Tumblr vs. Wordpress (for me?)

I know this topic has been kicked around quite a bit, but I’d like some input before I go on further. My current tumblr is very new, http://www.theblackrussian.tumblr.com, it’s mostly a web comic based site, and I love the feel of tumblr and the ease of customization.

However, I have some looming issues that I see myself running to in the future.

Tumblr has:
– No true search (I did at the html search bar) of tags or, more importantly other people (I have used rollcall etc.)
– Near unuseable archiving system; it looks nice and it’s fantastic for random microblogging, but even though I’m only doing a web comic I’d like a little more functionality.

Wordpress however also gives me some problems:
– Less customization for a person with limited knowledge (and I have to pay to use custom free themes etc.) <- this is the biggest issue for me, it seems tumblr is much easier to customize than wordpress for someone like me who isn’t advanced.
– Paying for domain name? Maybe I’m not understanding this correctly, but if I bought a domain name from somewhere like dreamhost, I would need to pay an additional 10$ to work it with wordpress?

So, is there any input? I do intend to post text bits here and there but mostly it’ll be images, do people think for what I’m wanting to do, is tumblr or wordpress better for me.