Boilerplate is steampunk’s answer to Forrest Gump. The Victorian robot’s step-by-automated-step trek through late-19th- and early-20th-century history is accounted for in Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett’s BOILERPLATE: HISTORY’S MECHANICAL MARVEL. Yes, it’s all a hoax — but a rather affectionate, harmless one.
Created by Professor Archibald Campion, the “Mechanical Marvel” known as Boilerplate debuted to an adoring public at the 1893 World’s Fair. From there, it was a whirlwind life through history amid all four corners of the globe.
He participates in the first auto race, helps dig the Panama Canal, boxes Jack Johnson, fights alongside Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War, assists in the Boxer Rebellion, befriends Mark Twain, hangs with T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and enlists for World War I before disappearing in the Argonne Forest on Oct. 7, 1918.
All of this is told — and herein lies the book’s appeal — with actual period photos and illustrations into which Guinan and Bennett have seamlessly — more often than not — inserted Boilerplate. In some cases, the images are iconic, with Boilerplate front and center; in others, it’s akin to playing WHERE’S WALDO?, making it all the more ingenious.
The most fun comes out of the inventive Boilerplate merchandise, including pulp magazines, movie serials and a Hanna-Barbera cartoon pilot, all of which never actually existed. The gag goes on a little long than perhaps it should, but at least it’s well-presented and thorough. —Rod Lott
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“Boilerplate debuted to an adoring public at the 1983 World’s Fair. ”
Uh, shouldn’t that be 1883?
I sit corrected, the trailer says “1893.”