Need Help: Looking for better Image/News Management Software

[toasty]

My situation is that I'm creating a site that - for lack of a better term - could be called a 'webcomic'. That's not what the core of the site is, but aspects of the whole "comic" and "post" are what have been giving me issues for quite some time and I'm getting very close to my launch date.

For comic/image and news/post rotation and navigation I was planning on using Comikaze (http://www.comikaze.org/) (using php and mysql), which I must say, is a brilliant piece of work and does very close to what I'm looking for. However, the drawback is that the comic and the news post must be on the same page.

My goal is to be able to have visitor navigate the comics and the news independantly from eachother; likewise be able to access an archive for each as well. If you want an example of what I'm after, just check out the setup at Penny Arcade. Their news and comics are on seperate pages, each with their own navigation buttons. That's exactly what I'm after.

I don't want to limit myself with some crappy CMS template. My site has a unigue look to it and that's why I loved Comikaze, because to use its functionality all you have to do is throw in a couple lines of code wherever you want them and it works. But damnit, Comikaze's news posts are directly linked to the comics in its database as far as I can tell.

If anyone has any ideas how I can achieve this, either with Comikaze or with some other software implimentation, please let me know. Any help would be invaluable!

Thanks everyone,
- Toasty

[toasty]

Okay, I just had a thought as I was pouring through the PHP code and looking at the database structure of Comikaze. Basically the app already has a total of four tables and are as follows: News, Comics, Users, and Configuration.

I don't think the solution I'm after has to do with screwing with the tables at all, rather in the variables used on the PHP end. I've already figured out how to create a page that displays *just* the comics, or *just* the news posts. The hurdle I'm up against is when the navigation buttons are used to pull the information from the database they are referencing a defined set of variables.


<?=$comic->firstButton?>
<?=$comic->prevButton?>
<?=$comic->archiveButton?>
<?=$comic->nextButton?>
<?=$comic->latestButton?>

Those variables direct the user to a new page called "archive_page.php". I already figured out how to edit the "archive_page.php" to display what I want, either just the *comic* or just the *news*. Thus one possible solution would be to create a second set of variables that directs the user to a *new/different* archive page.

So assuming that the variable set
<?=$comic->firstButton?>
<?=$comic->prevButton?>
<?=$comic->archiveButton?>
<?=$comic->nextButton?>
<?=$comic->latestButton?>
Directs the user to archive_page.php.

How could I create a second set, something like:
<?=$comic->firstButton?>
<?=$comic->prevButtonNews?>
<?=$comic->archiveButtonNews?>
<?=$comic->nextButtonNews?>
<?=$comic->latestButtonNews?>
that would direct the user to the new "News" archive file called news_archive_page.php?

If anyone can tell me how I would create/define the new variables (I can probably figure out what page I need to do this on if I know what to search for) I think I could actually do this!

I feel like I'm *so* close; as always any help would be absolutely wonderful! Did I mention you would be contributing to helping me launch a really awesome website? :D