D..J. Coffman's Start-Your-Own-Webcomic Guide
Note: D.J.'s article has gone missing. Until I find out what's up, this article may be worth skipping. My apologies.
I encourage people involved with comics to read D.J. Coffman's article. It's a step-by-step guide of his choices for platform, CMS, host, etc.
D.J. is a forceful writer who isn't interested in explaining his recommendations at length, or why he skips other options. I think most readers can perceive this, and will recognize that he is offering an opinion along with his guidance.
CMS, you'll recall, stands for Content Management System, and it allows you to manipulate your website chunks at a time instead of keystroke by keystroke.
WordPress/ComicPress is the one DJ offers, and it's a very popular one. It also requires mastery of more coding languages than most people want to tackle, which in turn creates a reliance on others to maintain your site. I think relying on a 3rd party webmaster is one of the most serious mistakes a person can make, though not all will come to regret it. The ones who do regret really rue the day they made that selection, because the success of their webcomic is in someone else's hands.
I have seen collectives and other complex, expensive web sites brought to their knees or destroyed by neglectful webmasters.
Some will assert that WordPress isn't that hard to manage, but mostly requires help to install and polish so that your site doesn't look like everyone else's. Given the explosion of obviously under-prepared, tiresomely similar WordPress sites in comicdom, I'm not so sure.
Ultimately, it's your site, and your decision. Our job here is to share information so that you are aware of your options and can study the ones that interest you most.
You probably noticed that Kez, who discusses these issues at length on the previous pages, uses WordPress. If you keep reading, you will find other options, and further additions are planned in the coming months.
