EXACTLY, removing the New and Old buttons was a major mistake. Those cannot be removed at all and should be returned to the site, if nothing else but for the very purpose of navigating comics. Having those six "See more from so-and-so" is neat but not needed at all. It definitely didn't warrant removing the New and Old buttons. In order to go back to the person's gallery, you have to click their name, then gallery, so I'd say under every picture there should be, like on the old setup, Icon thumbnails along with the words New and old and in between them Gallery, to take you back to the artists Gallery.
(pic)Newer- Gallery - (pic)Older
In the future, it wouldn't be a bad idea to put a new UI in a link to let people view and discuss changes instead of just up and changing the entire site without warning.