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| Prolapse is presumably involved here...somehow |
Steampunk is a fairly nebulous sub-genre at the moment; you'd be forgiven if you thought it was solely based on surface aesthetics of cosplayers inserting clocks & bolts into florid Victoriania but originally it was a counterpoint to cyberpunk vivid anger. The difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling was a key text looking at technology-led power structures and how to devolve them from the inside. It wasn't the sad sexualized fetish we see today.
Kate Ashwin's Widdershins is a steampunk webcomic but it certainly doesn't delve into the societal anomalys caused by technological change; it exchanges it for a series of vaguely connected picaresques and fanciful misadventures from a fairly hefty wellspring of ideas. I like the feeling of confidence here with an array of coy little in-jokes and remarks.
The linework is likewise charmingly sinuous, colouful enough to denote the magical undercurrents that emerge from the cobblestones. It's cartoony in just the right way like a warmth spreading over your irises.
Nothing's forced here; that's the rub. There's no specious social justice anachronisms inserted here, our droll narky hero, Harriet Barber, isn't forced into petty gendered binaries, there are no attempts to redress current problems.
It looks like fluff at first but by the third chapter there's an emerging mythology present. It's not yet an essential webcomic in the league of Unsounded as some story-lines can be somewhat erratic and fey, but the underlying sense of wonderment makes it an enjoyable read.