This post was spurred along by a comment at webcomics.com which has since been deleted, though I’ve been meaning to write something like this for awhile. I’ll be focusing primarily on ComicPress here but we’ll eventually move on to alternatives like WP-Comic, Manga+Press, stripShow, and Webcomic.

WordPress is an incredibly flexible publishing platform and has become a popular choice amongst webcomic publishers. In the webcomic world, of course, WordPress is often equivalent to ComicPress, the self-described industry standard for publishing webcomics. And while ComicPress has done a lot to make webcomic publishing more readily accessible, it’s a great idea that doesn’t go far enough and ultimately hinders the publishers that use it and the platform it utilizes.

ComicPress: First, not the Best

One thing that seems to be lost on many webcomic publishers is that WordPress is not the same thing as ComicPress. WordPress is a web publishing platform that started out primarily as a blogging tool but has evolved into an extremely robust content management system that’s suitable for many kinds of sites, webcomics included. One of it’s best features is it’s extensibility via plugins and themes.

Plugins and themes serve two distinct purposes in WordPress. Plugins, as the WordPress documentation notes, “are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress.” Themes, on the other hand, are “a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog.” As the documentation notes Themes are essentially skins for your site, but they can also alter both the look and presentation of the website.

It’s important to note that while ComicPress is often used interchangeably with WordPress in the webcomic world (WordPress/ComicPress is how the platform is usually mentioned) ComicPress is also mistaken as a WordPress plugin. The confusion probably stems from the fact that ComicPress does extend the WordPress platform in a few ways that would be better handled via a plugin, but ComicPress itself is a WordPress theme. Five themes, in fact, each serving the exact same purpose but with slightly varying layouts (two columns, three columns, etc.).

ComicPress was the first and, for a time, only ready-made option for webcomic publishers looking at WordPress, and it remains inextricably tied to WordPress in the minds of webcomic publishers. As the theme approaches it’s fourth year, however, it continues to languish in slow development, poor support, and non-existent documentation. Common feature requests such as alternate text for images and comic transcripts were just recently implemented in version 2.7, and most-often requested features like multi-comic support continue to be ignored despite being available in other WordPress webcomic publishing options.

Such features that are implemented are often poorly implemented. Comic files must contain post dates in their filename in a specific format to work with ComicPress, and ComicPress transcripts (for example) do not support user submitted transcripts and aren’t searchable using WordPress’ default search. In fact, an entirely separate plugin was pasted directly into the ComicPress functions.php file to enable transcript search, but it requires a separate search widget.

Further hampering the project is a decided lack of support for core WordPress technologies. Wherever possible the developers seem to build entirely new functions even if the functionality already exists in WordPress, or use existing functionality improperly. A perfect example is the storylines feature recently added to ComicPress Manager, a WordPress plugin designed to ease the management of a site using the ComicPress theme. The developer chose to use Categories, WordPress’ taxonomy for organizing posts, to simulate storylines by forcing any subcategory of a comic category to be automatically interpreted as a storyline.

The stated reason for using Categories as storylines in this way is “…to be more compatible with plugins and future developments of WordPress…” What the developers apparently missed is that WordPress has an entire Taxonomy API designed specifically for adding new post taxonomies that can be used to create an entirely new way of organizing posts, like storylines. The Taxonomy API is at least as future proof as Categories as well, since Categories are managed with the same Taxonomy API available to developers.

Ignoring built-in functionality like this has lead to repeated trouble for ComicPress as WordPress continues to advance. Each major WordPress release is typically incompatible with ComicPress, forcing the theme to be updated to address the incompatibilities before ComicPress users can actually upgrade their WordPress installations.

Numerous other shortcomings affect the ComicPress theme and ComicPress Manager plugin. None of the five themes are web-standards compliant, and all require directly modifying a special comicpress-config.php file to set basic options like the site comic category, an archaic method of configuration that could easily be supplanted by a theme settings page but continues to be hand-editting process. There’s also no stated reason for providing five different themes when a single theme could serve each of the layouts the ComicPress themes offer, and many more, with just a few simple options.

Most damaging to the project, however, is a decided lack of direct support for users. Support questions on the official forums often go unanswered or are answered in short statements that provide little substantive assistance. Despite being available for nearly four years neither the ComicPress theme or ComicPress Manager plugin have any substantial form of documentation beyond a simple readme that comes with the theme.

There’s a Plugin for That

The great thing about WordPress, however, is that there are plugins for just about everything. And while ComicPress may have been the only option for webomic publishers for a brief time there are at least four other alternatives now, many of which have significant advantages over the aging theme. Here I’ll describe, in brief, some of the available alternatives and how they compare to ComicPress.

WP-Comic

Like ComicPress, WP-Comic is a WordPress theme with integrated webcomic functionality. It uses standard WordPress functions for uploading and managing comic files, and provides a simple administrative page for adjusting various theme settings (no config file).

Manga+Press

While it doesn’t provide every feature ComicPress does, Manga+Press is a WordPress plugin that provides new webcomic functionality that can be used with any WordPress theme. It uses the regular WordPress media functions to manage webcomic files and provides basic webcomic site features like comic navigation and archives.

stripShow

The stripShow plugin actually began back in 2007 as a heavy modification of the ComicPress theme which was eventually split into a plugin. The most recent version uses the highly customizable, general-purpose Sandbox theme as an example and starter theme for using the plugin, and comes with a sizable PDF document that outlines all of the plugin features and how to use them. As a plugin, stripShow is not tied to any particular WordPress theme like ComicPress, and could be used by a knowledgeable user to create new webcomic themes or turn existing themes into webcomic themes.

Additional features include a relatively easy to use administration page for managing the plugin settings (no config files), support for Flash comics, integrated transcript searching that doesn’t require a new search widget, and storyline support that doesn’t require the use of WordPress Categories, among others.

Webcomic

I started working on the Webcomic plugin November 2008 in response to the shortcomings I saw in ComicPress and made the first official release in December 2008. The initial release included many features ComicPress lacked at the time and some it still lacks, including storyline support, transcript support, comic hover text support, a comic library management page, a simple configuration page (no config files), a large collection of new theme template tags that could be used to turn any WordPress theme into a webcomic site, and a custom built, highly-customizable theme that provided a simple configuration page to alter the appearance and functionality of the theme, providing hundreds of possible site configurations in a single theme.

Since that time, Webcomic and it’s companion theme Inkblot have been continuously updated to provide new features such as Flash comic support (also available in stripShow), user-submittable transcripts, the oft-requested multi-comic support, support for loading entirely different WordPress themes based on the current comic, advanced storyline navigation, WordPress MU support, and internationalization support.

Stop Hacking, Start Using

What ComicPress did for webcomic publishing should not be understated; like WordPress has done for blogging, ComicPress made webcomic publishing easier and more accessible for many. After four years, however, the platform that made it all possible has left ComicPress behind as it stagnates with slow development and poor support. A number of more functional, easier to use alternatives are now available, and users owe it to themselves to explore all of the available options before settling on the “industry standard” in webcomic publishing with WordPress.