This is when creativity seems to be at an all-time high everywhere you look. From carved pumpkins to costumes to haunted houses to the really scary stuff like, well…

One of the benefits of publishing comics on Substack is its powerful SEO capabilities. Since comics are image-based, they’ve traditionally missed out on such opportunities, and this platform nicely compensates for those deficiencies. The only problem is that most of us are ignoring this step entirely.

Post Settings

Many creators rush through the next step — the Post Settings — after formatting a comic update or a newsletter edition. After all, it’s the same old stuff we hate: Tags, social-media previews and SEO options. But spending a few minutes here can help drive your work to new eyes — and that’s the reason we’re all on the platform in the first place. If you look at the Post Settings, under the scheduling data, you’ll see two important fields: Social preview and SEO options.

You’ll notice that it’s already populated with content from your post. It uses the first image in your newsletter — cropped according to a preset in your settings. The text is pulled from your subhead. If there’s no subhead, Substack defaults to the first sentence in your post. None of these are optimal.

How do you build momentum as a cartoonist — and what happens when you lose it?

Brad and Dave examine momentum across every part of a creative career: Generating ideas, maintaining a productive workflow, growing an audience, and building a sustainable business. They discuss why progress can feel imperceptibly slow at first, how consistent work eventually begins producing its own energy, and why returning after a break can feel like starting a stalled train.

Then, a listener asks how cartoonists should transition between scenes, chapters, and storylines in a collected book. Brad and Dave compare their very different approaches, debate whether a completely blank page is ever justified, and explain how multiple purpose-driven read-throughs can reveal problems with pacing, continuity, page turns, and transitions.

Also: Skunk Watch 2026 continues, Dave considers surrendering his backyard, and Professor Dr. Reginald Wigglesby reveals the completely reliable history behind Little Orphan Annie’s pupil-less eyes.

ON THIS WEEK’S SHOW…

• What “momentum” means in a creative career
• Why momentum takes longer to build than most cartoonists expect
• Creative momentum and generating new ideas
• Using an assembly-line workflow to work faster and better
• Repurposing one comic for websites, social media, books, merchandise, and more
• Building business momentum through Patreon, Kickstarter, and audience trust
• Why old business models can survive on momentum—even after they stop making sense
• Recovering after a creative pause
• Transitioning between scenes, chapters, and storylines
• Splash pages, title pages, narration boxes—and the dreaded blank page
• Conducting separate read-throughs for dialogue, art, pacing, continuity, and page turns
• Reviewing a book in print, on desktop, and on a small screen
• Skunk Watch 2026
• Prof. Wigglesby, The Histories of Sequential Art: Little Orphan Annie’s eyes

Patreon’s Collections feature enables creators to group and catalog content. This is a tremendous step forward for how comic creators can use the crowdfunding app.

Collections

Cataloging and grouping content has long been a problem on Patreon. Despite welcome emails and other onboarding efforts, new patrons often have difficulty accessing all of the exclusive content they paid for. Patreon’s Collections feature addresses that.

Found on your main Patreon page menu, Collections allows you to build modules of similar content. For example, you can group all the comics from a specific storyline. Or you can collect all of the comics on a certain theme. To make this even easier, you can use tags to select the items for these groups. You can also filter by media type or by keywords.

This is a great way to instill added value to your Patreon page. Here are a few suggestions for using it effectively. Scroll to the end for a Bonus Tip that can help increase your revenue.

How much of a successful comics career depends on being temporarily delusional? Brad and Dave suspect it may be more than anyone wants to admit.

Then, a listener asks about creating a style guide for a comic. Brad and Dave discuss the small decisions that help lettering remain clear, consistent, and easy to read — from spelling out numerals and avoiding hyphenated line breaks to shaping word balloons, using all-caps lettering, and deciding whether “livestream” is one word or two.

Finally, they look back at the pivotal “sliding doors” moments that could have sent their careers in entirely different directions. Dave talks about leaving Mattel, choosing webcomics over syndication, and the friendships that helped him become a better cartoonist. Brad remembers the collapsed newspaper job offer that sent him back to comics, the syndicate pitch that deserved to fail, and the leap that finally made cartooning his full-time career.

ON THIS WEEK’S SHOW…

• Why every creative career requires a little temporary delusion
• What belongs in a comic-specific style guide
• Why Brad spells out numbers in Evil Inc
• Punctuation, abbreviations, and the Oxford comma
• Why hyphenating words inside balloons hurts readability
• How line breaks affect the shape and flow of a word balloon
• All caps versus sentence-case lettering
• Using colloquial spellings without making dialogue difficult to read
• The pivotal decisions that changed Brad and Dave’s careers
• Leaving a secure job to become a full-time cartoonist
• Choosing webcomics over newspaper syndication
• How a community of fellow cartoonists can accelerate your growth