If you use any social media platform, you’ve probably seen Beetle Moses. Whether you’re referring to the cartoonist behind these webcomics — or Harris Fishman, as he’s known as when he isn’t representing his comic — or the strips themselves, Beetle Moses and the particular brand of absurdist, almost observational comedy both are famous for spreads quickly and comprehensively throughout the internet. And it’s for good reason: They’re hilarious and thoughtful and unique and almost perfectly weaponized on social media platforms.

This may seem obvious, or maybe it isn’t, but I love Beetle Moses. No matter where I see these comics, and no matter if it’s the two or three panel strips he’s mostly known for or the longer form work he’s been playing around with of late, Beetle Moses hits — and hits big — for yours truly. But they also introduced a whole lot of questions into my brain, like, “How does he deliver so many comics all the time?” or “What guides him as he does all this?” or “What’s it like living with expectations that you’re going to constantly make people laugh with your comics?” And as per usual, when I have questions, I wanted to get answers.

So, I did what I do and I reached out to Beetle Moses to see if he’d be interested in a chat. Thankfully he was, so we hopped on Zoom and had a fantastic conversation where we covered some of those questions but also a whole lot more, including his surprise at what connects, the evolution of his art, maintaining simplicity, how he works, promoting the comic, the biggest things he’s learned since he first started, and a whole lot more. It’s a delightful chat about a fantastic comic and its creator, and I hope you enjoy it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It’s also open to non-subscribers. If you enjoy this conversation and want to read more like it — as well as support the work that goes into it — consider subscribing to SKTCHD.

I’ve been thinking about the name Beetle Moses. What or who is Beetle Moses? Is that you? Is that your comic? Which is it?

Beetle Moses: It is officially my pen name. More officially, legally speaking, it’s the name of my comic strip. I didn’t really have it in mind when I came up with the name necessarily, but it’s been somewhat good for SEO purposes. It’s like if Jim Davis changed his name to Garfield, so you just could Google it and it’s all right there.

But I had to make the distinction recently. I was syndicated briefly with King Features last year, and I basically had to specify that the name of my strip was Beetle Moses. So, at that time they could only distribute my art that fell under that umbrella. Unofficially, though, it’s what people call me online. People will call me Beetle or Moses or Beetle Moses.

And that was intentional when I came up with the name. I wanted it to sound like a name that people would be on people’s mouths, you know what I mean? I thought instead of making up something that was like, Joe Blow comics or something, I could say, have you heard of Beetle Moses? It just felt more natural to me. There were some other artists who I followed too that had kind of that pen name, and I always thought that was cool. I also like rappers that come up with these fake names, and it’s just like…it’s cool. There’s a mystique to it. So, that was intentional.

To answer your question, though, it’s both. It is me, but it is also the work that I produce.

I wonder how much of that is a webcomic specific thing. You almost need to center the comic completely because that becomes who you are.

Beetle Moses: Yeah, that is probably the case. There is a lot of SEO and marketing that goes into webcomics. I mean, there is a lot that goes into traditional print comics too. But because most webcomic artists, including myself, are a one man show…we’re doing the writing, inking, coloring, and distribution, all for our own stuff…there’s a lot about it that is public relations.

I was looking through your Instagram and thinking about what connects with people and what doesn’t, and the strip that stood out was your anglerfish comic. It has an incredible amount of engagement, and when the news hit about the first footage of an abyssal anglerfish being captured, I’m sure you were tagged a ton. The first reply to the news on Bluesky was someone posting your comic. It’s interesting to see what gets 300,000 likes and what gets 20,000 likes. Are you ever surprised by what connects?

Beetle Moses: Every day. I think it’s a frustrating thing for some creators. “Why is my audience engaging this way?” But that’s actually part of the playful thing that I like to test my audience here and there. Especially because, not to toot my own horn, but I’m drawing a ton of material. I’m posting very frequently. I have a little bit more of a portfolio mindset where I don’t get so hung up on the performance or engagement or even if it’s understood necessarily if I draw a comic that I think is funny and it underperforms in any way, shape or form. That used to make me want to pull my hair out. And now, I really am just like, “Okay, that’s interesting. Onto the next.”

I’ve always been conscious that I didn’t want to become…I don’t phrase this in a way which sounds negative. I didn’t want to fall into the trap that I think some other webcomic artists fall into, which is “This type of material works for engagement, so this is my thing now.”

