Current Year in Copyright Footer

I'm interested in doing this, too, on instinctivecognition.com I'd like to use a version of this php code I found here: http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-a-dynamic-copyright-date-in-wordpress-footer/ It instructs to place the following in functions.php:

function comicpress_copyright() {
global $wpdb;
$copyright_dates = $wpdb->get_results("
SELECT
YEAR(min(post_date_gmt)) AS firstdate,
YEAR(max(post_date_gmt)) AS lastdate
FROM
$wpdb->posts
WHERE
post_status = 'publish'
");
$output = '';
if($copyright_dates) {
$copyright = "© " . $copyright_dates[0]->firstdate;
if($copyright_dates[0]->firstdate != $copyright_dates[0]->lastdate) {
$copyright .= '-' . $copyright_dates[0]->lastdate;
}
$output = $copyright;
}
return $output;
}

And then to place this (edited for display) call in footer.php:

< ? php echo comicpress_copyright(); ? >

However, when I try that this new copyright notice displays below the theme's footer and looks terrible. Is there some other theme file I could edit to drop in that comicpress_copyright() call so that it displays where it's supposed to? I tried putting this similar JavaScript version, which I've used on other non-Wordpress sites, in the WPLMS options > Footer text editor, but it didn't work. Can I put JavaScript or PHP is the WPLMS options Footer text editor somehow? Or can you point out the theme file I'd need to edit to drop it in?

Cool. I'll look forward to it. Thank you!

Hi there, I see the shortcode listed in the 2.8 update log [vibe_current_date] ... the shortcode displays on my site like this: <span style="color: #444444; font-family: Varela; font-size: 14px; text-transform: uppercase;">2018/04/06 </span> How do I customize it so it only shows the year?

Thank you! That worked. I'll open up my own a topics as well.