I was just thinking about this again. What's the plan with this possibility now? Will it happen? Has it been deemed not worth doing? It hasn't been mentioned for awhile.
I looked at the news variables just now, and I think, if "newest news post" variables were added as global variables (like the title and message body), that would make
me happy at least. As is, the number of visible news posts are controlled by the comic settings page instead of the code, because it's hooked up with the news page. If some other variables are added, they could probably be added as normal variables. The point of me wanting it the way I do would be so that readers can easily see the most recent news without consciously going to the news page (which is more similar to an archieve, anyhow), or authors having to post news in author comments (which kind of eliminates the purpose of the news posts). So it would be kind of like a preview of the News page.
Oh, and it looks like it was mentioned that it might be easy enough to do something like that, here? Maybe?
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1343&p=12611&hilit=news+post+variable#p12611