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*KNOCK KNOCK*   "Yea?"   "Umm...my friend, uh, 'Larry', says this is a good place to visit."   "Larry's right. Come on in then, pal..."

[image from sonorareview.com]

Shhhh!  Don't tell nobody, but the Cap'n knows the place a guy or gal can get a…

Swiss vehicles are far less famous than Swiss watches, Swiss cheese and Swiss pocket knives. Let's give some Dieselpunk love to Helvetic omnibuses!

In Switzerland, dozens of Saurer, FBW and Berna buses, as good as new, are the stars of numerous automotive events. Thanks to…

Welcome to Two-Fisted Tuesdays, where we throw on our trench coats, don our fedoras, and walk down the mean streets of classic crime fiction.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a crime drama that ran for over 12 years during the golden age of radio. The main character, Johnny Dollar, was a smart, tough, wisecracking insurance detective who tossed silver-dollar tips to waiters and bellhops. While always a friend of…

Hello, old sport. Have I seen The Great Gatsby? But of course! It’s simply the talk of the town, and anybody who’s anyone was there at the premiere.

Let me say that Baz Luhrmann, the director of this shindig, really knows how to throw a party. His bombastic style is the perfect technicolor stage for a story about the 1920s. I didn’t want to miss a beat, so I re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of obsession just last week. Like most people, I originally read…

NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You Dry bastards!  You dumped it out!  Damn you!  Damn you to hell!!

Oh, the humanity!  The bastards have done it!  That damned Russell and his pack of meddling preacher pals and nattering old nannies have, against the will of the majority, pressured through the 18th Amendment,…

This Friday, in the midst of Gatsby Craze, it's time to remember a true supercar - the most ambitious creation of W O Bentley:

The 8-Liter Bentley was introduced at the 1930 London Motor Show*. It featured an 8-liter engine which was a development of Bentley's race-winning 6.5-liter unit. The main purpose of this model was to add competition…

Shane Black (writer of Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, The Long Kiss Goodnight and director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) is both awesome and on a commercial career high after the record breaking release of his second directorial effort, Iron Man 3.

While we know he’s got an adaptation of the anime classic Death Note on his dance card, that project will have to wait while he tackles…

Welcome to Two-Fisted Tuesdays, where we throw on our trench coats, don our fedoras, and walk down the mean streets of classic crime fiction. This week, we’re pumping two new bullets into your hard-boiled ear drums, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar and Boston Blackie.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a crime drama that ran for over 12 years during the golden age of radio. The main character, Johnny…

Yesterday was Comic Book Day in the States.

We didn’t have a parade, and there were no fireworks in honor of Superman’s latest haircut, but we do still conduct our strange ritual as American nerds.  Gathered in our motley robes, we descend upon the closest comic book store in search of community and free swag.  The day passes, we endure strange smells, and the 14 year old boy inside us hopes beyond hope that a cute girl will arrive dressed as Power Girl… but she never…

VICTORY!!  At long last this horrible war is over!  The authoritarian powers of Europe are all in collapse and it appears that the flowering of democracy is in bloom, like the Poppies that now sprout over Flanders fields.  With Wilson's new league of nations to shepherd the new peace and freedom, we may soon come to know the 20th Century as the Century of Peace.

 …

The Swedish Ur best translates as 'original', and Ursaab was the Saab’s first prototype automobile*.

Project 92, so-called as numbers 90 and 91 had already been assigned to civilian aircraft, was agreed in 1945. Saab had decided that, with the Second World War drawing to a close, there would be a need to diversify away from military…

May, of course, means Mother's Day; but since I don't have any appropriate songs about mothers in my collection, I'll substitute a fine old sentimental number about Grandma, as sung by the immortal Billy Murray. Other than that, though, it's the usual jive, jam, and joviality!

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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Thanks to Scott from Dieselpunk Industries, we're going all the way Down Under with this week's episode of Two-Fisted Tuesday.

A lot of The Shadow episodes are lost to the winds of time, and I mean a lot, like 450 episodes are missing. Thankfully, we still have a bunch of the…

Lights out, everybody.

In this segment of Pocket Change on Miskatonic Mondays, we're looking at a KickStarter board game based on the Lovecraft-inspired work of Neil Gaiman.

‘A Study in Emerald’ the board game takes as its inspiration the world conjured up by Neil Gaiman in the award…

The appearance of mechanized war tractors and the late entrance of the USA is breaking the stasis of the Western Front.  Meanwhile Revolution in Russia and the systematic collapse of the Italian Front at Caporetto threatens to drive both those nations from the Entente.  Has the tide of this horrible war finally turned?  If so, to whose advantage?…

The Piaggio P.108 was the only four-engine heavy bomber used by the Regia Aeronautica during World War II.

In 1938 the Regia Aeronautica issued a request for proposal for a BGR (Bombardiere a Grande Raggio, long-range bomber); proposals came from Caproni with their Ca.204 and Ca.211 projects, CRDA with…

It's time for the Auto Union Type D racer - the last but not the least in line.

By limiting the maximum weight of Grand Prix cars from the 1934 season onwards to 750 kg, the sport's governing body, the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs…

Our friend John Picha, the driving force behind our recent Dieselpunk ePulp anthology, has certainly been busy this year.

But before we go into detail about his latest work, I want to say a few things about the man behind the fedora. You should know that John is a fierce supporter of DIY publishing. His work within our community has helped blaze a trail for those who were either too unsure about the eBook process to try it, or were simply too scared to take the plunge…

Lately, I've had the privilege to be asked to design a set of covers for albums of the "New Albion Trilogy", a set of operas by Paul Shapera, a very talented composer. The opus is basically about the story of the city of New Albion. A Steampunk Opera, a Dieselpunk opera... aren't they what the genres needed and fully deserved? Paul Shapera is busy making up for this gap with his New Albion Trilogy. Learn more about Paul's great work at:…

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Thanks to Scott from Dieselpunk Industries, we're going all the way Down Under with this week's episode of Two-Fisted Tuesday.

A lot of The Shadow episodes are lost to the winds of time, and I mean a lot, like 450 episodes are missing. Thankfully, we still have a bunch of the…