The United States Department of Nerds Podcast

USDN Interview | Ben Lacy – Shark of War #9 (Kickstarter Live Now!)

Welcome back to The United States Department of Nerds (USDN)! 🎙️ Today we dive into one of the most outrageous, high-octane indie comics on the scene: Shark of War 🦈💥.

Joining me is Ben Lacy (writer/artist/creator) to talk about the epic finale of The Whales of War Arc in Shark of War #9, now live on Kickstarter!

In this episode, we discuss:

What makes Shark of War stand out in the indie scene
The rise of the Mega Whale of War 🐋 (the biggest villain yet)
Gnasher’s escape from the Lab of Terrors & what it means
How new readers can catch up with all 9 issues
Kickstarter rewards, campaign perks & indie comic insights
What’s next for Gnasher after this arc wraps

If you’re a fan of wild concepts, cyber-sharks, and boss-level storytelling, you don’t want to miss this one.

🔗 Back Shark of War #9 on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitingcomics/shark-of-war-1-9-final-boss-battle?ref=discovery&term=shark%20of%20war&total_hits=12&category_id=250

🌐 Follow Ben Lacy & Shark of War:

Website: https://mailchi.mp/ed97fcc5707b/bitingcomics

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharkofwar


👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more indie comic interviews and Kickstarter spotlights!

#SharkOfWar, #IndieComics, #KickstarterComics, #USDNPodcast, #ComicBooks, #IndieCreators, #SupportIndieComics, #MegaWhaleOfWar

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Thanks for watching!

What is up, everybody,

and welcome to the United

States Department of Nerds,

where we are for the people,

by the people, and of the people.

And joining me today is Ben Lacey,

who you may recognize as

the author of Samson.

He was here just a few short months ago,

but today he's here to talk

about his flagship comic book, Sharkovor.

And we're coming into issue number nine,

which is going to be the end of an arc.

Ben, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

So let's dive into it.

So for people who have not

heard of Shark of War yet,

and this is the first time

they're hearing about it,

how would you describe the

series and what makes it

different than other

Kickstarter or indie comics out there?

Shark of War, simply put, is, you know,

do it in simple terms is

Jaws meets RoboCop.

It's Jaws if the shark were the hero,

RoboCop if the cop were a shark.

He's an escaped U.S.

military experiment

enforcing the law in the sea.

And at this point in the story,

the mobsters he is going after,

mostly drug traffickers,

human traffickers, criminal cartels,

are fed up with him and

they have hired somebody to

make bigger monsters to take him down.

So the first five issues

were kind of his origin story.

And this current four-issue

arc is called the Whales of War arc,

where they've developed

something bigger and

stronger than him to take him down.

Killer whales that have been

modified like he has.

I think what separates this

from a lot of Kickstarters, of course,

is that we're issue nine of the series.

That's very rare.

Which is a lot for an indie

comic Kickstarter.

You can get all nine issues

and it forms a continuous

story that you can follow.

I think that it's unique

also if you're someone who

likes sharks and is what

likes shark movies and things like that.

It's unique in how it's

has a different relationship

with the shark.

Normally, you watch movies, they're,

they're basically, you know,

jaws with a bigger shark, you know,

the Meg was jaws with a

gigantic shark and the, you know,

under the sea,

all those are the shark

trying to kill somebody.

And we're so sympathized with the human.

In this case, the shark is the hero.

You know,

he's been modified so he has a

level of intelligence, you know,

approaching that of a person,

though he thinks like a shark.

So you get that sci-fi aspect of, you know,

seeing the story through

his eyes and how he views

it even as a non-human person.

a non-human entity.

You know,

I don't know if people remember

things like We Three or

other stories like that involving,

you know, sentient animals.

But, you know, I try to have some of that,

you know, not to humanize him,

but make him, you know,

still a shark that's been made smarter.

Oh,

he's a hundred percent still a shark

and thinks with his belly.

Only now he does it consciously.

Yeah, yeah, he, you know,

I made an intentional choice where he,

you know,

he starts to evolve some

emotions that you, you know, we wouldn't,

you know,

a non-thinking animal wouldn't have.

But, you know,

after somebody tries to kill him,

he starts to get mad about it, you know,

and, you know,

anger is not something I

don't think most animals, you know,

inherently have toward

somebody or a specific person,

but he's specifically angry.

