The Latest

Hello.

I’m gonna be real with you – I titled this post as I did just because I know people will be looking into occult philosophy, and although neither of these two terms – “Occult” or “Philosophy” – will be competing in the Google SEO realm quite like… say… “Jennifer Lopez Ass Implant (I think it’s real, J-Lo. Call a brother sometime.), I do know that many people find the philosophy of the Hermetics interesting.

My name is Devin. I write comics. I make clothes. I blog, apparently, although this is just as much news to you as it is to me. I sell occult influenced apparel and if we have an issue, I suggest you get back to searching for J-Lo’s missing lovechild on Google. If you’re into that freaky demonology type shit, http://www.beetlemilk.com is the address.

As a writer, I believe that it’s important to establish very early in the story what exactly you are trying to say. A statement of intent. That first paragraph? That was my statement of intent. I shouldn’t be writing this out, should trust you to draw your own inferences, but fuck it. In that paragraph I showed at least a passing knowledge of occult philosophy (Not complete though, I’m about halfway through The Kybalian), as well as Google SEO best practices. I go on to establish that I’m a writer/entrepreneur and frame my credentials as a storytelling tactic.

This blog is not about me, Devin, who wears so many hats and looks AMAZING in them. This blog is about the journey of learning how to kick ass and take names as an artist (writing is an art, shut up) and CEO. From Demonology to Facebook ads, I’ll cover it all – because I want to.

So, where to start?

I guess I should say something about where I’ve come from, where I’m going, and I’d like to thank god and the Academy, or something…

Nah.

Y’all will figure it out over time.

No, I want to talk about dreams. Not like literal dreams about J-Lo (Hi, Kanye). I want to talk about the type of dreams that you won’t allow yourself to dream. Maybe it’s because you’re scared. Maybe it’s because your mama doesn’t like you. Don’t feel bad, I feel you. Maybe it’s because our socio-economic structure is focused around keeping the wealthy where they are and repressing the rights of the downtrodden in a commercialistic version of communism where the upper class counts as the government due the proliferation of lobbyists in the highest halls of our great nation? Fucking fuck, don’t get me started.

It was nice not being on the FBI watchlist. Orwell, meet Devin.

Seriously though, Think this through. You are an artist of some type. Painting, blogging… law. I mean, the gates to becoming an artist aren’t that high. Rick Rubin is arguably the world’s most famous producer and he just sat on the couch eating Cheetos out of his beard when Slipknot were recording Volume 3. It really isn’t all that complicated. He probably caused System of a Down to break up, whatever. Normal day to day shit.

So, you are an artist of some type (If you aren’t good at anything, get off this blog and pick up a book. I don’t know if your parents told you, but the world only pays talented and/ or sexy people. Everyone else gets to languish in the lower or middle classes – IF THEY ARE LUCKY.), and if you think for some reason that you can’t be like the Army in the 90’s, All You Can Be (Iraq veteran here, you’re welcome)…

Well, you’re wrong.

And I have proof.

Paris Hilton (Low hanging fruit, I know.)

The Kardashians (Lower.)

Every Instagram influencer in the History of History (Except Gary Vee… does he count?)

Every one of them have no talents that any of us can locate besides being hot to a good portion of society. Oh, and they somehow figured out how to turn themselves into multimillion dollar brands and will never work another day in their life. Unless, you know, they want to. That might not apply to the influencers, but they make more money than me. Which is cool, go get yours, booboo.

So if talentless sex objects can become market forces, what stops you? I’m assuming you have at least a little talent. Or maybe you’re sexy (Before you ask, I’m flattered but I’m happily married, kthxbai). I don’t know you. I’d like to, though. Drop a comment. Say what’s up.

All you need are the tools.

And before you ask, yes, I have a few of them. BeetleMilk has sold hundreds of comics, done several interviews, does thousands in revenue at conventions and online, and has an active campaign on petition.org to shut down our business because we sell Satanic imagery to kids.

Ok, I lied about that last one. I WISH that was true. Corpus Christi, I’d love the press. Somebody start one and send me a wink emoji so I know it was you.

The best part about this blog, though, besides my near-Deadpool levels of wit, is that I’m learning too! So you get to hang out while I make the mistakes for you. Yes, that’s the biggest part of this. Making mistakes. Like dropping four new designs on the same day with at least ten variants each, leading to massive chaos with your T-Shirt supplier. That was last month. I’m a genius.

Ok, so cool.

I’ve established my alibis.

Back next week.

D.

Holla! (Sorry, jamming some Missy Elliot)

Today, September 1st, Tatiana and I released an artistic experiment gone awry.

