Webcomic Review Month 2012: The Becoming, Bird Boy

This year I had a bit of an odd problem that I kept planning on reviewing some webcomics, looking at my list and going "yeah that's a good number of comics for one day" and then the comics finished! I saw a lot more shorter comics this year than I did the previous year and I'm not sure if that's a trend or just luck on my part. In any case, here we have one comic that it's for the long haul and another that's just starting up so if you like your comics on-going and long then you should be in luck!
Last year's B review.
 

The Becoming Written by J. Alan Shelton and Illustrated by Douang Khamsitthisack

 In the isolated city of Bellac the air is thick with politics from both the government and the all-powerful church as each side seeks to outmanuver the other side to achieve their own goals. The newly orphaned Oscar LeBeau seems to be caught up in the thick of it as he and the woman who killed his father, Jeannine Delacroix, discover there are even more secrets than either of them would have guessed.

I hate to say this but this is a comic that doesn't work that well updating one page at a time on a weekly basis. There has been at least one time, probably more, when I've considered dropping this comic, gone back through to re-read it to give it one last chance, and then suddenly all the stuff that was confusing me made sense. There are just enough characters and plotlines, especially since there is at least one spin-off story providing more backstory, to make things confusing yet when you read it in chunks it's quite interesting. The art is also quite pretty, it has steampunk aesthetics without feeling gimmicky and it's surprisingly colorful. So I do recommend the comic and maybe other people, ones who aren't following as many comics as I do at once, will find it easier to remember all the plot threads.

Bird Boy by Annie Szabla

Bali is a young boy who wishes that he could be of more use to his tribe, or at least be taken more seriously but so far he seems to have only caused even more trouble for his tribe by finding an ancient sword and accidently unleashing a monster on them.

I debated whether or not to review this comic this year or if I should save it for next but in the end it was the art that won me over since the story already has a gorgeous and a distinct style. There's not much to say about the plot at this point, the story is under 30 pages but I really liked Szabla's other (sadly unfinished & doesn't seem to be on the internet anymore) work Cealdian so right now I remain confident that the story should be solid as well.