Phil and Kaja Foglio – or their creation, the Girl Genius online comics and graphic novels – come up quickly in almost every steampunk discussion (at least, all of the discussions that run along the, “Ooh! Such-and-such is SO COOL!” lines). I have mentioned them myself many a time; they are one of very gew graphic novels I truly love.
Here is an article written by Kaja herself. I’ve always been careful to mention that they call their genre “gaslamp fantasy” rather than steampunk, but it turns out they’re perfectly happy for observers to call them steampunk as much as we like – so I shall do so in an unfettered manner from now on. Here’s what Kaja actually said on the matter:
(Officially, I still use the term “gaslamp fantasy” to describe Girl Genius. This saves me some time and grief, since, like any subculture or artistic movement, we have our share of people happily fighting about “what it all REALLY means.” Not slapping “steampunk!” all over my books keeps me from having to argue with them about whether or not we’re “doing it right.” They may be having fun arguing about what is and isn’t “proper steampunk,” I’ve got a story to tell. If it doesn’t fit into someone else’s box, well, so what? It’s mine.)