Remove “comments are closed”

Hi all,

I’d like to remove a divider line, the words “Comments are closed”, and the closing tag for HTML commenting ( –> ) when I turn off comments for a page.

I’ve noticed this occurs on Chrome and IE browsers for Windows and Safari, Opera, and Camino on Mac. Firefox for either OS doesn’t show this at all (which is how I’d like it to appear). I’m using a modified retromania theme (meaning I just swapped out the graphic assets).

Here’s a example page: https://prova.server296.com/?page_id=2

The divider line can be changed by modifying the .comments style in the stylesheet, but this turns it off for both comments and no comments:

.comments
{
	width:100%;
	overflow:hidden;
	border-top:1px solid #413a1f;
	color:#232323;
}

The words “Comments are closed” in the comments.php file could be commented out so they don’t appear:

<?php else : // comments are closed ?>
<!-- If comments are closed. -->
<p class="nocomments">Comments are closed.</p>

The 3rd piece is the closing tag for HTML commenting ( –> ). I found this in the page.php file commented out. I’m not sure why it’s appearing since it seems properly enclosed:

<!-- <?php comments_template(); ?> -->

Removing the last piece of code would actually would actually remove all 3 items listed above, but I’m wondering if it’s something that needs to be retained.

Thanks for your help!