-to-impossible mechanical creations of all shapes and sizes. However, they are usually Clock Punk rather than steam-based. Brownie points for earning a mention on the Clock King page. His plans are often just as elaborate as his machines, and they rely almost entirely on things running according to schedule.
• Arcane: The general aesthetics and technology level of the series, with Hextech as the setting's take on Magitek. Fashions are reminiscent of those from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Airships are a common mode of transport, cars are primitive, and personal weapons are usually knives or fairly standard (if cool-looking) firearms. Most tech is purely mechanical and analog, with electronics existing as a rarity at best.
• Avatar:
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Fire Nation boasts Industrial-Age innovations, such as trains and tanks powered by coal, steam, and firebending. Most of these were commissioned by extorting an expatriate Earth Kingdom inventor and leader of refugee group in now converted Northern Air Temple, the Mechanist, who dwells within a sanctuary maintained by steam-operated mechanisms and whose prize invention is a large, sophisticated steam-powered telescope. This is unsurprising, since Ghibli's works were one of the things that influenced Avatar's creators. The show got really steampunky real quick in season two, where a colossal drilling machine was introduced. Then in the third there were jet skis, and Fire Nation engineers invented zeppelins by reverse-engineering a previously introduced hot-air balloon created by Earth Kingdom inventor. Indeed, the original concept set the series in a futuristic environment, but the idea was scrapped in favor of an ancient feel; nonetheless, some technology was preserved during the change in setting. What makes the Fire Nation's steampunk technology particularly notable is that, unlike the more Magitek technology of the other nations, much/most of it doesn't need any bending to operate.
  • Sequel Series The Legend of Korra initially takes place in Republic City, described as a "steampunk metropolis" on the official website and set in its world's equivalent of The Roaring '20s. Technology seen includes more (and more advanced) zeppelins, cameras, cars, radios, and electronic speakers. However, aside from the zeppelins, most of the technology shown is actually not much different from the tech of the real-life 1920's, to the point where Korra actually slots better into the category of Diesel Punk. That said, we do get steam(?)-powered battle mechs later in the series.
• The Avengers: Black Panther's Quest episode "Mask of the Panther" features an ancient Wakandan vessel with brass controls, a steam powered automaton crew, and a neural interface. In keeping with their advanced tech, it seems Wakanda was steampunk before the rest of the world was regular Age of Steam.
• In Batman: The Animated Series episode "Showdown", Ra's al Ghul describes his attempt to destroy the transcontinental railroad and bomb Washington back in the 1880s with an advanced war dirigible, complete with cannons, turrets and gatling guns. Unfortunately, his son ruins it by getting Jonah Hex involved.
• The Grand Finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold opens with a short of John Wilkes Booth trying to kill Lincoln- and he fails, thanks to a space-time-hopping Batman. Seconds later, Booth whips out brass armor with steam-powered gattling gun arms. This is an alternate universe with a different timeline, as Batman subtly mentions on his way back home at the end of the short- after pounding Booth into submission, with a little help from Honest Abe himself.

• In Disenchantment, a steam-powered airship crashes in Dreamland, and the pilot, who hails from a place called Steamland, is taken prisoner. Bean is the only person to believe him, and helps him escape in exchange for taking her with him to see the marvels of "stience" as she calls it. She explores Steamland for a while, but learns that they're planning to invade Dreamland.
• In the Green Lantern: The Animated Series episode "Steam Lantern", this is the hat of the planet Hal Jordan finds himself on when sent to another universe by the Anti-Monitor.
• The Harvey Beaks two-part episode "Steampunks" is all about the genre. There's also a recurring character named Moff, who is a huge steampunk enthusiast.
• The King and the Mockingbird: The cartoon is set in a retrostyle world that has a lot of futuristic elements like quirky mechanical devices, robots, a little bit of magic etc.
• The Love, Death & Robots episode "Good Hunting" is an example of the "Silkpunk" sub-genre — Steampunk technology in British-ruled China at the turn of the century.
• The Modifyers is set in a Victorian-esque city named Aglopolis, which features scads of clockwork gadgetry and steampowered transports — from trains, to zeppelins. Also, the heroine is a teen spy, who has a trusty robot sidekick, and disguises herself as Perky Goth with a British accent.
• While there is a great deal of Schizo Tech running amok, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a few elements of this.
• The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is an Australian short film about a troubled airship navigator and a dangerous expedition he takes part in. The setting has steam and mechanical zeppelins, and the entire film is animated as though it were shadow puppets and a light box. It was nominated for many awards (including an Academy Award) due to the unique silhouette art-style and the inventive storyline.
• The Phineas and Ferb episode "Steampunx" revolved around this genre. With special appearance by Professor Elemental.
• Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is set in a heavily industrialised version of of Victorian England.

Other

• Sillof's Workshop. Features (among other things) steampunk versions of The Avengers, the Justice League, and the entire cast of the original Star Wars trilogy.
• There are some brilliant fan-created steampunk lego models out there.
• Disney did this with Mickey and friends in the Mechanical Kingdom pin set storyline
• Subeta has a month-long celebration of steampunk for its forum members/roleplayers in the spring, called the Atebus Revolution Masquerade.
  • Valenth, a related website created by the same people, is entirely based around steampunk technologies.
• The Neverwas Haul is probably one of the most impressive bits of steampunk art ever created. A steampunk "mobile home" made from 75% recycled equipment and materials, the Neverwas Haul is basically a three-story Victorian mansion on wheels.
• Steampunk and its general fanbase have been affectionately parodied on a Fun T-Shirt (which borrowed a line from Jess Nevins): "steampunk: What happens when goths discover brown."
• A good discussion of the genre was done here in What IS Steampunk? by The United Federation of Charles.

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