In the spring, I read this DD News:
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/28/dd-update-post-31st-of-march/
… and I was so impressed by the page layout that I changed the design of the (not yet published) latest chapter of Birdmentime's Hero - novel.
Today, on a trial basis, I clicked on some links given in the news item above and ended up in a “bad gateway”.
This can mean something good or something sad:
If it means something good, it's because the old trial site will soon be replaced by a new, improved one. Or that the new DD page layout will come very soon … ? 😛
If it means something bad, it means that the construction work in general has stopped and that the already visible, tender little plants have been uprooted.

Who can enlighten me, or us about the latest development?

I too was wondering about the update. There were many plans, design ideas shared earlier. Maybe if it's hard to decide which design ideas to implement in what form, staff could just take a vote on it. And if the issue is more on the funding / technical side of things, I'm sure there are ways to solve that too. But my guess is that there are some crucial issues to fix first and the guy tasked with the job just happens to be too busy with this and that. Idk. Was hoping to see some hip new look come to fruition this year, but maybe that's not realistic and we'll have to aim for next year.

Oh, I've actually found a relevant part.
“Lastly I've paid another $800 USD to Alexey for his continued work (from my own money), our advertising and Patreon doesn't cover that so this is why the development time is so slow. Bear with us, we don't have the resources to go faster ^_^”

Maybe you could start a crowdfunding project for it if ads and patreon can't cover it. (or start selling Duck shirts as I imagine you did at one point or another, because the dead store button is still there in the footer section, lol).

Last news on this stuff was that I asked Alexey to start transitioning us to the new design but he's been having a bad few weeks with his health so things are going really slow. There's a bunch of lots of small changes that have to happen to designs to transfer the new look to the current site that Alexey can't really get himself to do at the moment.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Maybe you could start a crowdfunding project for it if ads and patreon can't cover it. (or start selling Duck shirts as I imagine you did at one point or another, because the dead store button is still there in the footer section, lol).

Yes, indeed! I never noticed the “Store” button before.
We could make something out of that! Many DD authors are poor as church mice, but rich in ideas.

E.g. with advertising for both: for the DD website and for the artists: the Duckweiser beer glass without and with the picture of a hero from a DD comic. Or the already mentioned T-shirts! Or cocktail and whiskey glasses, engraved.
I'm wearing a Jason Chen t-shirt right now, apparently digitally distributed worldwide and printed pretty close to home. A marketing strategy like this shouldn't cost much, but should only be done if we can back it up 100% via crowdfunding.

I haven’t being on this forum in years so I’m not sure what changed if I must be honest.