But his way of going about

it is different and he's trying to

He's also got confined

because the people that

made him put boundaries on

him that forced him into

certain behaviors that he

doesn't necessarily like.

And so he has an adversarial relationship,

well,

kind of an odd couple relationship

with the AI that has been

implanted in him to try and control him.

Sometimes they work together,

sometimes they're very much at odds.

That's a great segue for the

set the stage for this.

So issue nine does bring us

to the big finale of the

Wells of War arc.

Give us a spoiler free

breakdown of what's been

building up to this moment.

You were almost getting there.

I was like, okay,

he may go ahead and answer this one,

but you stopped just short of it,

I think.

Well,

the spoiler-free is there's going to

be a big fight between him

and a much bigger and more

powerful monster.

And it's going to be

something that he's going

to have to use his

intelligence to win or to

at least survive.

In the meantime,

the bad guys are really in

a dominant position and

they're improving their situation.

In a way, I think of it as

If I look at Shark of War as

a trilogy of stories,

which is kind of how I look at it,

this is the second part.

I view this as the Empire

Strikes Back of the Shark

of War storyline where

survival is his hope, not victory.

That's kind of very much what you see in,

I think, Empire Strikes Back.

They survived, but they hardly won in that

that movie in some ways why

it's considered the best of

the Star Wars movies no

arguments no arguments here

on that one um so I want to

point out Dr. Douglas who

is the main antagonist at

this point along with the cartel

Also helped create the Shark of War.

She was behind the AI

intelligence or helping to

weave the brain in the AI.

Yeah, she was a neurosurgeon who, you know,

Ray Fisher was the scientist who was,

you know,

doing the computer side and the

hardware side.

Um, of the, of the concept, you know, the,

the, the computer, um, AI insertion, the,

all the technology,

the shark of war has like

the jets and the, uh,

and the weaponry and the hardened skin.

Um,

she was the neurosurgeon who figured

out how to enhance his

intelligence and link him up with the,

with, you know, being able to use these,

these machines.

Um, she just realized, you know, that,

that, you know,

there was a lot more money to be had.

rather than working for the

United States military as a contractor,

she took that technology

and then sold it to

criminal cartels who would like to have,

you know, these things as weapons.

And she, you know,

rather than focusing on

making intelligent creatures,

she focused on mass producing, you know,

monsters that would do her bidding.

And at that point,

she basically stole the

tech and sabotaged the

program and ran and got hired.

She's not been able to

really duplicate those

efforts so far in

everything that she's done.

yeah she I mean her her her

skill set is is a is is

biology and neuroscience

and what she started to

realize is the fact that

the shark she didn't want

to make intelligent

creatures she wanted to

make you know basically

remote controlled drone

animals that she would

control and she started to

realize those were too

stupid to uh to to make uh

you know to take down the

shark war so what she

decided realized that she

needed to make an intelligent creature

And she knew how to do that,

but she didn't know how to

control it because the

control was the hardware side,

the artificial intelligence

that's been implanted into his brain.

So she didn't understand how

to do that part of it.

And that's the technology she used.

she basically acquired in the last issue.

So now,

now she's able to make a creature

just like the shark of war

and control it to the way she wants to,

because that was her fear is that,

is that she would,

she would make this thing

and it would basically turn on her.

And there's actually a short

story where it's part of

the Cthulhu Man arc where

she tried to make a giant

creature before and it did turn out.

Yeah,

I've seen you made a reference in

issue eight to Cthulhu Man as well.

Yeah,

so she tried to make creatures before

that had intelligence and

they invariably backfired on her.

Um,

so she knew she needed to have the same

kind of control, you know, that, you know,

same kind of governor,

basically the shark of war, you know,

and of course her governor

is going to be much harsher,

even the shark of wars governor.

Cause if you follow the story, the AI,

you know,

you know,

you can see the AI also evolving

a little bit where he's,

it has kind of its own

personality and thoughts too.

And it's starting to,

even though it's forced to

do things that some,

you start to see it's,

it's kind of being forced

to do these things that

doesn't really want to do

these things that it has to do.

Yeah.

It was, I really enjoyed,

and I know we were talking

a little bit about this before we came,

went live is like,

I enjoyed seeing how the art evolved.

you know, evolved,

but also within this story,

you also see the AI and the

shark evolve and kind of like,

They're starting to think

similarly about things and

topics and what their

ultimate directives are and

that kind of stuff.