You aim.

Beetle Moses: Yeah, I never want to aim to please the audience. But I do have a better understanding of that sort of balance, that push and pull between my audience. I get compared now and again to Gary Larson (from The Far Side) and Cow Tools is a strip that is constantly brought up around my work. Sometimes I’ll post something that’s kind of indirect joke or a little bit more abstract. But the funniest jokes to me are the ones I can’t explain.

The anglerfish comic is a good example, although it’s not explicitly a humorous comic. People have had different experiences with it. But that was one that I was a little worried that people weren’t going to get the vibe, or they weren’t going to know what I was going for. It’s tonally different from some of my other stuff. And it was just this beautiful thing that people have taken on. They’ve not only understood it, but because I’m just seeing all the notifications for it straight to my phone, it feels like…like this last thing that happened with the anglerfish video that went viral. The comic just has legs. It’s being reposted like crazy, which is awesome. (laughs)

That’s why I put my name on (my comics). It doesn’t bother me that people repost it. It’s great actually. And people end up finding me. It’s amazing to me. That piece means a lot, but I really try to make all of my pieces meaningful. I’ve set a standard for myself that I want things to be funny. I never want to go for the cheap, “yeah, this will get engagement.” I’ve done some of those in the past. It gives me the ick now.

Now I don’t want to do anything that I know is going to get clicks. I want to do something that I like that I think is good because it feels so much better when that clicks with my audience. And I’m lucky that my readers are chill. They don’t always know what to expect. But I think I have a level of engaged readers that really enjoy what I’m posting, even when it’s different from my usual stuff.

I feel like if you started aiming, people would know. It stops being you and it starts being what you think people want. And I think that that’s a slightly different thing. Part of the reason something like that anglerfish one works is because it’s almost a Rorschach test. I imagine you could have a hundred people and a hundred different people that have slightly different takes on what that means to them. And that’s cool. And the imperceptible, “How do you redo that when you’re aiming?” You can’t create that if you’re trying to do what you think people want.

Beetle Moses: I think you’re 100% right, and anytime you’re reaching when you’re trying to hit something…I don’t know. I’m very into art philosophy and art criticism. I’m reading Walt Whitman for the first time. I’m on a little bit of a poetry kick right now, and I just read something from him where he was talking about how a true artist is…there are curtains between a person and their art, and you need to be pulling those curtains back. Even the curtains that are trying to reach an audience or trying to be original. You know what I mean? So, the thinner the veil, I can feel between me and my joke…sorry, I just realized how crazy I sound while I’m saying all of this. (laughs)

But I do think about that a lot. I really am not trying to get engagement. I do have a decent sense I think at this point of what is going to do well. I’m never like, “Oh, this Sonic the Hedgehog movie just came out. I have to post a Sonic the Hedgehog comic. This is going to go viral.” That’s a little cheap to me. I want to make stuff that I can look back on and a year later and be like, “Damn, I was cooking. This is pretty good here.” So that’s sort of my mindset. More timelessness.

Do you look back on your work?

Beetle Moses: Oh yeah, all the time. I’m really critical of my work. Anything even over a couple months ago, sometimes I look at and I’m just like, I could have done this better. And I think that’s because I’m still somewhat early on. I’m kind of still trying to find my voice.

Your art has changed a lot.

Beetle Moses: Thanks. I think so as well. That’s been awesome. It’s just been by way of drawing every day more in the last three years than I have in the rest of my life probably. So, I feel like I have a better grasp of my technical ability and how to portray things that I want or how to draw things I’ve never drawn before. Sometimes I worry because I don’t want to lose the simplicity of some of my early work. Those were instrumental in building an audience up for me. But I love spending extra time on stuff.

I recently met someone who had given me a job early on in my independent comics career, a little commission work to do a three- or four-page comic in an anthology for them. And at the time I was super excited. I got it done and I sent it over. They were super cool, and they were happy with it, and I was happy with the job. I’ve worked for them again, but I met them in person, and they happened to give me a copy of the comic that now was in print. I’d never seen it. This was two years ago that I did this commission for them. He handed it to me, and I was looking at my own work and I was mortified. I was like, “I cannot believe how much I rushed this.” And maybe it was because there was a part of me that was like, oh, well, it’s not my own idea. They had given me a script and everything. But it was such a learning experience in that moment that it was more valuable than the commission job even itself.

