This is an excellent time to start an account on Reddit — or to dust off a profile you haven’t used in ages. With 52 million active users and passionate communities, Reddit can help bolster the engagement you’re losing at Twitter.
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Cartoonist Brad Guigar talks about his love/hate relationship with Reddit — and the publishing strategy that’s currently delivering Patreon backers that has him loving it again.
Today’s Show
NSFW comic artists on Reddit
Brad mentioned getting great advice from people doing NSFW comics on Reddit. Here are a few of them.
Takeaways
Summary
In this episode of ComicLab, cartoonists Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett discuss the challenges and strategies of comic creation, particularly focusing on the use of Reddit as a platform for engagement. They explore the ethics of working on personal projects during downtime at work, the acceptance of NSFW content, and the importance of consistency in posting. The episode also features listener interaction, discussing how accents can influence perceptions, and concludes with a challenge from the hosts.
“Don’t quit your day job” is often used to insult artists and imply that they haven’t become successful yet. But we need to rethink this advice because — for today’s artists — a day job is not a sign of an amateur. Rather, it indicates that the artist is doing what they must to succeed, and that’s worth celebrating.
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With social media in steep decline, many of us are scrambling to replace one of its biggest perks: discoverability. Finding new readers used to be as simple as posting regularly. Today? Not so much.
A Content Exchange offers a smart, sustainable alternative — and adds genuine value for your existing backers.
Sharing another creator’s work with your Patreon or Substack audience isn’t just a good idea — it’s great content.
One thing I’ve seen again and again: the more exclusive content I post, the more pledges and subscribers I get. Scarcity works. And a Content Exchange lets you post something fresh and exclusive without creating it from scratch.
If you’ve ever tried turning your print-ready InDesign layout into a digital download, you’ve probably discovered the balancing act: you want your eBook to look sharp on screens without ballooning into a 300-megabyte monster. Whether you’re posting on Patreon, selling on Itch.io, or sending PDFs to your Kickstarter backers, the right export settings can make all the difference.
Here’s a breakdown of the best InDesign settings for producing a screen-optimized, high-quality PDF eBook — perfect for comics, artbooks, or any illustrated project that started life in print.
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.We always advise having “many legs under your table.” In other words, comic creators should have many sources of revenue. If one is threatened, the others can keep the business aloft. So it’s important, from time to time, to check for wobbly legs! What are the sources of comics income that are currently vulnerable?
Today’s Show
Summary
In this episode of ComicLab, hosts Dave Kellett and Brad Guigar explore various themes related creativity and the business of comics. The conversation begins with the importance of diversifying income streams for artists. They also delve into concerns about merchandise shipping costs and the future of platforms like Patreon in the age of AI. Next, the hosts reflect on the relationship between style and design in art, and how generational changes will influence the integration of AI into creative fields. The episode wraps up with light-hearted banter and insights into the creative process.
Takeaways
Publishing a longform comic online can feel like building a bridge while people are already walking across it. Every week, new readers discover your work — but they’re jumping in halfway through the story. How do you keep them engaged and reward the loyal fans who’ve been there since page one? Here are some tried-and-true tips for keeping serialized storytelling clear, inviting, and binge-ready across every platform — from your website to Patreon to social media.
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Every Kickstarter tells a story — not just about the book itself, but about the paths people take to discover it. Now that Full Stream Ahead has wrapped, I took a deep dive into the referral data, and the results say a lot about how indie comics projects reach their audience in 2025.
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Building an audience on the web means adapting to the vertical scroll. But that doesn’t mean giving up innovative page designs! You can still feature horizontal panels and even overlapping panels on the page of your graphic novel. You simply need to plan ahead. Here’s a step-by-step guide on doing precisely that.
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