Webcomics Community
Main Content => Web Design => Topic started by: Rob on April 26, 2010, 08:26:06 PM
-
Very interesting article in Fleen today regarding Comicpress.
Check it here. (http://www.fleen.com/archives/2010/04/26/sufficiently-chunky/)
And the direct link to comments from Phil "Frumph" Hofer (he is one of the developers of the software) can be found here. (http://frumph.net/blog/comicpress-unleashed/)
This is interesting in light of all the Comicpress site hacking lately. Additionally it makes me wonder what so many other folks who use Comicpress are going to do since it won't be updated ever again (beyond bug fixes). Will they jump on the pay bandwagon and buy Comicpress 3.0 once it's out of Beta or will sites like Smackjeeves, Rampage, DrunkDuck and even alternative CMS's like the ones created by our own DrBlkKnight and DragonPowered be the wave of the future?
Although he doesn't come right out and say it Hofer implies that with the departure of John Bintz from the project as well as the with the changes made to the core Wordpress program they are starting somewhat from scratch with a whole new way of doing things and Comicpress 3.0 will be very different indeed from what they are now referring to as "Comicpress Legacy" (you know... that program many of you are using).
Even Hofer is departing the project leaving it in the hands of Adam Kellogg for health reasons.
I don't mind telling you this feels to me like the core group of guys making this program are tired of working on it and are just moving on to other things and this Comicpress 3.0 is in fact a whole new program that is being "anointed" by the previous developers.
I think perhaps the most interesting discourse on this subject will come from the Half-Pixel guys. Both Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub use Comicpress (Brad Guigar and Dave Kellet have sites that I would guess are Comicpress but they don't have the Comicpress disclaimer at the bottom so your guess is as good as mine). So to hear what they have to say on the subject as a group might be pretty interesting.
Some of us sadly will never know but if you have a free $30 now might be an interesting time to join Webcomics.com.
;)
-
I don't even have the latest version of ComicPress now. Doesn't it require you to completely redo your customizations of its template? Even if not, I don't see a reason to make everything on my site shiny, at least not now. I don't think this will affect me very much.
-
Oh wow, interesting. I've worked with Frumph a number of times, Phil's a good guy. I can completely understand his reasons for stepping down from the project, he's invested a lot of his own time for free and now it's going a different direction.
Maybe the upcoming changes to Comicpress will be a good thing for my CMS, since it has always supported multiple comic series and multiple comics posted on the same day. But that's because my system starts with the comic first as the main draw, whereas Comicpress runs on Wordpress which focuses on the blog first. Comicpress looks for a comic with the same date as the blog (and to find it the comic has to be named as a date ), mine picks up the blog if posted the same day as the comic. But even that doesn't matter, you don't need a blog since comments can be posted directly to the comic, or the blog, or both, or directly to the forums for the comic... heh. You could have 527 different comics, all with unique layouts post the same day if that's what you want. I guess the people who are picking up Comicpress just realized some comickers actually want to do something like that.
I don't know if it's a good or bad thing for webcomics, but I'm sure it's going to affect a lot of them.
-
should be interesting to see what happens. i wanted to try using 2.9 but can't seem to get it to work on my site.
-
should be interesting to see what happens. i wanted to try using 2.9 but can't seem to get it to work on my site.
IMO 2.9 suffered horribly from "feature creep". I started doing a test upgrade on it from 2.8 on a subdomain, and the child-theming things seemed like a good idea conceptually, but in reality (along with the lackluster documentation quality vs the 2.8 documentation) it turned out to be a pain.
I gotta take a look at this and see what its all about. I'm totally not against paying for a good, easy to configure, and powerful webcomic framework.
-
should be interesting to see what happens. i wanted to try using 2.9 but can't seem to get it to work on my site.
IMO 2.9 suffered horribly from "feature creep". I started doing a test upgrade on it from 2.8 on a subdomain, and the child-theming things seemed like a good idea conceptually, but in reality (along with the lackluster documentation quality vs the 2.8 documentation) it turned out to be a pain.
I gotta take a look at this and see what its all about. I'm totally not against paying for a good, easy to configure, and powerful webcomic framework.
especially, from what i was reading, if it doesn't get hacked like it does now.
-
Do you have any links for the "hacking" bit. I know a lot of times (its my day job) complaints about packages being hacked are actually "I used a weak password and didn't follow the directions about PHP".
-
Go to Fleen
http://www.fleen.com/
Type in Comicpress or Hacked into the search bar.... I'm sure you will find something there as that is where I found most of the stories.
-
Go to Fleen
http://www.fleen.com/
Type in Comicpress or Hacked into the search bar.... I'm sure you will find something there as that is where I found most of the stories.
I took a look. There's nothing really to suggest that ComicPress itself was the issue in the stories. There's lots of ways into a website, particularly if you don't upgrade WordPress itself when the bug fixes come out (or use weak passwords on WordPress or a shell account associated with the site).
Just sayin', I can't see that ComicPress is obviously to blame in those situations (even though the sites themselves used ComicPress or their ComicPress install was screwed up because of the hack).
-
The whole going to pay model thing is pretty wicked since Comicspress was pretty much the gold standard for a bit for people setting up new webcomics. When I set my site up I tried it and I HATED it. It didn't have the functionality I felt like it should, especially in light of the stuff the Webcomic plug in was offering. After installing and trying both, I went with Webcomic. It seems to suit my needs a lot better, and I guess that's the whole point, you know? At some point you have to wonder if it's not getting a little bloated and static though. I mean are they really adding that much to the release to warrant a mas conversion or is it more likely you'll need it to make the jump to WP 3.0? My suspicions tell me the latter, but I could be wrong.
-
I'm pretty interested to hear about this Webcomic plugin and why you favor it.
-
Yeah Cary if you know a lot about the plug in, or know someone who developed it or something like that, I think we would all love to see an article on the benefits and things it has to offer. Let me know. ;)
-
Yeah Cary if you know a lot about the plug in, or know someone who developed it or something like that, I think we would all love to see an article on the benefits and things it has to offer. Let me know. ;)
Absolutely not a problem sir! I'll finish my paper today and then put something together and send it out for ya!
-
I wouldn't be ab;e to use it until next Sunday night for the Monday update. So feel free to procrastinate a bit.
;D
-
I wouldn't be ab;e to use it until next Sunday night for the Monday update. So feel free to procrastinate a bit.
;D
HA! Jokey jokemaker! lol I sent it to your email.
-
Got it and perusing it now.
Thanks. ;)
-
Will they jump on the pay bandwagon and buy Comicpress 3.0 once it's out of Beta or will sites like Smackjeeves, Rampage, DrunkDuck and even alternative CMS's like the ones created by our own DrBlkKnight and DragonPowered be the wave of the future?
I have mixed feelings.
I'm a software developer by profession and really enjoy getting money. If I could get enough to have a big Scrooge McDuck style vault with a money pool for swimming, I'd surely do it.
For that reason, I absolutely cannot fault anyone who decides to charge money for their software. Making it is hard work and not just anyone can do it.
On the other hand it's really, really hard to convince people to pay for something you used to give them for free.
If ComicPress had ALWAYS been $30, then I doubt you'd hear any grumbling. Well not as much. The other problem is that it is an add-on to a bigger free product. Hard to talk people into paying for your add-on when the main program is free.
It is also wicked hard to get somone to pay you for something if your competition is giving away theirs for free.
Personally (again as a developer) I like to "roll my own". For the past 10 years I've been working on mostly behind the scenes code, and my web skills are rusty. That's why I started working on my own CMS: to learn how. I doubt I'll ever release it to other people either for free or for money, but I use it. It is currently underpinning two sites: http://galacticbeacon.com (http://galacticbeacon.com) and http://funzietown.com (http://funzietown.com).
My reasoning comes down to support and income. Supporting software you release costs money and time whether you charge for it or not. Let's say I charge $30. Not only is there no such thing as software without any bugs, there is also no such thing as a user who doesn't make mistakes. Either way you as developer are on the hook. For me to go full time developing that software, I'd have to sell a friggin armada's worth to break even. Unless I hired at least one support person to handle the "can't type my password" and "can't remember my password" and "what's a password?" questions, I'd never have any time to actually develop the software after starting to sell it. For me, there is a deep moral obligation to someone who has actually paid me. I can't just ignore the problems of someone who is a paying customer.
OK, let's say I release it for free. Guess what? People still expect support! If you are very lucky, and you release as open source, you might attract a following of people who can develop and support your software with you. You might also, NOT be lucky. You may get 25 people world-wide who use your stuff and expect you to drop everything to fix their problems. If I were using someone else's software to run my site and my site was broken, I'd sure as heck expect them to help me fix it.
The point is that I could use the same skills and time to make software that will make me more money, without costing me as much.
If I were to win the lottery, then I'd spend full days working on this software and release it to the public without worrying about mortgage, food, college for the kids, etc.
To answer the specific question, Rob posed, I think we will see a mix. A LOT of people will continue to use the existing free version. A small number will pay. Many will try alternatives. Ultimately I think quite a few will go for a hosted solution where someone else manages everything.
Sorry to get all rambly and stuff, but that's my two cents worth.
-
I've been using the Comicpress theme for a while and stopped upgrading at 2.7-2.8. For me it was the first program that really set up a clean and professional looking comic site with auto-updating. I'm not a programmer but I chopped through the code to make my site appear a bit more customized. Frumph was very helpful and I very much appreciate the time he took into making a great program and helping me out.
Right around the time I got my site up and working I noticed that Inkblot was getting to be "the new thing" and even considered switching (mostly because of the flexible theme structure it used) but chose not too because I didn't want to mess with what I had just spent months figuring out and customizing. I suspect there might be a bit of migration over to Inkblot and their software, but people do find comfort in paid versions because it implies a certain level of product responsibility and support that goes beyond freeware expectations. Has anyone done a side by side comparison between the new Comicpress and Inkblot or other such software/freeware on the market?
-
Has anyone done a side by side comparison between the new Comicpress and Inkblot or other such software/freeware on the market?
No but I'd love to see the article on it here if anyone does.
Frumph is a great advocate for the Comicpress plug in.... almost to a fault. My only two experiences with the man have been really negative because he overreacted to one of our articles advocating the "Webcomics" plug in and some minor criticism I made on Twitter of Comicpress sites in general (that they are a bit bland usually). He really flipped on me. It wasn't pretty.
But I let it go because I know how helpful he is to everyone who uses the plug in in the community. I admire his passion for the work/product he's helped create.
-
I'm actually looking for a different program.I've tried to get help on the comicpress forums several times and the last time I was there Frumph told me to leave and not come back "until i knew how to ask a proper question". Not the warm fuzzy helpful person everyone else told me he was. Well off to spend the weekend being a fellow guest with him at Intervention.
-
I'm actually looking for a different program.I've tried to get help on the comicpress forums several times and the last time I was there Frumph told me to leave and not come back "until i knew how to ask a proper question". Not the warm fuzzy helpful person everyone else told me he was. Well off to spend the weekend being a fellow guest with him at Intervention.
I am getting closer to the ComicReef 0.30 release. My site has been running it successfully for over a year and those who do use it praise its ease of use. Contact me if you're at all interested.
-
I'm actually looking for a different program.I've tried to get help on the comicpress forums several times and the last time I was there Frumph told me to leave and not come back "until i knew how to ask a proper question". Not the warm fuzzy helpful person everyone else told me he was. Well off to spend the weekend being a fellow guest with him at Intervention.
I am getting closer to the ComicReef 0.30 release. My site has been running it successfully for over a year and those who do use it praise its ease of use. Contact me if you're at all interested.
What he said. ;D