Code

Have I mentioned the ComixTalk facebook page in awhile? If you're on FB you can catch up with just about all of ComixTalk through our page there.

HYPE: Lauren Davis writes about a new anthology called A Comic Book Guide to the Mission. It's got a cover from Chuck Whelon (see above)! and work from a bunch of artists local to San Francisco, CA. There's a review here.

INTERVIEW: An interview with Vanessa Davis (and pictures of her work space).

HYPE: I have often expressed a fondness for the BLOGGER character in Gordon's MULTIPLEX comic. A recent plot thread has main character Jason working for him and today's callback punchline made my morning (so far!). (NOTE: last panel of today is a callback to a line from the blogger's first appearance)

CODE: A beta release of a new version of MangaPress is out.  Haven't used MangaPress but it's another way to use Wordpress for webcomics.

IRONCAT: El Santo comments on a recent blog post about burnout by Chris Onstad of Achewood.  Has it really been 9 years of Achewood? Wow!

CRAFT

• The MangaStudio seminar with Doug TenNapel yesterday was great – learned a few things and Doug is very funny.
• Really enjoying this series at TCJ from Frank Santoro. Part 2 is about panel layout on a page.

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Somewhat like the Webcomic.com subscription story earlier this year, the move of the ComicPress webcomic website theme/tools to a subscription model is causing some ripples in webcomicland.  Now available at ComicPressPremium, the new ComicPress 3.0 is available for $79.00.  Frumph laid all this out in April so none of it is a surprise.  My initial reaction to this is pretty straightforward — if Frumph wants to try charging, more power to him.  If people see a value in the offer he's making (which seems to include support) than it'll work out.  If not, not.  (Pretty much my initial reaction to Brad Guigar's taking Webcomic.com behind a subscription wall).  For some non-technically-inclined creators I think $79 might be a really good deal.  But for others, maybe not.  Like I said, you have to wait and see how things shake out.

I got an email from Mike Jensen of the webcomic Lonely Fetus – he's clearly not a fan of the move to a paid model.  Jensen doesn't think there's enough differences apparent to the user in the new version versus the last free version and he also doesn't like the fact that you have to let one of the ComicPress developers install the new ComicPress for you.  You can read Jensen's reaction and a heated twitter discussion with a head developer over at thewebcomiclist.com forums.

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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.

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Thanks to Xavier for offering me the guest blogging spot. Ironically, Xavier caught me during a week where I’ll mostly be celebrating the field of print cartooning- the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists is holding its annual convention here in the lovely swampland of D.C. this year. Continue Reading →

Kris Straub talks about modifying WordPress to better accomodate using it for webcomics+news. Tyler Martin's ComicPress theme for WordPress was the first such succesful effort, but it has a few limitations: it only supports one file format and there has to be a 1:1 relationship between posts and comics. (If you can live with those limitations, however ComicPress works well).

Straub (from what I understand) wrote the update system for Blank Label Comics, so I've no doubt he should be able to come up with something useful here as well. Maybe if we all ask nicely he'll release his new creation to the public…

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Tech Central has a story on Chris Muir’s Day To Day.

Chris Muir is a 40-something Florida-based industrial designer by day, and a cartoonist by night. Technologically savvy, conservative, and very much tuned in to the subjects that interest bloggers, Muir’s comic, Day By Day has become a hit in the blogosphere.

Muir’s strip has four central characters, although it frequently goes “on location” to the offices of the politician or media figure du jour. It combines the political feel of Doonesbury (although from the other side of the political aisle) with the office atmosphere of Dilbert. Continue Reading →