Here’s something I didn’t know before I met Cathy Sutliff: There are a lot of steampunk festivals.

“There’s the one in Hannibal (Missouri), the Big River Festival, that happens on Labor Day weekend,” Sutliff said. “Then there’s also one in Quincy, which is also outside. A lot of them are inside in convention halls.”

Sutliff co-organizes Bloomington’s annual Cogs & Corsets: A Steampunk Happening. The first festival was in 2017 and it was such a success that they did it again — and again — with a break in 2020 for obvious reasons. Last year was limited to just one day, and for this year, festival-goers will have two full days (June 3 and 4) in and around downtown Bloomington to get their steampunk on.

“The difference is that we look at it as a Steampunk 101,” said Sutliff. “We really want to encourage the average Joe to come on in and just take a look.”

Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction that imagines an alternative history of the Victorian era. Inspired by 19th century authors like H. G. Wells and Mary Shelley, Steampunk’s aesthetics mix Gilded Age and Victorian fashions with a little American “Wild West” throw in. Add inventive tools and gadgetry — and goggles, lots and lots of goggles — and you’ll start to get the idea.

“It also comes with some of the problems of the Victorian Age, too, that many steampunkers try not to gloss over, but try to address,” Sutliff said.

By problems, Sutliff explained that steampunk enthusiasts don’t shy away from discussions about how colonialism, racism and misogyny played a starring role in late 19th century Europe and the expanding American West.

“The Victorian age was wrought with a lot of tough issues which we have been trying…