But now I know that I want to make it so I can look back on all my work and be like, “Wow, I really put my all into that one.” I never want to look back on something and feel like I rushed it. So, my cartooning process, the timeline from idea inception to completion is probably three or four times the length that it was when I started, because I’m a lot more meticulous with it.

You mentioned the word simplicity earlier. There was this one comic from early on in your work that was a scene from The Dark Knight. It was the magic trick that the Joker does except it was a slightly tweaked version of that.

Beetle Moses: Slight twist.

The thing that I really loved about it was the third panel. The faces that you gave all the gangsters who who were watching this magic trick. They were just completely mortified. It was very simple but perfect. And when I look at something like the one you posted a week ago of the chonky cat, which I really like.

Beetle Moses: Oh yeah, thank you.

I like two things about it. One, I know a cat that’s very like that. My parents’ cat looks almost exactly like that. I’m pretty sure a bird would have a hell of a time with him. But also, it’s very simple. It’s just two panels. It’s set up and then punchline. The drawing is simple in a good way. Do you think that maintaining that simplicity, even if you are more meticulous with it, is important for you?

Beetle Moses: Yeah, I think that simplicity and that brevity is important. I’m on Twitter…I guess too much. Any Twitter usage at all is too much. But I just know the little dramas that are going on in there, especially in the art communities, I follow a lot of artists. And there was something a few months ago that was trending where a talented webcomic artist who I love, love, love Haus of Decline was in some…I don’t know…not in hot water. I don’t know what you’d call it, but somebody had pointed out a Haus of Decline comic that they felt was too verbose. Haus responded in a way that I thought was smart and funny. She made a huge joke of it where they posted another comic that was so verbose that you couldn’t even get through it, basically just to say, “Fuck you, I’m going to do what I want and what I think is funny.” Which is exactly the right answer.

But I think it is an interesting conversation because I love keeping things tight. The comics I’m most interested in are ones that are visually stimulating and give you room to breathe, and it’s part of why I try to do detail and why a big thing for me right now is backgrounds. That’s something in the last six months I’ve been really pushing myself to…I’m still not good at backgrounds. But I’m really taking time to not just put a flat purple background. I need to draw something and put you in a place.

And for me personally, when I’m reading comics, I think that that does so much. And it’s not taking away from the joke. It’s adding to the amount of time that a reader wants to spend in a comic. That’s where that brevity comes from is I like trying to put as much as possible into the drawing and boiling down the dialogue or any text that needs to happen to the bare minimum without losing the joke or losing the tone. I’ll add in dialogue sometimes, even if I’m trying to shave it down. I’ll keep a “bro” or something in the text, even if it’s just a superfluous word, just to be funny. Just add a little bit of tone to it. But still, yeah, I try to keep things short.

I mean, everything I also do is basically a maximum of three panels. If I can’t find way to boil it down to three panels, I’ll do the opposite thing and try to draw something that’s longer. Just make a big, long drawn-out joke.

Like The Reunion? 1

Beetle Moses: Yes, like The Reunion.

Another comic artist who I love, The Other End, another great webcomic, takes that to an extreme as well where there is a joke on the first page, but if you swipe, you’re like, “Oh, there’s another page.” And then it will go for 25 pages and gets so out of control. And it’s so funny. It’s a great comic and the art’s phenomenal. That was an inspiration to be like, I could do that. I want to do that too. I want to take some of these jokes and just let them entropy into until there’s nothing left. It is funny to me in and of itself. So yeah, brevity sometimes good, but especially this year, I’m exploring longer comics. It’s going to be a little bit of my thing moving forward, I think.

Is that just pushing yourself?

Beetle Moses: I think it is pushing myself. Well, there are a few things. One of my primary motivators this year is I really would like to get a book deal. That would be awesome. I don’t have a book, but I do have…I believe the proper term would be a shitload of comics at this point (laughs) that I would really like to just have in print. That would just be really cool. It’s a little bit of a journey. I’ve had a few good conversations, but it hasn’t led to having a book yet.

