What is it?

ComicPress is a theme to be used with the WordPress blogging software for publishing a comic to the Web. By using WordPress you have a powerful and popular content management system with tons of support and plugins available. Both WordPress and ComicPress can be downloaded for free.

History

ComicPress is developed and maintained by Tyler Martin, who originally created it for publishing his own comic, Wally & Osborne. WordPress seemed like a good choice since blogging is much like comic publishing. Other comic creators wanted help in doing the same, so Tyler decided to release the theme to the public. Unlike other WordPress themes that are designed to be your final layout, ComicPress has a basic and clean layout that looks good as is, or is easy enough for you to build on. With just a couple images and a few color code changes in the Stylesheet you can have your own custom comic Website in no time. Check out what some people are doing with ComicPress in our featured section.

The latest version of ComicPress is available for download here along with some previous versions. The following is the version release history:

ComicPress 1.0
Release Date: November, 2005
Very basic system based on the default Kubrick theme which simplified it for easier customization and added a comic area under the header. Required posts to be set to display one per page. Had a separate archives file that had to be included in the site’s root folder.

ComicPress 1.5
Release Date: April 24th, 2006
Various design and code updates were made. Added navigation buttons above the comic in the header link bar.

ComicPress 1.6 CE
Release Date: April 19th, 2007
Updated the archives to work with WordPress version 2.1. A few other small changes. The CE stood for Classic Edition. This was to be the classic line of ComicPress, featuring the one post per page layout, no separate blog.

ComicPress 2.0 BE
Release Date: April 19th, 2007
Featured an attractive new design and a separate blog area so that a user could now post comics or separate blog entries. The separate archive file was replaced with a new integrated template file. Built-in WordPress archives could now be used and would mix blog posts with comic posts (including thumbnails). Comic now included in the RSS automatically. Comic files have more freedom of file naming and could vary image file type. The BE stood for Blogging Edition.

ComicPress 2.1
Release Date: November 26th, 2007
The CE and BE lines were done away with in favor of concentrating on just building the latest system. Various style sheet updates. Support for WordPress’ new Widget and Tag systems. Improved archive navigation.