Wow, just… wow. If only I had a few thousand bucks to drop on that gear.
Anyone who looks at Foglio art, and thinks he is an anime imitator is probably not understanding his art style. He’s been working since the 1970s in essentially the same style, and his influences are more American Comic Art than anything else. Honestly, I see a good bit of R. Crumb in it, especially when you see ‘Phil’ walking.
It is rather worth the investment to get into.
I don’t care for Crumb either, and while I know Foglio is a name from the past, his style just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I could make a list of much-loved comic book artists that do nothing for me, but I’m sure the fanboys here would end up Pitting me over it.
FWIW, I got a friend into Girl Genius. When she started reading she complained mightily about the art too…and then the story picked up and she was far too interested to mention it again. Just saying. If it’s too much for you to look at, that’s your call, but the writing is magnificent and far outweighs any shortcomings there may be in the art. (I thought it was weird at first too, but it’s really grown on me since I started reading.)
I wouldn’t say “now.” It’s my impression that “steampunk” is copying the construction of the word “cyberpunk,” which has been around for a couple of decades.
On the gaming front, I cannot reccomend in strong enough terms the game ‘Arcanum’. Excellent steam-punk-ery (heck, it opens with your zepplin getting shot down…) that also has a magic system and some fantasy elements, as well as some of the better NPC dialogue and ‘choices come back to affect the game world’ I’ve seen in quite some time. The only downsides to the game is that 1) it’s a little hard to find these days, and 2) it has a -few- moments that I’ve been told are sexist. I didn’t see them that way, it’s just what I’ve been told. Oh and, 3) Hi, Opal!
Nah, BBVL, it wasn’t your not liking Phil that was annoying me, it was the tendency I see a lot these days for anyone to describe comic art they don’t like as ‘psuedo-manga’ or ‘anime-influenced’, if it’s ‘comic’ art and not ‘superhero’ art.
That bugs me. Especially when the american influences are strong enough I can tell where they come from.
Technically not steampunk, but close: Tim Powers’s The Anubis Gates (the time period is a bit early, but any excuse to read Powers is a good one).
Esther Friesner’s Druid’s Blood
James Blaylock’s Homunculus and Lord Kelvin’s Machine.
Steven Baxter’s Anti-ice
Mark Frost’s The Book of Seven and The Six Messiahs
A relatively recent game along those lines is Silverfall.
I HIGHLY recommend getting an XBOX 360 and “Bioshock”. It’s a blend of steampunk and art deco done so beautifully. (Not to mention that the game has a gripping storyline too).
Steam Trek!
Into the Aether: Being the Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer on the Moon, by Richard Lupoff, is a hilarious Edisonade pastiche/parody. Can’t get much more steampunk than a coal-powered spaceship! 
Mieville is certainly worth looking at - I’ve read Perdido Street Station and The Scar, and I certainly appreciated both of them. The man’s a gifted story-teller, and there’s real depth to his work. But I can’t say I actually enjoy his stuff - it’s just too darned dark. Every single Mievelle character suffers, horribly, all the time. They suffer in the beginning of each novel, in the middle, and at the end. They suffer through a richly - hell, gorgeously - imagined and written world. I suppose it’s sort of a film (novel) noir sensibility - but I always sort of need a hug after reading Mievelle. Your mileage, of course, may vary - and I’d still recommend at least looking at his stuff.
I can understand the “steam” part — but why “punk”?
I’ve heard it said that it reflects a “punk attitude”, but nobody ever explained that to me. 
Post #10. I’m not going through that again so soon.
This sounds perfect for me. I love my entertainment dark and twisty! Bring on the unhappy endings!
I think it has to do more with publishers and editors than it does with anything else. The cyberpunk genre had already been done , and if you wanted to explore new concepts but set in a more older era, how would you go about selling it to prospective publishers who may or may not get it and it went from there.
Declan
If you’ve never seen the anime series Last Exile, it was pretty good and quite steampunkish. Far better than that dumbass Steamboy movie.
[QUOTE=Declan]
I think it has to do more with publishers and editors than it does with anything else. The cyberpunk genre had already been done , and if you wanted to explore new concepts but set in a more older era, how would you go about selling it to prospective publishers who may or may not get it and it went from there./QUOTE]
Why do you think that? Serious question - what makes you think that?
I have (thankfully) yet to see a fiction book labelled as “steampunk” by its own publishers. I find the term has greatest currency in the RPG sector, the online fandom/reviewers, and with the lifestylers/gadgeteers/modders like the Brass Goggles crowd (Von Slatt, Datamancer et al).