Archive - Feb 9, 2010
WebcomicsPress: Comparing Webcomic Tools for WordPress
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 9, 2010 - 17:29
So a lot of you probably read about the hack attack on Karl Kerschl's site last week as reported by FLEEN. Wordpress has come to take a fairly dominant position in webcomics publishing in recent years with good reason. Wordpress is a fantastic blogging solution with an active development team and it's not a tremendous stretch to leverage it for comics. So which comics-specific solution should you use for turning Wordpress into Webcomicpress?
First let's see what is out there. If there are other projects out there to include beyond what I list below, contact me.
1. Comicpress. Tyler Martin's Comicpress wasn't the first Wordpress effort. but it was the one that caught fire and is now in wide use in webcomics. It's gone through several versions and now has a few add-on plug-ins for additional features. Version 2.8 is stable and in wide use.
2. stripShow. I think Brad Hawkins' stripShow might have been the first working hack I can recall. Currently, it looks like Hawkins is working on version 2.5, so it's probably a safe bet to wait until that next version is released to try it out.
3. Manga+Press. I know the least about this one, having not had a chance to try it out. It also looks like the most recent version is in beta and the creator still working to finish a final release of what will be version 2.6.
4. Webcomic 2.1. This project has been around for a bit, it seems to have been inspired in part by the creator's criticisms of Comicpress.
5. Comic Reef. The very most recent effort I'm aware of seems to be a project born in the Webcomics Community forums.
What I think would be the most useful approach to comparing them is to create a list of features and see each package implements them. Some obvious issues are how it handles comic images, navigation, themes... again, let me know if you have any suggestions for key criteria. I'll be working on setting up each one of these packages in order to write up a comparison of them for later this month.
UPDATE: An email exchange with Tyler Martin clarifies that ComicPress was actually the first WordPress solution and that stripShow was a "fork" of ComicPress.
Comix Talk for Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 9, 2010 - 03:02
It's day 4 of Snowapalooza in Washington DC. I consider this a trial run for if I ever decided to move to Canada and so far... I don't think I'd make it. But being snow-bound has been great for catching up on comics. I also wanted to flag a few features at ComixTalk -- the calendar of comic events is available here, but you can also add it a number of other calendar programs and I'm always interested in co-maintainers. In fact I'd be very happy to see other blogs and sites join me in maintaining it and embedding it on their sites too. I also set up a hub page for the four webcomic titles that have run at ComixTalk over its 8 year history - click to discover work from Ryan Estrada, Kris Straub and Bryant Paul Johnson.
Awards: The Webcomics List, a hybrid tracking, popularity and news site for webcomics had a forum-organized awards program this year. It felt a lot like the old WCCAs. This Week in Webcomics covers the results. Gunnerkrigg Court won the nod for Best Comic and Moon Town won for Best New Comic. Coyote has a review of Moon Town here.
iWebcomics: So I'm kind of already burnt out on the iPad hype. I want to wait until the thing is available to think more about it. Others are though: Erik Larsen has an essay about it and Gizmodo salivated over how comics will look on the tablet device.
Dead Trees: Tyler Page talks numbers, costs and quality for taking the Print-On-Demand route for volume 2 of his Nothing Better webcomic. And starting this week, for a couple of months, Gordon McAlpin is working full time on Multiplex — and, the Multiplex: Book 1 print collection. This is all due to the funding he raised for the book through a Kickstarter drive.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE
- The recent rock concert contest storyline at Ornery Boy has been great - both funny and Michael Lalonde has done an awesome job with animating key panels. If you're going to do a flash comic than use it! Ornery Boy makes great use of Flash's capabilities.
- It's a been awhile since I've linked to Freak Angels. Things are happening again in the storyline and although I'm a bit annoyed that after a few years we still don't really understand the full logic of the "package" of the freak angels and their world, it's a hell of a comic. I'll also just flag again that what Avatar is doing here seems like a pretty good model for a publisher-creator relationship in the webcomic world. I'm not sure I've seen anyone else quite match it yet.
- The latest issue of Dark Horse Presents is out with webcomics from Graham Annable and others.
First and Last: Anders Loves Maria
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 9, 2010 - 02:01
We used to do an irregularly recurring bit here at ComixTALK called "First and Last" which seemed like a good idea to revive. Particularly with a comic like Anders Loves Maria where creator Rene Engström has not only constantly improved but also taken several stylistic leaps during the comic.