And I really thought that

was cool how you kept

everything in sync that way

with the shark is getting smarter,

the shark is learning,

the AI is also learning the

habits of the shark and

that kind of stuff.

I really thought that was

cool and how you kind of

meld it those two aspects

together because I don't

think you can really have

them competing against each

other even though you do

see the AI kind of like

give a couple of hand

smacks a few times like no

we can't do that

Yeah,

and it's the AI being a function of

its programming,

not necessarily a function

of its own desire.

Shark of War,

I basically pitch it as an exciting,

action-packed thing.

But if it has any deeper meaning,

there's two things I like to point to.

The first is that people

have an irrational fear of sharks.

ever since jaws came out and

this this kind of uh spoofs

that a little bit and and

counterpoints that um

irrational fear and the

second thing is about you

know our relationship with

ai which of course is

becoming much you know even

you know it's a bargain as

well yeah when shark of war

started five years ago it's

just a minor discussion but

now it's full-on and and uh

My view of AI had always

been that at some level it

would be kind of this might

evolve into this symbiotic

relationship where, you know,

you see not only the Shark of War,

but the second Ray Fisher, you know, who,

you know,

who is the first one died in

issue one of Shark of War.

But his clone, which is a merger of two.

clone body parts and

computer artificial

intelligence takes over.

That personality is actually a kinder,

better person than the original was.

Exactly.

You said that they never had

a chance to meld the real

Dr. Fisher's mind into the AI mind.

He's like Dr. Fisher, but

he's not as harsh as the

actual Dr. Fisher.

Really cool.

And I know I've seen that in

a movie somewhere as well,

where the body parts were in tanks.

and then, and there was an AI as well.

I know there was a movie.

I can't remember the movie.

I think there's been a

couple of things where

there's been brains and bottles.

And that's kind of, that's kind of where I,

I drew it from is that I was, you know,

I was referencing those,

those kind of old,

those kind of horror movies, you know,

they saved Hitler's brain

kind of stuff or, or things like that,

where, where you have the,

the floating brain in the bottle.

And then I was like, well,

he's also got this,

this AI and, you know, merge where he,

so now he has a different

perspective than the original him.

And he doesn't,

where the original person

was human was driven so

much by ego and ambition and arrogance.

Yeah.

The new version with, you know,

where he's been merged with

this computer and, you know,

it gives him a broader

perspective and he's,

he's not nearly as arrogant

and he's much more helpful.

And, you know, now, now he's the, the,

Before he was the Lex Luthor

and now he's more like the

Mr. Terrific maybe.

I'm trying to think of a good answer.

I like the reference.

The Reed Richards of the story rather than

So now we have Dr. Douglas.

She's unleashing the mega

well of war as the ultimate boss threat.

What inspired this monstrous

escalation and how does it

push Nasher to his limits,

which we're already seeing

that a little bit in issue eight.

And I'm sure by issue nine,

that's about to, well, it's out now.

Well, people need to go back right now.

People need to go back.

Like kind of break that down for us.

Like,

Yeah, I mean, this is her, you know,

she's evolved this weapon.

You know,

she's making a lot of money by

supplying the cartel with these, you know,

these cyborg creatures.

And, you know, her counterpart, you know,

the head of the mob, Lupita Timberone,

who took over, you know,

in issue five after the

death of her brother,

she's found a way to use

these creatures to make herself the most,

you know,

the top crime Lord on earth by, you know,

a fairly clever scheme of

using them as a way to smuggle drugs.

So they also managed to make

herself the most beloved

person in her country.

Yeah.

Cause, cause Nasher's battle with the, the,

the whales in the earlier issue, you know,

made, you know,

look like it may look like

the United States might be

attacking that country.

You know,

when they realized the shark had

U S emblems on it, she used that to her,

uh, to her advantage to, uh,

to basically promote herself as, you know,

you know, she, she's acting like a,

you know,

a very much like a

philanthropist and she's

pretending to be a

philanthropist and she's, but she's using,

you know, fear mongering and, uh,

and stuff like that to get

people to think she's the, uh,

She's a protector against

this idea that their

country is being invaded,

which of course isn't what happened.

It was, you know,

Nashua was attacked and the

battle took place over this

country and they thought it

was an invasion.

So she's kind of twisted the

truth around to her own

ends as she pursues power.

