What happens to your audience when the platform hosting your comic disappears? Brad and Dave discuss the news of Tapas shutting down and why owning your website, building a mailing list, and connecting readers through RSS remain essential tools for an independent comics career.

Then, Brad shares ways to breathe new life into a digital product whose sales have stalled. Finally, a listener asks about revising previously posted cartoons before submitting them to publications — sparking a discussion about first-publication rights, letting time be your editor, and applying yesterday’s lessons to tomorrow’s comics.

On this week’s show:

• Pen names, professional identities, and some spectacularly silly alternatives.
• The risks of building your audience entirely on someone else’s platform.
• Mobile-friendly websites, newsletters, and RSS.
• Reviving digital products through bundles, bonus content, new formats, sales, and membership gifts.
• Revising published cartoons versus creating new work.
• Building a buffer so you can edit with fresh eyes.
• Being kinder to the younger cartoonist who helped you get here.

Publication update: Tapas has confirmed its service will end March 31, 2027. Tapas