TRANSMISSIONS FROM PLANET WTF

A couple of completely unneccessary updates on posts that have been published here on I.C. in the last couple weeks/months. As usual, the more I learn, the less I want to know.

1) Remember that post about rock "supergroups" from awhile back ("2010: Pre-Doomsday Predictions, Part 2", June 8th, 2009)? Well, the resulting semi-flame war set off by an anonymous Hansen fan had us giggling for weeks, but it turns out that the object of said flamer's lust, the supergroup known as Tinted Windows, is NOT in fact the weirdest Smashing Pumpkins side project to ever exist.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Last Hard Men.
Featuring Sebastian Bach, Kim Deal from The Pixies, Jimmy Chamberlin from the Smashing Pumpkins, and one of the guys from The Frogs (if you're not familiar with The Frogs, check out this album to fully appreciate the absurdity of this pairing), "metal" supergroup The Last Hard Men recorded a self-titled album in 1997, which was predictably shunned by any and all record labels within earshot. Unfazed by the public's lack of interest, Kim Deal released it on her own label, Nice Records, in a limited edition of 1000 in 1998. She has 999 left. Although they quickly dissolved into the ether, TLHM managed to get one song onto the Scream soundtrack (a cover of Alice Cooper's "School's Out"), which proved to be a miniscule gravestone for a nearly non-existent career. Wow.
Thanks to my Bro Jumanji for hipping me to TLHM.


2) "Steampunk" is old news by now, but we here at Illogical Contraption nonetheless enjoy poking fun at these college-educated psuedo-Juggalos ("Are Steampunks The New Juggalos?", June 16th, 2009). Lucky for us, steampunk (which is itself an offshoot of cyberpunk and Brisco County Jr. ((shown at right)), has broken down into even more obscure subgenres, namely "clockpunk" and "dungeon punk". LARPers and Burners, REJOICE!


CLOCKPUNK:

"Clockpunk can be divided into historical and non-historical Clockpunk. Historical Clockpunk explores how the world would have turned out if certain technological developments that occurred later had happened in the Renaissance and or certain inventions in the time of the Renaissance were created on a mass scale in the time period. Non-historical Clockpunk is set in settings similar to the Renaissance but on alternative worlds, planets etc. The suffix punk is actually misleading but the name has stuck just as it has stuck in the case of other sub-genres of science fiction that were inspired from Steampunk."

I don't really get the difference between steampunk and clockpunk. But clockpunkers insist that there is one, indeed.

Examples of clockpunk art:






DUNGEON PUNK:
"Welcome to Dungeon Punk, a Punk Punk genre which tries to apply the gritty, cynical tone of Cyber Punk and Steam Punk to a Heroic Fantasy setting.
Usually, this takes the maxim 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' and turns it on its head. As we get more proficient with the use of magic, it takes on characteristics of technology. We have railroads, but instead of burning coal to work a steam engine, they have a bound air elemental. We have radios, but instead of sending electromagetic waves across space, they work by sympathetic magic.
Note, however, that not all Magitek falls under this trope; it requires a slide toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism as well."

So basically, it's an RPG-centric version of steampunk with ogres and elves and shit. Cool.

Examples of dungeon punk art:







I honestly thought it couldn't get any nerdier than Steampunk Star Wars. But it just did.
What's next, "Seinfeld Star Wars"?

What? That's a "thing" now, too?

Fuck.