And like I said, in part of this series,

we're going to see where that goes and,

you know,

it's going to lead into the next arc.

And it's going to be a fairly, you know,

this arc is going to conclude.

And it's more a struggle for

survival at this point than

a struggle for victory.

Because, you know,

now she's got the use of

this gigantic creature plus

all the other creatures

that she has on hand.

Well, meanwhile, you know,

the United States is kind

of playing with one hand

tied behind its back

because it doesn't want to, you know,

go to war with this country.

Yeah.

No, it's definitely interesting.

And I know we're the when the Navy,

this lone person who is

technically in charge of

Nasher breaks into their

research facility and

discovers all these other.

I don't want to say monsters

because they're people have

been experimented on.

Yeah,

they're people who have been

experimented on.

I I really got island of uh

dr moreau vibes from that

scene yeah which phenomenal

phenomenal movie not the

the the nineties one but

the one that come out in

the fifties was completely

brilliant um the other one

was good too but I will

always prefer the the black

and white nineteen fifties

one and I got that vibe

from that so are you gonna

are we gonna see those people

come back in the next issue?

No, you won't see them right away.

Okay.

If I had more, you know,

obviously I'm limited in, you know,

how much coverage I

consider bringing some of them back,

you know,

because we implied at least that

some of them survived.

Yeah,

I know we've seen one of them come

back and actually help

Nasher at one point.

But I just thought that was...

It was one of those scenes

where I was like... My

artist was so upset about his fate.

I don't blame him.

I'm not going to lie.

I was... That one was... I was like, man,

you expected it to be like, oh, no.

Like, this isn't going to be good.

But then you realize they're

actual humans and they

still have a human conscience about them.

They're still very much good

people inside these creatures.

And you're like, man,

I kind of want all of them

to survive and actually

help out in the battle to come.

That was where I was like...

My mind went with this.

It's like...

Because now the U.S.

can kind of turn the tides

or Nasher can turn the

tides on these people.

And, you know,

because now he has backup in this,

you know, form.

Yeah,

I definitely like to bring some of

them back at some point.

You know, obviously the, you know.

The limitations of being an

indie creator mean it's

hard to have the number of

pages and the number of comics you want.

I don't know if you read Cthulhu Man.

I have not.

That's going to be

definitely getting read here soon.

I've read a few issues of...

The Vitsons.

I haven't read all of them yet,

but I definitely.

There's only three.

So you might have if you read three,

you're caught up.

But I haven't read all three yet.

I think I've read like the first two.

And I think that was back

when you sent me the stamps.

And so it's been a little

while since I read them.

So I definitely need to pick

them up and read them again.

Yeah,

I think I finished issue three while

the Samson Kickstarter was running.

Yeah, if you see Cthulhu Man,

that dealt even more with

some of the people who were

experimented on.

Oh, okay.

I'll have to listen.

and there's you know clearly

a couple survivors who I

you know I was consider you

know strongly considering

doing a spin-off with um

these two kids who

basically wind up with

superpowers you know at one

point I was thinking I'd

like to have them come back

too but I haven't been able

to get to it yeah I know

some of the ladies that

were in um shark of war

number eight kind of gave

vitsen vibes as well like

they were from that park as

well yeah the the uh the

well both uh well

Lupita Tiburon, the mob boss,

appears in Vicious Vixens

and like every issue.

And I think Brooke Douglas

makes a brief appearance as well.

That's what I had thought.

And that's where I was trying to be like,

like, is he kind of like,

did he just give us a nice

little tie in to all his books?

Oh, yeah.

This Cthulhu man is

definitely a spinoff because, you know.

Okay.

Because Douglas is the

scientist doing the work.

Gotcha.

Like I said, I need to read that one.

I need to read the newest

issue of Vitson's or the

two issues of Vitson.

I think I'll be caught up on that.

But no,

I like it that you have these

titles going,

but you still find a way to

kind of pull them all

together to some degree.

Yeah, Vixens, the Vixens were, you know,

basically being sold as

slaves by Lupita Tiburon's, you know,

cartel.

So she pops up several times in Vixens,

both in the backstory and in the,

you know, in the current story,

because she wants to recapture them for,

you know,

because she has a lot invested in them.

I like it.

I like it, Ben.

I like it a lot.

So Nasher has now escaped

the horrifying lab of terrors at last.

