WordPress Themes and Plugins for Comics

Posted on by admin

When looking to create your self-hosted WordPress website for your webcomic, the prospect of having to dig through the vast array of options available can seem daunting at first. This where this post comes in. We are going to dig through all the available WordPress themes and plugins, and hopefully make the process easier for you.

ComicPress/ComicPress

This is the granddaddy of them all! ComicPress and Comic Easel is the most widely used combo for WordPress comic sites. With over 4000 downloads for the theme and 6000 plus downloads for the plugin, ComicPress and Comic Easel is established as the industry standard when it comes to publishing comics on a WordPress website. Both are free from WordPress’ repositories.

ComicPress was originally created by Tyler Martin as an all-in-one theme for archiving comics with comic navigation features. It was the first one of it’s kind. Philip M. Hofer  took over the maintenance of the theme and transitioned to creating a plugin that accomplished just about all the tasks ComicPress did. The cool thing thing about Comic Easel, is that you do not have to use it in conjuction with ComicPress. It can be used with any WordPress theme that suits your preference. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that ComicPress perfectly suited to work with the Comic Easel Plugin.

Features include: extensive layout options, customizable menu bar, ability to change comic navigation graphics, calendar, archive and WordPress short-codes among others.

One drawback that ComicPress has is that it is not mobile-friendly. A must have feature for today’s website. So you may be better off using a mobile-friendly theme together with Comic Easel.

Inkblot/Webcomic Plugin

This is the first mobile-friendly solution that we are going to take a look at. Developed by Michael Sisk, Inkblot has many of the same features that ComicPress has. It is also freely available from WordPress’ theme repository. But what sets it ahead of ComicPress is that it is built using a responsive design. Inkblot requires the use of the Webcomic plugin(also built by Michael Sisk). What makes the Inkblot-Webcomic plugin combo truly unique is the ability to have multiple comic titles on the same WordPress website. So if you are a comic creator with multiple comic titles, there is no need of setting up multiple websites for each comic.

Sadly, both Inkblot and it’s companion Webcomic plugin are no longer maintained.

Features include: fully responsive, highly customizable, multiple collections

Panel

This is another mobile-friendly theme that was created by Automattic (the creators of WordPress). Has many of the basic features you would require to easily publish a comic online including comic navigation features, archive and customization options. However Panel has been retired and is no longer maintained by Automattic.

Manga+Press Comic Manager

Manga+Press  is a WordPress plugin for publishing webcomics. Created and maintained by Jess Green, it is available for free on WordPress’ plugin repository. Similar to the Comic Easel plugin, it can convert a pre-existing theme into a comic content management system.

Features include: comic archive navigation, comic bookmarking, social media integration, ability to work with a variety of themes.

Madara and MangaBooth Plugin

As far as I could tell, Madara is the only premium WordPress theme available for comics. Billing itself as the first and only complete solution for building a Manga website, Madara can be purchased from Themeforest for $59. It has a whole host of features, is mobile friendly, and provides an extensive collection of customization options. Also included in your purchase is the accompanying plugin – MangaBooth.

Features include: Store Manga on different servers: Amazon S3; BlogSpot; Imgur, unlimited chapters and volumes, ability to add advertisements, short-codes and widgets, views count, star rating, bookmarking, reading history and many, many more features.

Toocheke

This is the new kid on the block to the webcomic WordPress theme scene. This is a mobile-friendly theme that is based on the popular webtoon format. Created and maintained by LeeToo, the theme is available for free from the WordPress theme repository. There is also a premium version of Toocheke which includes support for Patreon integration. This makes it perfectly suited for creating a paywall for your comic archive. It requires the use of the accompanying Toocheke Companion plugin which is available for free from the WordPress plugin repository.

Features include: several customization options including page layouts, and color schemes, comic archive navigation, multiple storylines, ability to post both a desktop and mobile version for the comic and Patreon integration

That just about covers it! So if you are in the market for a WordPress theme for your self-hosted webcomic, these should be enough to get you started.

Leave a Reply