Beetle blogging

Hello my baby bugs. Nothing specific that incited this feeling, but I woke up with this desire to talk a bit about things rattling around in my brain. As I've hinted at in a couple posts, I'm in the middle of drawing and prep work for the biggest project I've done so far (more to come on that front very soon). Also I've been in a mood all January. Not a bad feeling at all, but I've had this weird looming anxiety about the new year. 2025 was huge for me, and I really felt the earth form beneath my feet, careerwise. My follower-count pretty much doubled over the course of the year, I had a lot of business opportunities come my way, and I hit some of the highest watermarks of my artistic journey, like with the Flyer. Not to mention the in-person events I tabled (SwampCon, OMGCon, Webcomicon to name a few of the biggest hits for me). I'm planning to expand and do more convention appearances, since they're always an awesome time and I have new friends by the weekend's close.

So here I am, now, at the start of 2026 trying to do everything in my power to make this year an even bigger success than the last. The most important (if not abstract) lesson I've gathered from these last 3.5 years as a full-time artist is to trust myself, and take big swings even if the "practical" goal isn't clear. The means justify the end. In other words, I still have no idea where this is taking me, but I'm going to promise myself that at the end of it all, I'll have a wicked catalogue of art, and I really tried my best to elevate the medium in my own way.

I see this question posed from time to time... oddly enough I don't think anyone has asked ME this question lol but they should because I have an answer. The question is: "How do you keep making art in times like these?" Well, I'm glad you asked because I will now answer your question with a question: How can you not??? Do you think art is only made in times of celebration? It's my opinion that now, and always, it is so important to record the zeitgeist with honest, challenging art.

It's hard to be funny, it's hard to make art, but both of these things can come naturally if you're open to it. You ever have one of those moments where you're in a group of people and you say something offhanded and it makes the whole squad laugh? And you're like, wow I'm so funny. But the truth is you were just in the moment? You can have that type of connection with your artistic process, no matter the medium. Accept the fact that not everything is going to bang. Ideas don't need to be fine-tuned until the end when you're, well, fine tuning it.

It aggravates me to see the dominant state of the "creatorsphere", whatever that means, on the internet. There's an extremely popular type of content creator online which just seeks to make "slop". I really hate using that term because it feels trendy and actually undermines the deeper criticism. Artists, Youtubers, talking head internet personalities ... There's this all-too-common theme of making negative, low-brow media. And the part which is most deeply sickening to me is the misallocated smugness that these "creators" have; this aura that they've broken into the system, they've cracked the code, that they see something which other less-popular creators do not have. That the trick to making it big is making stupid, loud, sometimes mean-spirited content, because that's all it takes to get people to engage and anything more is "cringe" or a waste of time. I see right through this. You cannot take all your millions in streamer-bux to the grave, and you will have only left a wake of garbage. Making cheap art comes at the cost of cheapening the world around you.

Apologies for the incensed tangent. I should mention there are so many unbelievable artists making work right now, and their work should be celebrated. I think the world deserves to have interesting art. People have different tastes, nothing artistic is for everyone. But the job of the creator is to try. As long as people want to try, there is always hope for a better world. If you are an art enjoyer, which I'd imagine you are if you are here, make the choice to engage with art where the artist tries. Maybe this seems obvious, but I've been noticing it getting drowned out a bit in the endless stream of empty content. There are more hours of movies, music, comics, books, where the artist poured their soul into its creation than you could spend your lifetime enjoying. There should be very little room for junk. You'll be a more inspired and optimistic person for it, I guarantee it.

So anyway, I wanted to let my keyboard rip a bit here since it's rare these days I share some extended thoughts with my community. I haven't done any video content in a while, barring some podcast appearances, and I've really been focused on fine tuning my art and pushing forward on this journey Beetle Moses has taken me. It's completely surreal to me to imagine my comics have gathered a community, and the most unreal part is that every time I have the chance to meet my fans/readers irl, they are the coolest, most down-to-earth people. I really am blessed by you guys. Completely random thought here at the end, but I've been wanting to boost up the activity in my subreddit, r/beetlemoses. If you're interested in reposting your favorite beetle comics, or pictures of animals, or art, or anything that seems roughly beetle moses adjacent, I'd love to see it. Thank you tremendously again, and lets talk again soon.