What does that moment mean

for the character?

And how does it kind of

change his fight going forward?

The way his mind is working

now and his AI is working now,

he's kind of good.

okay, this is my second chance.

This is my new lease on life.

I'm no longer a captive by

these people who want to

basically dissect me to get

my computer and stuff.

So like,

was like how does that

change the fight you know

well now he's well as as we

see he he's taking it to

the the enemy but you know

he does and he's winning

but he doesn't realize the

enemy has the face up their

sleeve in terms of the mega

whale of war um and that's

kind of where we're we're

going to see happen in the

second issue you know in

this issue nine he

He's hoping, you know,

he wants to not only take down, you know,

his enemies here,

he wants to also rescue a

friend who also got captured in the last,

you know, in issue seven and, you know,

was being held by the cartel.

And, you know, his Navy, you know,

handlers also wants to

rescue her because they're, you know,

it's subtly spoken,

but they're in a bit of a relationship.

Yeah, yeah.

That was...

You say it subtly.

It's... You can kind of,

like... That vibe was there

the whole time.

Yeah, I mean, it's not supposed to be that,

you know... Their story is

peripheral to the real story.

But, you know,

I try to work it in so

people know that they're...

You did it very nicely because...

Like you didn't just flat out like, oh,

it's this.

But, you know,

the way you did it very subtly,

you put it out there perfectly.

At least I thought.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

And so he's he's now on the you know,

he thinks he's going to be winning.

But then then the tables get turned and,

you know,

the desperate fight in this

climactic issue begins.

And we wind up, we will end up in a,

in a position where,

where we start the next arc, which,

you know,

I'm viewing this as a trilogy in

the near term.

So this, the third arc will basically,

you know, several, you know,

I don't know how many issues,

depending on how well the

Kickstarter does, it may be,

it may be fewer, it may be more, um,

how quickly I try to wrap it up,

but that will kind of,

kind of tell a complete three arcs,

three trilogy, you know,

complete trilogy.

of stories, Shark of War.

I like it like that, man.

I really do.

You know, and then if there's the demand,

you know, there's possibility of,

you know, another set of stories,

you know,

the Shark of War returns or

something like that for a

new issue one and, you know,

do what the big comic companies do.

Get a Rise of Skywalker.

Come out with a new issue

one and things like that.

Yeah.

You don't even get me.

Yeah.

mean I personally don't like

to do it but you know it's

almost tempting because you

know it's uh it's it seems

to help sales to have an

issue one as opposed to you

know an issue even though

an issue nine I think is a

I think it's a much more

you know important state

statement of the longevity

of the book and the fact

that to me it is yeah yeah

you're gonna get the rest

of the story I mean you

know plenty of people get

out one or two comic books

But that doesn't finish the story.

And then do they ever get out the rest?

Well, some do and a lot don't.

So I think this is proof

that this is a title that can stay alive.

Yeah.

And the way you market it

and the way you do shows with it,

I think really attributes

to the longevity of this book.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm, I'm trying to do, you know,

I try to do, you know,

six or so cons a year, you know, to,

to go out and promote it

and sell it at cons.

And then hopefully some of

those people will come in

and back as well.

You know, and then,

And then that'll help keep

the thing going because you

always lose some backers

from issue to issue.

So you need to bring the new

ones all the time.

But I really try to make it

easy for people to catch up.

If you look at the pricing

on my digital tiers,

where you can basically get

the digital tier for like

two bucks a comic book,

all my comics for two bucks a comic,

or my physical tier where

all the back issues are

basically I'm selling at Comic-Con prices,

five bucks for a floppy, you know,

collection of issues one through five,

which is the first arc.

Um, plus,

but you also get them delivered

and you get them, uh,

you get them with the

digital version as well,

which has the features

which we talked about earlier, you know,

like, yeah,

extra little little articles

and stuff like that really

spoil none of the bonus

features that you get with

the the digital stuff.

But they are really cool.

Ben does take what he does

for actual living and kind

of breaks down some of the

logic that he used when

creating the actual Shark Award Nasher.

And there's some other

really cool bonus features

within the first eight

issues of the book that are

just really cool.

And the way he does them is

very driven in actual science.

So it's really dope.

If you support the book,

you just want it digitally.

I would highly recommend it

because the bonus features,

although short, are phenomenally done.

So thank you.

My two cents on that one.

Thank you.

