Having navigated the webcomic platform world for a while, I have gained a bit of experience that I would like to share with other authors/artists. So, every now and then, I’m going to review hosting sites for your pleasure, trying to address especially new platforms and/or services that depart from the well-established ones, because those don’t need much promotion, anyway. First in line is Becomics.com.

Update: Becomics.com has added new features, so some of the info may no longer be revelant. Make sure to check this link out for all news.

Pros

This platform is brand new. Founded in October 2016, it has a lot of potential, especially if you already have an ongoing series ready to upload (still little competition) and you want to animate your comics. Yes, you heard that right: you have the freedom and power to animate your comics! After uploading one or more pages, you can go to the Becomics Editor, where you will access a set of tools allowing, among several features, to zoom in and out of a page, select individual bits of each page, transition from a part of a page to another in a variety of ways (move, dissolve, ease in, black out, etc.), transition also from page to page by different means, and even automatically time each transition, so that readers will watch your comic play as in a video, instead of clicking their way through. Before publishing the animated version of your comic, you can preview it, and go back to modifying it, if needed. Autosave is a great option to avoid losing your work. Also, unless you have WordPress.com, which kills iframes, you can embed your comic into your website.

Readers who are not in love may read your comics traditionally, although that is not ideal, given that Becomics is very much animation oriented.

Staff is very friendly and super responsive, always trying their best to help. Uploading comics is easy, and there is an entire section to create credits for each contributor. Becomics also offers the Trendy, Fresh, Featured and Editors’ Pick sections, where you can see promoted comics as well as recently updated ones. You can also subscribe to comics, so you can find them easily when you have a reading itch.

Cons

Tutorials are long and text-only, which can be daunting. I think simple videos would help a lot more and encourage people to try animations out some more. There is no way to interact with other authors, which, although not necessarily a bad thing, I believe it’s doing a disservice to this specific platform. Animating webcomics is an entire new business to the vast majority of authors, and if Becomics wish to stand apart from other platforms in that sense, as I’m sure they do, I think that at least a basic forum to answer technical questions and let authors share tips with each other would help Becomics boom rather fast.

Tips

Adding transitions is fun, but can become quickly old, and it’s definitely not for everybody. When adding animations, pay attention to not make them tedious and think really hard about having the reader click through 50 pages with 100 transitions each! Consider timing the transitions, instead.

If you have a single page for your comic, don’t upload it, yet. Although Becomics lets you handle your webcomic traditionally, you are not taking full advantage of it can do for you. Even if you don’t wish to add animations, I would strongly advise to upload your pages in chunks – if anything, because you are forced to add credits each time you upload anything, and that becomes a drag if you have to do it for every single page.

You have animations, yeah! But don’t overdo it. Don’t whip, boom, zing, bang! where you don’t need to. Animations should help establish the mood for your comic and make each scene stand out, along with bringing out the personality of your characters. Aim for variety, but avoid making a bang! when two characters are napping, and make sure to add some action to fighting scenes.

Conclusion

Becomics.com has the potential to change the webcomic world: with its simple, yet powerful animations, it encourages a different approach to webcomics that hasn’t been tried out enough, so far. Given it’s a new service, having your comic stand out is still easy. Views won’t be enormous, but as more people join the fray and more readers flock to the platform, you will be ahead of the game! So, what are you waiting for? Go to Becomics.com, sign up and enjoy animating your creations!

Still not convinced? You may read the beginning of The Green-Eyed Sniper on Becomics here and see if it’s for you!