STEAM WARS
Steam Wars is Larry Blamire’s longtime steampunk project depicting a gritty and highly-detailed late 19th century reality in which wars are fought with fleets of massive steam-powered fighting machines in the form of ancient warriors, each manned by a crew. These “fighting rigs” come in various classes ranging from small two-person runabouts to enormous behemoths outfitted with artillery.
THE WAIT IS OVER!
THE STEAM WARS GRAPHIC NOVEL, NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER!
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“It sounds like a hundred trains. The quarters are cramped and stink of oil and coal, and if we fall, we’re done.” —Anonymous USSF Crewman, 1896 The 19th century saw the emergence of a new kind of fighting machine: massive coal-fueled giants known as steam rigs. Crude and cumbersome at first, by the 1890s, they had become the primary weapons of war. Nations competed to develop the biggest and the best, while brilliant inventors like Lucy Tillencrest were sought by the highest bidder. But getting crews to man the rigs was a different story. For only the most reckless and foolhardy would dare to join the Steam Force, or, as it was called at the time… “the most dangerous job on earth.” Which is where Tunney, Duff and Cribbs come in…
From writer-artist Larry Blamire (The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra) with art by David Miller (Avatar of the Futurians), Steve LeBlanc (Black Scorpion) and Christopher Ehnot (The Cimmerian: Queen of the Black Coast) here are the first three stories in the epic saga of steam, steel and sweat that is Larry Blamire’s Steam Wars. And this is only the beginning…
1896
IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE SECOND STEAM WAR…
The powerful Prussian Empire has strengthened its hold on part of Canada and is testing the northern US borders with a series of raids. The United States Steam Force, in its infancy compared to the Prussian war machine, meets the challenge with new and improved lines of ajax class, hercules class and goliath class fighting rigs. At the same time scrambling to find men reckless–make that foolhardy–enough to crew them.
Then rumors start.
That Prussia has acquired a new technology. That they’re developing something bigger and better, that even the finest USSF rigs cannot defend against.
And warfare would never be the same…
Background… In the 1800s the dawning of the machine age and the industrial revolution led to advancements in new and more efficient modes of warfare, in the form of walking fighting machines familiarly known as steam rigs. By The end of the century the steam rig had advanced from primitive, ungainly one-man contraptions to powerful yet elegant striding land vessels, manned by daredevil crews of specialists controlling its various parts, under orders from a commander and pilot in the headcap. All fueled by stokers shoveling increasingly valuable coal.