Doctor Grordort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus & Directory

I'm not sure how to describe this wonderful book. It's part fake catalog of Steampunk and Atomicpunk merchandise, part graphic novel, part art book and part actual catalog of model rayguns. These Rayguns can actually be purchased. The full bodied atomic driven armour is as yet unavailable...This wonderful and strange little book is put together by Weta conceptual artist Greg Broadmore and published by Dark Horse Comics.

As Mr. Broadmore says on the Dark Horse website " As a child I was massively inspired and awed by the black and white serials on Sunday afternoon TV, in particular the 1930's Flash Gordon and the many Sci-Fi movies of that era. This book allowed me to pay homage to that world of science fiction and create something new at the same time...."

While ostensibly Steampunk/Victorian in it's scope the actual technologies and quite a bit of the aesthetic comes from the early atomic era and could be better described as Atomic Age or Raygun Gothic. I think this synthesis is extremely effective, adding to a sense of historical authenticity, after all an advanced atomic era would have many remnants of an advanced Victorian era.

Something that really deepens the scope of this book is the way it both embraces the wild, exuberance of the technology and critiques the colonial attitudes associated with having control of greater technology.