It is a major step forward from the previous update. Thank you for listening to the huge wave of user feedback you received.
These are the suggestions I have as an ex(? now independent, I guess) web developer:
Make it so that the top and bottom bars on Tapas are smaller. Right now they're enormous and take up an insane amount of screen space and detract from the reading experience. Frankly I don't even see why the bottom bar is necessary at all, and the top bar is 2.5-3x as large as it needs to be. It makes comics very hard to read, even on a 1080p screen and even in fullscreen mode. The bottom bar should disappear while scrolling down at the very least; it is a distraction and a visual blockage.
Having the episode list on the left would be preferable to having it on the right. Most comics are read left to right, so having the list in a position where your eyes are consistently shifting forward to is distracting. Maybe make this able to be toggled, as users who read more right to left comics may have a different preference. (There is a reason, visually, though, why most navigation menus are on the left-hand side)
Since you are scrolling down, it makes sense to have the episodes in the navigation menu increase going down rather than going up. As is I can't tell how many episodes I have to read because they are going in the opposite direction than I am scrolling.
The like button should ALWAYS be clickable while scrolling through episodes and should be placed with the episode description at the end. It should not be off at the bottom on a separate bar, as this breaks the reading experience and heavily discourages users who are catching up on comics to like the episodes.
Likewise, comments deserve more visibility than only the top or one two being shown (and with no threads). A big part of Tapas is community, and by giving visibility to only a select few and minimizing the comment section to a point that it's so easily missed is going to take that away (especially on smaller comics with less viewers). The sidebar is also far too small to play this role and has no business being a comment box, so please move comments back onto the main scroll area.
I still don't quite understand why Tapas made the move to make 99% of their site a Webtoon clone and overhaul the site only to have to bring features back (in a far less than ideal way). It would still make far more sense from a user and usability standpoint to simply revert Tapas to its old design from before the update earlier this year. It's just a thought, but honestly I still can't see what this new design has brought except for headaches for everyone and an annoying series description page. That being said, finally seeing some glimpse of what made Tapas' desktop site worthwhile is nice. It'll be a whole lot nicer when a whole lot more keeps getting done to it though.