But one thing that my agent recommended to me was writing some more stuff that was long form. I now have a few pieces. One of them is a graphic novel that I’ve built a very robust pitch for called Rotting Wood, which is a whole other story. It’s not strictly a comedy. It’s like a noir that features these bug characters that live inside of a hollowed-out tree. It’s a city that’s built inside this tree, and I have a whole story that goes on with those characters. So that was something that I was working on. Now I have The Reunion, which I might give a new title. I don’t know how long The Reunion is going to make sense.

Flash forward at the time that we’re recording this, I’m actually planning on posting the second chapter, which I just finished. I’m very excited to share that. A little scared, honestly. Long form comics are new territory for me. But The Reunion got a good response, so I’m hopeful that people will stick along for the ride when I keep going.

I was reading the comments for your comics because I was interested in how people react, and one of the things that people say in there that shows up with a shocking frequency is they describe them as memes, not comics. Which makes sense. It is a meme structure. Comics are perfect, structural memes. But your work, at least to me, has more in common with Calvin & Hobbes or Garfield where there’s this structural joke element to it. People know you for that cadence. They know you for that 1, 2, 3 structure of setup to joke. And people fear change. Is there a part of you that’s excited but also uneasy about how people are going to react to those longer form comics?

Beetle Moses: Yeah, for sure. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about the comics business. I still have so much to learn, but I feel like I went from having zero knowledge of how the comics world operates and being an independent artist to being basically cold plunged into how that all works. And a big thing that I struggle with is creating work with recognizable characters, which is I think huge. A lot of publishers and every type of entertainment industry, but also for licensing and stuff, companies like recurring characters. And I like recurring characters. I like watching shows and reading comics like Calvin & Hobbes and stuff like that. I also have been reading more manga recently. I’m really into Mob Psycho 100 and One Punch Man. So, I love stuff. Common Side Effects by Joe Bennett Animation is another one. I’ve never talked to the guy, but I’ve been following him for a long time. Adult Swim picked him up. He’s an internet animator that got picked up for a show on Adult Swim, and I just watched the first two episodes and they’re amazing.

My comics, by comparison to all these amazing properties, don’t have recurring characters. They are a lot of passing thoughts and doodles and stuff like that. And that’s just what I love to draw. It’s what motivates me and that’s what I’ve been doing. But I have been conscious of the fact that it would be nice to work with some characters that I can flesh out and feel more lived in. And I love movies, and so I would love to make something long form. That would be a little…

More substantial.

Beetle Moses: More substantial. Just something with a little more weight to it. I think I have more to say than is what is suggested in my gag a day comics. And sometimes I almost feel a little bit…if I had to criticize…I don’t know if it’s a criticize or just an observation about my own work. Sometimes it feels a little bit like it’s almost bursting at the seams. I’m trying to cram so much into a little amount of space that it almost is not mentally working for me anymore.

It feels better drawing chapter one and chapter two of The Reunion. Now I’ve written chapter three, and I have an idea of where things are going. That been amazing. It’s been so much fun and eye-opening. I feel a lot of pride in my own work putting something like this together. But yeah, it’s new. It’s shaky territory. I don’t know how people will feel about it going forward. But I have to try it out for myself, for the future of my business, and for my audience’s sake. Everybody deserves to try something new and have some other options. So it’ll be interesting to look back on this interview maybe in a year and see where it’s going. I hope that I’m in a little bit of a transitory period right now with all my work.

That’s also how you get better, pushing yourself in directions you’re not really used to.

It’s interesting you say that your comics are bursting at the seams. We talked about the brevity, but I appreciate your restraint. That is impressive. It even comes down to what you write up for the post with the actual comics. There’s the one of the chicken crossing the road where you just say, “why he do him like that.” (Beetle laughs) If you say more than that, it’s not going to add anything. I like that you always have these kind of vibe half sentences that go with it. That’s smart.

I wanted to talk process. Let’s use the chicken crossing the road one. What’s your starting point and how do you get to the final version?

Beetle Moses: Okay, so typically the ideas come from going on a long walk. That’s where it usually starts. The idea pops into my head when I’m walking. I try to walk every day. Not even for exercise purposes, but literally to just get my brain juices flowing. And so that’s where 99% of the ideas hit, and I write it all down in my notes.

I assume that you have more ideas than comics, right? You probably have a big notebook of ideas that you can use.

Beetle Moses: Yeah, I do. So, basically what happens is I’ll write down my ideas. I probably have three times as many ideas as I have finished comics. But there’s a reason they don’t make it to paper. They’re just not funny enough or there’s not a way to portray it. But I always write it down.

