Neonwire
Ⓦ PortfolioA portfolio that boots up like the HUD of a machine from a better future.
📝 Blog & Magazine
Ⓦ WordPress
Splashpage
A blog that reads like a comic book — masthead, panels, halftone and all.
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Platform
- WordPress
- Licence
- GPL v2 or later
- Requires
- WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+
- Download size
- 1.7 MB
Look inside Splashpage
Real pages from the live demo, not mock-ups. Open any of them to click around.
What Splashpage is for
Splashpage turns a blog into a comic. The front page is a cover: a huge off-register masthead, an ISSUE box that numbers itself, a starburst and a price that is still zero. Below it your posts are panels — different sizes, tilted tags, speech-bubble excerpts — and any post can be promoted to a full-page splash. It is built for pop-culture blogs, zines, review sites and newsletters that would rather be read than skimmed, and every comic device in it can be switched off in the Customizer if you want the layout without the ink.
What’s in it
- A cover masthead with off-register CMYK lettering, a sunburst and an ISSUE number that counts itself up
- Posts as comic panels — mixed sizes, tilted category tags and speech-bubble excerpts
- Promote any post to a full-page splash: one image, one headline, nowhere to hide
- Halftone screens, ink outlines and paper grain, each with its own switch
- Hand-lettered display type bundled with the theme — no web font requests
- Comment threads styled as letters to the editor, with a real form
- Four colour presets from newsprint to midnight, plus every colour individually
- A 404 page drawn as a torn panel, and a search page that looks designed when it finds nothing
Installing it
- Download the zip — splashpage.zip, 1.7 MB. Do not unzip it.
- In WordPress, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
- Choose the zip and press Install Now, then Activate.
- Set it up under Appearance → Customize — colours, menus, layout and the front-page sections all live there.
Installing by FTP instead? Unzip it and upload the splashpage folder into wp-content/themes/, then activate it from Appearance → Themes.
Frequently asked
Do I need a plugin to get the comic layout?
No. The panels, masthead, halftone and splash pages are all part of the theme, built from ordinary posts and categories. Nothing here depends on a page builder or a block plugin.
Can I turn the comic effects down?
Yes. Halftone, ink outlines, paper grain, the off-register lettering and the tilts each have their own toggle in the Customizer. Switch them all off and you have a clean, fast magazine layout.
How do I make a post a full-page splash?
Tick "Splash" on the post. It then takes the full width of the front page with its featured image behind the headline. Everything else stays a normal panel.
Can I remove the theme credit?
The copyright line is yours to edit in the Customizer. The small "Splashpage theme by The Big Head" credit is part of the theme. It is GPL, so you may modify the code, but there is no setting that hides it.
Is it readable, or is it all style?
Body text sits on a comfortable measure in a plain, highly legible face — the comic lettering is used for headlines and labels only. Every colour preset is checked for at least 4.5:1 contrast on body copy, and reduced-motion switches off every animation.
The same promise on every theme here
Genuinely free, including commercially
WordPress themes are GPL v2+, Shopify themes are MIT. Either way: use it on client sites, change it, rename it, sell the site you built with it. There is no “pro” version being withheld and no licence key.
No account, no email, no upsell
The download button is a download button. We do not ask who you are and there is nothing to unsubscribe from afterwards.
Nothing phones home
No Google Fonts, no analytics, no external requests of any kind. Everything the theme needs is inside the zip, which is also why they are small.
Not a page-builder trap
Every theme works with the block editor and the Customizer alone. None of them require a plugin to look like the demo.
