The front page... It really is too much, too much premium, too much top, too much banners.
I know you guys must have a lot of pressure from inside and outside factors, and you need to make money. That's how it's always been, and I don't think it will ever change, is it a bad thing?, not really. The thing is how one goes around it.
If it was hard for a new cat starting a comic, now the sky seems a little greyer. The new and noteworthy section seems filled with previous staff picks, and then you have staff picks with the same comics, why have 2 sections of the same titles?. I'm hoping we need a little more time for the algorithm to catch up.
The trending section was like the heaven for new peeps to get noticed, now it's basically at the bottom of the page.. The amount of scrolling down you have to do to get there is a lot, and if you mage to scroll all the way down, coz I will guess peeps would have clicked a premium comic just before reaching the bottom.
Why have huge banners inbetween the sections?, it's like you're advertising the same comics twice. Maybe adding some new comics to those banners, not from the staff picks obviously. It will be hard to motivate peeps to update (spending time and effort to create a new episode) or to even publish, only to appear (if the made it to trend) at the bottom of a page...
Finally why is the forum back at the bottom of the front page?, I know you'll always cater more to the readers, but I think the forum is such a vital part of this website, here peeps interact, ask for advice, ask for feedback, promote their comics, chat, tapastic staff advertise their stuff, etc.
It seems like all the changes where made to attract more readers and make more money, and not so much on caring for the content creators (aside for the premium and big cats who'll get more readership). I know that your priority is to get more readers, but think about this a little, attracting new creators is also really important, if there are no creators they'll be no readers, one can't live without the other.
The changes you have implemented to get new creators are always "money based", now we have ads, now we have tips, come and earn money. Why not try to have other incentives, like equal chance of exposure, the option of adding multiple creators to one comic, folders for the episodes, getting rid of bugs. I know peeps like money, but the thing is, it's not everything to keep a "worker" happy.
Having one part of the equation (the reader) and the other sad (the creator), it's not that productive, having a balance would be essential. Maybe adding a few changes to attract and keep new creators?, giving them an equal chance to be seen?, and at the end of the day the reader is the one who chooses out of all the options what they would want to read.