David Lynch, God rest his soul, He has a lot of interviews. In some, he’s a little bit blunt, but it’s kind of funny the way that he says it, but he’s just like, “If you are an artist and you don’t write down your ideas, it could drive you to kill yourself. Always write down your ideas.” And there’s literally eight clips that people show of him saying that same exact sentence. And it’s true. If I come up with an idea right before bed and I’m like, “Eh, I don’t need to write that down. It’s funny enough. I’ll remember it in the morning.” Guess how many times that actually is the case?

One out of 10.

Beetle Moses: It never happens. (laughs) I always wake up and that idea has fallen out of my head, never to be found again. So yeah, I write it down and then when it’s time to make the donuts, I’ll sit down and be like, okay, I have to draw some comics today. I’ll look through the notes, and sometimes I’ll pass over one a few times and be like, “I don’t know, I feel like that’s been done.” And funnily enough, chicken crossing the road was sitting in my notes for at least a month or so, and I kept passing over it. I just felt like it was too obvious. Somebody had to have done this before. And so, that let me not do it.

Eventually it hit a point where I was like, if I draw it and I’m sincere to myself, I won’t get any accusations that I’ve stolen it from somewhere. That will happen. Sometimes people will be like, oh, Rick and Morty did this joke. And I’m like, I didn’t know that. Sometimes an idea just pops in my head and it exists somewhere else and it happens. But this one, I was like, “Alright, let me draw it.” And yeah, dude, that was another one. Honestly, right before this Angler Fish just went crazy, that chicken crossing the road going triple platinum online was the most recent really viral performance that one of my comics did. It just was reposted into Valhalla. I sold a bunch of prints of that one and got shout outs from crazy people, and that was awesome. And then a month later, it’s the anglerfish one going viral all over again. It’s been a crazy start to the year.

So anyway, to finish the question about my process, I then draw everything on paper. I draw on these little books. I then ink on paper, and then I have this really clunky method using my phone where I scan the page, it goes to my iPad, and I color it digitally on my iPad. And these days, the digital part is taking up more time because of that meticulousness. I’m spending a lot more time doing the digital drawing, but all the line work happens, pen on paper, and then that’s it. And then I post it and I watermark it with my little name. I know, especially in the case of this anglerfish or the chicken crossing the road, it’s like…

An advertisement.

Beetle Moses: Yeah. I decided early on that I’m going to put my name on it because I want people to know that I drew this. And I have contemporaries who don’t do that. They’re like, “Just let it belongs to the internet. If it goes viral, I don’t care.” But I’m like, nope, I’m going to put my big dumb name on it every single time so that when every time it gets reposted, people will know eventually, even if they don’t find me right away. Eventually there will be some name recognition there.

The chicken crossing the road one is a perfect example of why it’s valuable to pay attention to the backgrounds because in a weird way, the background makes it. The guys reacting in the third panel, that’s a very classic basketball thing. Everyone just being like, “OHHHHHH!” (Beetle laughs) to the road getting crossed up.

Beetle Moses: For sure.

It’s perfect.

I wanted to ask about the platforms. You’re on Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitter. Is there anything I’m missing there?

Beetle Moses: Yeah, Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitter are the three that I post to. I have accounts on Reddit and TikTok, but I really don’t post to either of those. I just kind of have those. I’m lazy. I don’t really have a reason why.

I had Joshua Barkman, who does False Knees, on my podcast.

Beetle Moses: Great comic.

I talked to him about it, and I think he used to post on 15 platforms or something like that. It’s some absurd number. And one of the things that stood out was just how much work that is. Are you ever surprised by how much work goes into just the promotion and posting of the comic, or is that just not that big of a deal for you?

Beetle Moses: No, I’ll tell you right away, False Knees…that guy’s smarter than me. I should be doing that. Social media in so many ways for an artist is a phenomenal thing, but in so many ways it’s just a headache and all of them have their own little problems, which become very apparent to you once you become a “content creator” and you just start putting stuff out there. Everything has its pitfalls.