So where are we at?

Okay,

we're going to do a little bit of

diving in on the Kickstarter.

So one of the great things

about indie Kickstarters is

how new readers can jump on board.

For anyone just discovering

the Shark of War through this campaign,

how easy will it be to

catch up on earlier issues,

which we were just talking about?

incredibly in fact if you go

to the kickstarter page at

the very top of the page is

a link you click on that

link and it will open up

issue one for you right

there so you can try issue

one absolutely free um

And, you know,

don't have to sign up for anything.

It just opens up a Google

Doc and you can you can

read it all all there.

The art,

the artist for that issue one was me.

The artist for the current

issues is not me.

It's somebody who's who's

better than at art at me.

So you'll you'll you'll

the art the art will be

improving if you find my

art mediocre um if you find

my art good you'll find

this artist great um so

either way he just brought

that back up because we

were talking about that

before we went live how I

enjoyed watching the

evolution or we might have

been doing it earlier in

the show where we was

talking about the evolution

of the art along with the

shark as well but it was

kind of cool you kind of can pinpoint

When like all of a sudden,

like you were drawing and

then you're like, oh, damn,

he either got really good

or he hired artists right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I issue the first five issues are me.

You know, I use, you know,

I kind of implied I'm an

engineer by background.

So I used a lot of computer

models and digital art

programs to help me make the art.

No AI,

but I used digital models to help

and things like that.

It works pretty well for

Shark of War because with

the shark itself,

the digital shark looks cool.

It really does.

For humans, the digital modeling art

Looks kind of artificial.

It gives it a video game quality.

It does like the old school

like PlayStation one.

Yeah.

So it doesn't it doesn't

really look as good.

So I knew at some point I

and also because I'd rather

write than draw.

I knew at some point I

needed to bring in new people.

And, you know, as the campaigns got,

you know,

my backing account got a little bigger.

I decided I could go ahead and risk it.

So for everything from after

issue five of Shark of War,

not only the next four

issues of Shark of War, but Cthulhu Man,

Samson, the Vicious Vixens,

all are drawn by other people.

And I think you kind of see

that the quality of the art does go up.

Hopefully the story for the

first five issues of Shark

of War carries it.

No, it does.

It a hundred percent does.

The way Nasher was drawn in

issue eight was absolutely phenomenal.

Your artist absolutely

killed it with the way he

was able to make the shark

have emotions in certain

scenes in the book were amazing.

They were subtle, but it's there.

You can actually see the

emotion in Nasher's face in

certain scenes, which is really dope.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think,

I think you'll get some more of

that in this, this book as well, but yeah,

he, he was very, you know, he,

he worked a lot on it and

we did a lot of iterations to,

to get everything right.

You know, we always go through a lot of,

you know,

talking through the layout, you know,

and then, you know, where he does,

you know,

preliminary thumbnail sketches

and then iterating back and

forth to try and get just the right look.

And I think it does really pay off.

And I hope people want to go see it,

you know, and pick it up.

Like I said, I'm...

All the back issues are part

of the package.

Like I said,

I try to price my back issues

very affordably because I

really want people to get them.

I don't want people to just

back issue this one issue

by the digital version.

Honestly,

I think if you just back this one issue,

you're cheating yourself on

a really fun and different

type of shark story.

If you just if you do that,

this is definitely one of

those comments where if

this is going to be your

first time jumping in to

back Ben and Shark of War,

definitely go ahead and put

the other couple of dollars

down and get the digitals of this cause.

It is such a good story.

Every issue,

it builds on the next one going forward.

It's very well laid out and

very well told.

So opt in, spend that extra money.

Yeah,

if you get the physical copy of just

issue nine,

There's an add-on where you

can get all the digital

included as an add-on at a

very low price.

I think it's like a buck a

book or somewhere around that price.

I think it was like a dollar, I think,

or two.

It was either one or two dollars.

Yeah.

So all the digital copies I

sell is as low as I possibly think I can.

um you know like I think I'm

even beating more what you

buy a digital copy from

marvel or dc from frankly

um well those are actually

normal almost normal price

yeah I don't think they

give you much of a discount

I do because it it saves me

money because that you know

I my print costs are a lot

more than theirs because uh

yeah and of course they own

their print they own their

printer so and the shipping

costs you know they they

ship they drop ship to uh

your comic store and you got

to go get it I gotta ship

it directly to people which

means you know I you know

I'm paying you know you

know several bucks for

shipping so yeah and

shipping has gone way up

across the board so yeah so

that's a that's that's why

I you know I'm willing to

do digital and I'm willing

to do it you know at a very

low price because I want

people to get the back issues

But I really like people to

get physical media too, though.

