I've been getting back into comics lately, and would like to read some Steampunk -- it seems like a cool aesthetic. I could do a google search, but I really don't trust any 'listicles' outside of manga.
Is there a steampunk equivalent of Akira or FMA?
Not sure what you mean by "canonical" in this case. That just means official.. So I guess original and not a derivative work?
Not sure about regular comics at all, but I know one web comic if that counts. https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104
There might be some manga too, I'll check later.
Ah, I just meant the most famous or influential ones. Like Rambo for 80s movies or Nirvana for grunge.
Well I'll second Girl Genius. It's a solid comic with lots of content, a solid story, and is about as far from woke as any content can be I think, despite what some might assume from its name. It's been going for about twenty years I think, with M-W-F updates. Some 'filler' strips here and there, but overall a lot of good story to dig into. Since you brought up FMA in the main post, I can say there are some similarities for sure. Just replace 'Alchemy' with the 'Spark' which gives some people an ability to concduct physics-defying 'Mad Science'.
If you ever read the old Dragon magazines back when those were a thing, you might recognize the art style. Girl Genius is made by the same people who did What's New with Phil & Dixie back in Dragon.
Well, the obvious answer is Steamboy...
Y'know, the OTHER movie by Katsuhiro Otomo.
Nadia and Sakura Taisen are typically counted as Steampunk, although to my knowledge Nadia was never done as a manga. And while you're in that period you might as well pick up Emma (although it's purely a romance, albeit a Kaoru Mori work so heavy on historical detail).
Oh... I didn't know that Otomo did steampunk. I read Akira before the internet! So I never had a chance to obsessively follow everything that he did.
Is steampunk a Manga thing? It seems like it would be much better suite to a Victorian setting.
Steampunk is a genre, manga is a medium.
Steamboy came out in 2004. And the english dub had Patrick Stewart. A novelization and a manga were both done in parallel.
Sakura Taisen started as a squad tile fighting game game on the Sega Saturn. A manga was done by Tokyopop and the scans are on Mangadex.
Nadia is much older, all the way back in 1990. Loosely based on 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea but it's from Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and... Hayao Miyazaki of all people, so all pretense about being based on anything disappears pretty quickly. Where things get really weird is that Evangelion was originally supposed to be a direct sequel to Nadia set like a hundred-some years later in modern day, but the project backers wouldn't okay it in that form.
Check out Clockwork Elf by Alfred Haus. It's a book, but a lot of fun.
Last Exile is kinda steampunk even if it isn't actually steam.
X'amd is less steampunk and more like Nausicaa mixed with Eureka Seven but it has elements of steampunk.
Those aren't comics though.
Dragons heaven
Battle Chasers was a great mix of fantasy and steampunk.