I tried posting to TikTok and then I was like, I just don’t care, and my stuff is not made for video form. I am too old for this. (laughs) I just couldn’t get a grip on it. And my issue with Reddit was I actually found the user base to be kind of mean. (laughs) I just felt like I was posting there and there were always nasty comments and I was like, you know what? Screw you guys. I just don’t post there. I think my stuff gets reposted periodically to Reddit, which is great because I don’t post there. Anytime somebody reposts my stuff, it’s doing me a favor, so it doesn’t bother me.

But yeah, I can’t pretend it’s a lot of work. I just sit there and click post on Instagram. It’s not really that much work. But it’s just the mental thing. I don’t want to remember to be keeping up with each of these. Threads was another one that was here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t know anybody that’s using it. I’m certainly not one of them, so I just don’t upload there. I kind of just trust that I’ll put the work out there.

On Twitter and Instagram, I have a fairly large following. And I didn’t even realize I have something like 50,000 followers on Bluesky now, which is crazy. I am really not engaged on there. Everything that I post on Twitter just goes to Bluesky basically. But I don’t stress too much about posting it everywhere. I put the work out there and if it finds its audience, if it gets reposted in the right place, that’s it. I probably should, it’d be better for business most likely.

We’re very similar in that regard. Have you ever seen the gif of the person who’s terrified of putting something into the hot pot of oil, so they reach out from a distance and then dive back, and then it explodes in front of them?

Beetle Moses: Yeah. (laughs)

That’s kind of how I approach posting my stuff online. I’m sorry to say this, because you’re someone I’m talking to and presumably would like me to promote this interview, but I kind of want the work to do the talking, you know?

Beetle Moses: I totally get it. It’s funny. It makes me think of…leading up to this interview, I’ve been listening to some of your podcasts. They’re really good, especially while I’m drawing. They’re great to listen to. I love listening to artists and especially comic artists talk in general because there’s always some wisdom in there. And I saw the one that immediately caught my eye. The one you did with Kyle Higgins, because I’m sure he doesn’t remember, because he was tabled, and I was just passing by. But I actually met him at Baltimore Comic Con when he was promoting Radiant Black. A couple of buddies and I went to his table to meet him. I was listening to the podcast, and first of all, what a cool guy. That guy’s awesome. But he’s so good at selling the work and explaining to you.

I respect that so much from an artist standpoint because that is so hard for me to do. I have that mentality a bit where I’m like, let the work speak for itself. And in Radiant Black’s case, it absolutely does speak for itself, but it also helps to have somebody show you, “Hey, check this out. It comes with a black light, and if you look through the book in certain places, there’s going to be Easter eggs or clues to what’s coming.” That’s insane and awesome and creative. It’s perfect for pitching.

But with my stuff, I still clam up sometimes when people ask me, “What kind of comics do you draw?” I’m like, I don’t know, man. You have to just check it out. If you like it, you like it. I don’t really know how to explain it. The worst is when I’m being introduced to somebody by a friend. And they’re like, “Yo, check out my friend Harris’ comics.” And now they’re standing there looking at my page, and I’m standing there just like, “This is literally…put me anywhere else.”

So yeah, I love that in some ways, but the self-marketing is very difficult. Letting the work speak for itself is the way to do it in an ideal world, but it doesn’t always work that way.

You’re a full-time cartoonist now, right? So, you getting eyes on your work means getting people to get prints and back your Patreon and do things like that. It seems like it’s working out for you. Obviously, you are a full-time cartoonist, but it does seem like the monetization part of the job does require some level of that push.

Beetle Moses: Oh yeah. I just opened a Patreon not that long ago, and I’ve struggled to grow that because I always feel I’m about marketing and pushing, and I don’t want people to feel like I’m selling something to them. I really like the idea of people just wanting to read the work and be along for the ride. But at the end of the day, I am a full-time cartoonist, and it helps to have financial support from your readers. Patreon is great for that, but also selling my own merchandise has been good for that too. The creator to reader pipeline is easy that way.

It is funny. Sometimes I watch other webcomic artists. I got to meet a lot of other webcomic artists at Webcomiccon in Detroit. The people who were there were incredible. I couldn’t believe some of the people that I was meeting and talking to and the fans that turned out. It was just a top to bottom huge success and so good for webcomics. The reason I bring it up specifically is because when we were there, we were all talking about how it feels like we’re almost all coworkers. We just work in completely different places, and we don’t always really get to exchange notes on what’s going on, but we all have the very similar experiences navigating social media and all that stuff. And I think a rising tide floats all ships. Everyone doing better is just going to make more…more everything. More publishers or places like Adult Swim or whatever are going to be looking at comic creators and giving opportunities. Who knows what type of opportunities will come out.

