If you already have a webcomic and looking forward to publishing it on your own site but have little experience in making websites, then Wordpress and Comicpress are the tools for you.

Before discovering Wordpress and Comicpress, I looked at all the other webcomic publishing tools on the internet and a lot of them were too complicated for my taste. I didn’t like the free comic hosts available because I really wanted a website with my own design. I wanted a system that made it easy for me to publish my comics while not having to write a lot of code.

And then came Comicpress. I’ve already been a big fan of Wordpress even before I wanted to use it as a comic publishing tool so when I found out that I can easily publish my comics using Tyler Martin’s theme I immediately wanted to try it out. It wasn’t until last year, though (when I started Draw Write Play), that I actually started using it.

I have been getting a lot of notes and emails about what I use to publish my comic strip and/or how to install Wordpress and Comicpress properly so I thought I would sit down and write a tutorial on how to use Wordpress and Comicpress to publish webcomics.

Step 1: Get a Web Host

First of all, before you can even install Wordpress, you first have to have a web host. My advice is to get a web host that can install Wordpress for you. That way, the only thing you have to worry about is installing Comicpress. Currently I am hosted at Host Monster, and so far I’m pretty satisfied with the service and uptime. I hear Dreamhost is good, too, and it’s one of the hosts that Wordpress themselves recommend. Nowadays, web hosting packages are already bundled with a free domain name. Using your comic’s name as a domain would be a good idea.

Step 2: Installing Wordpress

When installing Wordpress, you can either do it the easy way, or the not-as-easy way.

The easy way is using your web host’s native tools to install Wordpress. You can do this by using Fantastico, and all you have to do is to point it to the directory that you want Wordpress installed and voila! You’re done!

The not-as-easy way is to install Wordpress yourself. I don’t think there’s an advantage to installing it on your own, but if you absolutely must, then be prepared to face a teensy weensy bit of coding. I won’t go into this topic more because Wordpress already has their own installation guide online. Chances are, if you can read through this tutorial you can read through theirs’.

Step 3: Installing Comicpress

To install Comicpress, you first need to have and know how to use an FTP client. If you know how to use FTP, then open your site and look for the folder ‘wp-content’. In this folder you can find the folder ‘themes’. Assuming you’ve already downloaded and unzipped the version of Comicpress you want to use, drag the Comicpress folder into ‘themes’.

Once you’re done. Log into Wordpress and click on the ‘Presentation’ tab. You should now see Comicpress as one of the available themes. If you don’t see Comicpress as an available theme, check whether you’ve copied the whole ‘comicpress’ folder to the correct folder. To activate the theme, simply click on the theme’s cover image.

Now check your site. You should now have the default black and white Comicpress theme.

Step 4: Create Your Comics Folder

Once you have the theme working, you can then create your ‘comics’ folder. This is where you will be placing all your actual comic strip images. You should place your ‘comics’ folder in the same folder Wordpress is in. If you installed Wordpress in your root folder, then your ‘comics’ folder should also be in the root folder.

Step 5: Name Your Comic Strips

The naming convention for comic strips for Comicpress is YYYY-MM-DD (e.g 2008-02-14). You can also add a word next to the date if you want to post comics in advance and don’t want people to see them before they are published. For example, your comic can be named 2008-02-14-Todays-Comic. Once you’ve renamed your strips you can now upload them into the ‘comics’ folder. Your strips can either be in .gif, .jpg, or .png.

Step 6: Post Your Comic

For each comic, you need to make a corresponding post. To do this, go to the ‘Write’ tab in Wordpress and click on ‘Write Post’. Here you can write out some additional notes on your strip, or if you have nothing in particular to say you can keep it blank. Make sure you have a title for each strip though, this will come in handy for searching and archiving. Before you post your strip, click on the Categories box on the right and add a new category (I suggest naming this ‘Comics’). The way the blogging edition of Comicpress works, all posts that are under the ‘Uncategorized’ category are considered blog posts. You can rename this category in the future by clicking on the ‘Manage’ tab in Wordpress and clicking on ‘Categories’.

Make sure your post date is the same as the date in your comic strip’s filename. This does not mean you have to post your comic on that particular date, though. You can write posts in advance that Wordpress will automatically publish on a date that you like. You do this by clicking on the ‘Post Stamp’ box in the lower right of the ‘Write’ screen. Simply fill in the date when you wish your post will appear and Wordpress will publish it for you automatically.

Note though that if you preview comic posts written in advance, your comic strip will not appear even though you have it uploaded. You will only be able to see your comic in preview mode on the day that it is supposed to be published.

Once you’ve posted your comic, then you’re done! You’ve successfully published a webcomic. Now go on and make some more.

If you’re having trouble understanding this tutorial, you can go to Tyler Martin’s official documentation for Comicpress 2.1 here. For downloads of Wordpress and Comicpress, go here and here.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or corrections for this tutorial you can send me an email at iambibs (at) gmail (dot) com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm and is filed under How Tos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.