Back in July I posted about why ComicPress was a poor choice for publishing webcomics with WordPress. In preparation for an upcoming Webcomic video tutorial I needed to install and (briefly) use ComicPress 2.8, which was just released last month. Here are some of the things that crossed my mind while working with ComicPress 2.8…

• The default theme looks a bit nicer, though a little heavy on the CP branding (the CP logo is displayed over the calendar and as the site favicon by default).
• The new theme configuration pages are a total mess. Four pages of yes/no options (that, for some bizarre reason, use radiobuttons and not checkboxes) filled with longwinded, occasionally useless descriptions (that frequently include failed attempts at humor). Some of the options actually duplicate settings from the WordPress settings pages for no apparent reason.
• Installed ComicPress Companion. Much like some of the options on the ComicPress configuration pages, this plugin seems to duplicate (with a few additions) WordPress’ built-in theme editor. It’s probably useful to someone.
• Couldn’t upload comics–in bulk zip or singular image form–using ComicPress manager thanks to a nonsensical strtotime() error. Gave up and uploaded the comics via FTP.
• Importing the comics also failed because of the same nonsensical strtotime() error. Eventually had to use the generate posts option from the Bulk Edit page (which is, like most of the CP admin pages, an absolute mess). This option only allows you to save posts as drafts for some reason, so I had to jump over to the Edit Posts page and publish them all (thank God for bulk editing).
• The storyline page is probably the most reasonably structured page of all the CP admin pages; considering the state of the others, that’s damning with faint praise.
• The metaboxes on the add/edit post pages are locked to the bottom of the screen and can’t be dragged around like every other metabox.

That’s about where I stopped. No offense to the ComicPress dev’s and CP proponents, but this thing is a mess. I was really hoping they’d improved something for the 2.8 release but, having actually used it, I can’t see why anyone would willfully suffer this when there are perfectly good alternatives. I truly feel sorry for anyone that’s using CP because they weren’t aware of the alternatives.