A review by otterno11
Steampunk Originals by Brian Wolf, Jim Frankenstein, Lindsay Braynen, Ken Bastard, Red Tash, Steve Yarbrough, Gaspare Orrico, Mike Pascale, Anne-Marie Woolley, David C. Hayes, Jared Konopitski, Larson James, Thom Chiaramonte, C.W. Cooke, Craig W. Chenery, Keith Murray, Paul Izzo, J.M. DeSantis, Seth Rutledge, Michael J. Malaspina, James Michael Whynot, Axel Howerton, Allen Jacoby, Nursalim, Dave J. Clifford, Bernice Wakefield, Travis Olson, Nicolas Caesar, Matt Wiley, Scotty O. White, April Guadiana, George Ford, Mike Schneider, Christopher M. Faulkner, Clara Batton Smith, David W Tripp, Michael Adam, Dominic Black, Andrea Rose, Clara Rodrigues, Jody Baker-Wiley, Kate Santee, Pedro Rodríguez, Grant Fuhst, Edward Charles Thomas III

1.0

I have to say, this was quite a mess. A handful of mildly interesting ideas marred by awkward conceptions and stereotypical depictions, Steampunk Originals leaves a lot to be desired, both in the first and second parts of the title. In spite of the intriguing descriptions, which posits a variety of alternate history tropes, hardly any of these ideas are used, and the features end up feeling both disconnected and repetitive. While the art here ranges from amateur to pretty good, the writing is generally trite and cliched, with chaotic panel layout, awful dialogue, and nonsensical world building that does little to explore just what “steampunk” is, aside from gears, goggles, and the Union Jack. It’s really anything but “punk”, and the “steam” aspect only exists because gears. While short comics often are great ways to explore a diverse setting, here the lack of space may be part of the problem. Most were too short to even begin to sketch out a story, and many are simply one page spreads relying on jokes that go nowhere and ridiculously wrong headed ideas of the nineteenth century. None are effective, either at exploring the themes of the immense steampunk genre or commenting upon them and are simply variations of the same pseudo-Victorians in old timey robot suits fighting monsters. Particularly egregious was the “End of Bushido,” a laughable depiction of the “last samurai” battling laser blasting robots with some of the worst depictions of samurai I have ever seen in a comic; they looked more like vikings than anything else and I had to wonder if the artist had ever even seen a picture of actual samurai armor? Those interested in steampunk can find better, more interesting, comic offerings.