All of this is great for the community. And web comics are so new, even though they bear a lot of resemblance to regular comics, they also have a lot of differences. The comparison I like to draw actually is with graffiti. They’re very different in their process and in what they look like, but they’re both a form of artistic expression where you’re trying to catch the attention of a passerby. Somebody who’s not explicitly going to a museum or turning on the radio or watching a movie. You know what I mean? I’m just walking down the street or I’m scrolling through my phone and boom, something’s put in front of me and I need to decide.

The creator’s job to get somebody to mentally engage with it for more than 0.25 seconds. I think there’s a lot that goes into that both visually and content-wise, but all those little ideas are things that every webcomic creator has picked up on and has their own little insights in terms of how to make it work. It is definitely not easy to be a full-time artist, but it also can be fun. It feels like a video game. You’re unlocking new little things, you figure out new little power ups, and you’re like, “Oh, this is going to help me next time.” So, yeah, webcomics. Great community. Love those people.

Do you find that the comics that do well on social media are the ones that do well as prints?

Beetle Moses: That’s a good question. There’s a heavy crossover, but it’s not always the case. Some of my best performing viral hits do not translate to something that would be appealing at somebody’s desk or something. (laughs) The chicken crossing the road and the anglerfish are two examples that have a visual element that is simple and appealing. I think that works well in a room or an office space or as a gift or whatever. But I’ve had other comics that did really well on social media, and then I’ll make a print of them available so that people can have it, and I’ll only sell two or three of them.

I think it’s, again, less words the better. People don’t want to have a whole bunch of text on the wall. They want something that looks a little bit more like a piece of art. If there was a cynical marketing side to it, I would say that’s also why I’m conscious of just trying to make them look nicer so that there’s a higher likelihood that people would be like, “I actually like this as a piece of work and I would like to look at this every day at my desk.”

But to answer your question, there’s not always a crossover. Sometimes there are surprising ones. One of the comics that was a surprising success was one of these two coworkers sitting in a car, and one of them was like, “Who are you closing with today?” And she’s checking her phone and she’s like, “Oh shit, I’m closing with the wise old tree.” And then in the final panel, she’s calling through the fry cook window, “Come on man, hurry up.” And there’s just a giant wise tree with a spatula standing in the back. That was a weird one that popped into my head and is kind of wordy and odd and doesn’t really make sense, but I made that one as a print and it sold out in a day.

Sometimes I just don’t know why something clicks with people. But again, that’s just the portfolio thing. If I just keep drawing and I have some surprise hits here and there, that’ll carry me. That’s all I have to keep doing.

So, we are coming up on three years of Beetle Moses in April. You’ve come a long way. What do you think the biggest thing you’ve learned from that experience is, either about yourself as a cartoonist or just what it takes to do the job?

Beetle Moses: One has been being myself as much as I possibly can. Not trying to emulate what another artist is doing. I think a lot of my artistic…not career, but my artistic journey before I started Beetle Moses was a lot of learning experiences. A lot of those carried with me into the way that I draw now. But I was trying so hard to emulate what other artists were doing, especially stuff that was very cool and street like graffiti. I was trying to emulate that, and I couldn’t do it. I just don’t have that unspoken rizz. I don’t know what it is. I just can’t do that exact thing.

So, I embraced, “You know what, I am just going to be cheesy, goofy, corny, ridiculous over the top.” Not because that’s what works, but because that’s just true to me. That’s just who I am as a person. I’m not very cool. I don’t have any street cred. I’m just a nerdy dude who likes to draw. Let me just do what I think is funny. And it was like the gates of heaven opening up. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out. But yeah, it sounds like such a cliche, but being yourself is so important.

To be totally blunt about it, with AI and the tension in America right now, I know what’s important to me. I love spreading optimism. I love making people laugh. I just believe in peace and love and harmony among all races and different walks of life and your right to express yourself. It’s behind everything that I’m doing. I just am really passionate about being able to express myself and connect with other people through my art. And that’s where I’m at right now.

Imagine it’s The Shining and Jack Torrance, but he’s happy instead. That’s where I’m at right now.

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