Today’s show is sponsored by Huion, makers of the Huion Kamvas 22 (Gen 3) — a 21.5″ pen display with a gorgeous 2.5K screen and really smooth performance. Bottom line: it feels great to draw on — and it punches way above its price.

• Check it out at https://comiclabshop.com

• Use code COMICLAB5 for an exclusive 5% discount! (Valid through June 14th)

Brad and Dave tackle a listener question that gets to the heart of creative careers: Can you make a living telling shorter stories, or does success demand long-form work? As always, the answer is equal parts practical advice and creative philosophy — grounded in real-world experience and delivered with ComicLab’s signature mix of humor and honesty.

TODAY’S SHOW

• Can you build a career on individual short stories?
• Market expectations around story length (comics, film, TV) and perceived value
• Creative problem-solving as a business tool — making unconventional formats work
• Strategies for packaging short stories (genre consistency, shared setting, through-lines)
• Examples of experimental storytelling formats (anthologies, vignette structures)
• PROMO: Huion Kamvas 22 (Gen 3) — features, workflow integration, and discount code ComicLab5 at https://comiclabshop.com
• Estate planning for cartoonists — what happens to your IP after death?
• Debate: Should creative work become public domain sooner?
• Should kids continue your comic… or make their own work?
• The reality of legacy comics vs. modern independent publishing

Kickstarter has announced an updated set of rules that apply to adult-content creators, and there’s a lot of panic circulating. Let’s take a close look at what’s happening, because if I’m right, there’s more going on than meets the eye.

Patreon is a great way to monetize your work on the Web, but it’s inescapable — if you want paying backers, you’ve got to be prepared to make it worth their while. And that means posting often — including exclusive content. But sometimes it’s hard to know what to post when you’re putting everything you’ve got into simply doing your comic. So, what can you post when you’re out of ideas (and time)? Buckle up. I’ve got 15 types of posts that are proven winners — and most of them take very little extra time.

A listener asks whether some words are inherently funnier than others—and it opens the door to a deep dive on word choice, dialogue, and how to make jokes land harder.

Brad and Dave break down why shorter, punchier words tend to win, how sound and rhythm affect comedy, and why you should always end on the funniest word. They also walk through their real-world writing process—cutting aggressively, reading dialogue out loud, and constantly swapping in better word choices.

From there, the conversation expands into how to write strong dialogue (hint: it’s not about realism—it’s about impact), plus a list of pitfalls to avoid, including gimmicky accents, overstuffed word balloons, and writing that slows the reader down.

They also revisit a past take on political cartoons (turns out, they’re thriving on Reddit), talk about the return of Web 1.0 strategies like guest comics, and reinforce a core principle: own your platform and your audience.

TODAY’S SHOW

• Writing funny words: Why word choice makes or breaks a joke
• Psychologist vs. psychiatrist — choosing the funnier word (it’s “shrink”)
• How to edit your way to stronger, tighter dialogue
• Dialogue pitfalls: accents, gimmicks, and readability traps
• Political cartoons are thriving on Reddit (and what that means)
• The return of Web 1.0 tactics: Guest comics and cross-promotion
• Reclaiming your platform: Why websites still matter

Kishōtenketsu (起承転結, pronounced “kee-show-ten-ketsu”) is a traditional plot structure in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literature and poetry, derived from the classical Chinese four-line poems. But there’s a twist. Instead of relying on conflict — which lies at the heart of several Western story archetypes (like the Three-Act Structure) — the four acts of Kishōtenketsu rely on a reinterpretation of the plot’s initial set-up. If this sounds exotic and outlandish — it’s not. You’re more familiar with this technique than you might be aware.

Kishōtenketsu, syllable by syllable

Each syllable of the word Kishōtenketsu stands for a part of the process. The four acts of Kishōtenketsu are:

• Introduction (ki) establishes the main characters and their setting.
• Development (sho) deepens the reader’s understanding / emotional attachment to characters.
• Twist (ten) introduces an unexpected and significant change to the setting and to the characters’ lives.
• Conclusion (ketsu) brings together and reconciles the first two acts with the changes of the third.

Misdirection

If you’re familiar with humor writing, this is not unlike the concept of Misdirection. Using misdirection, writing can point the reader in one direction and then pull the rug out from under them — to achieve a comedic effect. It works like this: