“Steampunk is for Goths that have discovered brown.” – I love that quote and it makes me giggle every time I think about it.  While I can really get into the Victorian Zeitgeist, making your own cool stuff, recycling old gears into art, bargain hunting at flea markets, and retro-fying 21st century gadgets – I think that it is the roll playing sub-set that has kept me away from embracing the movement.  Well, that and I already have WAY too much crap going on and not enough time/money to do any of it that well.  I can’t add another hobby, but like I said, I can appreciate some of the aspects of the movement/genre/fashion/cult/trend/??/….

Anyway, when I saw that the largest Steampunk show in the US was going to be held in Seattle this year, my interest was piqued.  When I later read that Gail Carriger was going to be signing her books and meeting fans, well that sealed the deal.  Don’t judge me! I picked up her first book, Soulless, at an airport bookstore on a trip and that tiny little woman’s writing is so God damn good that she hooked me (qwerky, well built characters and she uses English as an offensive weapon…).  I will drink some beer later, burp and scratch while watching some football or hockey as my man-penitence.

Stamps-With-Foot and I got up early on Saturday, I proptly forgot the camera, and we headed off to the wilds of the SeaTac Airport Marriott for our chance to say hello and gush at Ms. Carriger.  We did just that and found her to be very approachable, genuine, funny, and sincere – all that you could ever want an author that you meet to be.  Buy her books!  We then decided to take a walk and look at what and who there was to see.  HOLY CRAP! we stepped into a mess of nerdy, techy, historically inaccurate stew!  All ages, races and genders were present and I was shocked to see that the male/female ratio was 50/50ish.  It may be profiling, but…  at most tech, comic, or game conventions there are significantly more males of the species and the few ladies in attendance have their pick of which Spiderman loving, +2343 hit-point having, IT professional they will be going so be spending time with.  Steamcon seemed to appeal to both sexes equally and there were some truly beautiful people walking around in costume, shopping, flirting, and having a great time. The costumes were interesting and for the most part very well done: Victorian fantasy accessories, sexy boots, tiny hats, spats, ray gvns, a steampunk Geisha jet packs, a saddle(?!), parasols, wings, accoutrements that looked like they took months to build, some really good art, pith helmets aplenty, monocles galore, and some characters of questionable lucidity.  The people watching was A++.  I would wager that more nerd-nooky was had this weekend at that hotel than the combined amount in all of the western US up to this point in 2010.  I took a few pictures with the iPhone and below are the best of them.  Sorry for the pixilization.