The story goes something like this:

A few months ago, Tatiana explained to me that while she was enjoying the work she was doing for BeetleMilk, she didn't feel like she was pushing her boundaries artistically.

Now, I'm an entrepreneur, as well as a creative (nice to meet you, I run the company). I understand that there is always this balance between artistic expression and commercialism. Sometimes, it's hard to blend that line correctly and that just doesn't sell in my experience. Needless to say, I found it very alarming that she was implying that she "sold out".

So, I asked her what she wanted to do. Her answer wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. You see, Tatiana REALLY likes making edgy art. Full frontal nudity edgy. Annnnnnnd that's a problem because we can't advertise it. Facebook bans it damn near automatically. So the only chance of it being seen was by people stumbling upon it on the site - which are not odds that are conducive to staying in business.

I like being in business.

The subject kinda stayed dormant for a while, until she developed our first tarot card, The Devil. It featured hermaphroditic demon... children? It's hard to tell. 

Can we just appreciate the fact that I just had to type that? Thanks.

They had male genitals. Which is fine, I guess. But not conducive to business. They had breasts. No problem, if you are making religious art. Which, I guess, in a way we are. 

So, I explained to her that in order to release it, we'd have to censor it. And we did - on the T-Shirt. When we later released the actual tarot card, it was uncensored.

Compromise.

So, Tatiana started getting fascinated with her little Hellish Goat Kid Things. She started taking photos on trips and in the world, and drawing them into the pictures. She released a few of them on Instagram, because why not, and people flipped. They loved the mix between cartoons and real life. 

Nice!

So, now they are T-Shirts. We did an uncensored version, which is limited to 20, and a censored version. I hope they do well, but either way it was an interesting trip to bring them to you. In a way they are Tatiana's children.

Enjoy.

Read more

Hello.

Kudos if you got that reference. 

To me, there is nothing quite like a new product launch. Few things make me happier. Especially when the products in question are so firmly rooted in things I’m excited about. Believe you me, I’m excited about these new products.

We released the new EDEN line of clothes with very little warning, and it’s a complete 180 from what we were doing before, and so I wanted to take some time out to talk about why/what we are doing.

So, about two months ago, we launched a KickStarter. It was our second KickStarter, on the heels of our successful campaign for “The RoadKill Club”. We were positive that the “Dessert Beetles” would be well received. High quality, cute, large, these enamel pins had it all.

Yeah, it was a disaster. 

We spent a ton of money getting a proof of concept made, on props for our KS video, just...we aren’t rich. We got a promotional company to help out. We did everything we could and it came out to NOTHING. Well, almost nothing.

See, what had happened was, about a week before the campaign was set to end in abject failure, Tatiana and I were sitting on the couch, wondering what went wrong. Wrong promotion company? Wrong preview product? Wrong fucking metal on the pin? Why was this shit not going?

Sucked.

But I was staring at the wall. I’m not making this up, I was staring at the wall. Specifically, at a gift I got for Tatiana, a jacket patch. This one:

I stared at it for a good five minutes before something clicked.

Beetles are cool, but there was no passion.

No passion at all. No story, no purpose. Nothing. A cute pin to place on your backpack and forget about.

Who cares?

Not me. Not you. Nobody.

But you know what I do have a passion for? The occult. The esoteric. Forbidden texts. I’ve been reading/collecting them for years. I have books that my family would never enter my apartment if they knew they existed in that space. 

Do I have the balls to follow this as-yet unexpressed interest?

Yeah, I do.

I asked Tat, “Why aren’t we doing stuff like that?” 

I pointed at the picture. She didn’t have an answer for that question. Because there was no reason not to (besides alienating my family, two-thirds of America, and playing into a culture with an active stigma against it. Normal shit).

I drew up (poorly) a design. Messianic Complex. A beetle on a cross. Nice and offensive. This:

I gave it to Tat and she made a cool concept into magic. We will introduce the design sometime; we just came up with cooler stuff later. 

I then drew a picture (again, poorly) of the Serpent coughing up apples. Under it, I wrote EDEN. Because it’s the Serpent, yeah? Looked like this:

Forgive my inability to draw. This was a fucking triple espresso shot of inspiration.

Guys, overnight we changed EVERYTHING. Direction, intention, message. Mixing Tat’s cute art with my dark interests was an amazing idea.

So now, all over this site, you can see images of our first official design. The Goetic Circle. Because of the Lesser Key of Solomon. Ars Goetica. Demon summoning manual. Pretty dry, but invaluable. I’m like Buffy, scouring texts for cool ideas.

Goetic is just the start. I WILL piss off your grandma.

Delta

Read more