So I'm trying to do that as

low a price as I can as well,

simply because I think,

I back Kickstarters myself

and I know how I am.

And how I am is if I get a

hard copy of a comic book,

I'm almost certainly gonna read it.

If I get a digital copy of a comic book,

it's probably downloaded in

some disk drive on some

folder in my computer.

And maybe I'll look at it at some point

So it's funny you just

brought that up because

that's literally what I do

with my digital comics that

I get is I create a folder.

Like, say, for instance, you, Ben,

you have two folders

currently on my computer,

one for our first interview

and then also for one for this interview.

Yeah.

And within each of those folders,

I have the digital copies

of your books that

And what I do is I'll read

it when you first send it

to me so I can like, yeah, absolutely.

I want to bring you on and

we'll do this interview.

And then I also go back and

read it the day of.

So I literally before coming live with you,

I read eight issues of Shark of War.

Oh, fantastic.

It's it's how I like to do

things that way when we sit down to talk.

I have everything still

fresh in my head from just reading it,

you know, and I can, you know,

in case you touch on

something that I'm not tracking on,

I can be like, all right,

that must be issue nine

because I haven't read

issue nine yet myself.

Right.

Yeah.

So that's, yeah, that's, that's great.

But yeah, like I said, I think,

I think people, I think people,

a lot of people, maybe I'm,

maybe it's because I'm older and,

you know, and I'm, you know,

I'm a relic of an,

of an age of print media, but, uh,

I think people are more

likely to read it if they

have the physical copy

sitting around rather than the digital.

But maybe for younger people,

it's the opposite.

I'm a physical media guy.

I love the smell of a

freshly printed comic book.

Right.

Not the ones that have gone to the store,

but like when it went from

the press to say your house

and then your house to a, you know,

a box to my house right it

is and you can tell like

each place has each

printing company has its

own unique smell from the

paper and the print that

they use right and that

will never get old with me

I will always love that

smell of a fresh comic book

that arrives to my house oh that's good

Yeah.

So I know exactly what

you're talking about when

you're talking about

physical media being in your hands.

It's one of my favorite things.

Yeah.

I also like the reading

experience better too.

I mean, I have, you know,

I have a decent sized tablet so I can,

you know,

I can read a book okay on my

tablet or I can read it on my desktop.

But you can see things better, I think,

when it's, you know, on paper and you can,

you know,

Even though it's not hard to

flip back and forth on the computer,

it's even easier to do it

when you have an actual physical copy.

Oh, a hundred percent.

A hundred percent.

And like me, I like to...

study the pages as well.

So I'll read the page and I

actually pay attention to

the art because I'm looking

for something that's hidden.

Right.

A lot of artists, they,

they will put little subtle

Easter ads in places.

And when I'm reading a book,

I like to go in like, Oh,

there's a subtle hint to

this little thing over here

from this book.

Right.

So that's,

that's why I enjoy the most

about it is I put eyes on

it and I liked it.

like to look at the art

actually like look at the

art not zoom in on the

computer is that I can but

I think when it's printed

on the comic book page and

you you get that more depth

in the detail of it you

know so but that's me and

apparently you too yeah so

with that man um

What has been the biggest

challenge and the biggest

reward while bringing Shark

of War to life?

Not just issue nine, but across the board,

like all nine issues, man, because I mean,

nine issues is huge for a

Kickstarter indie comic.

you know it's it's always

the kickstarter I mean it's

getting it funded and and

getting getting it over the

line um you know writing

the story is you know it's

a little time consuming

working with the artist

it's all time consuming but

it's it's it's the part you

want to do um getting the

kick promoting the book get

it promoting the

kickstarter running the

kickstarter you know having to you know

get it funded.

Those are the things that, you know,

you know, are the hardest part.

You know, if I, if I, if I was like, uh,

what's that guy's name?

Brandon Sanderson, you know, or, you know,

he just puts a book out and, you know,

he gets, you know, ten thousand backers,

you know,

a million dollars of funding right away.

You know,

that would make this much easier.

You know, I don't even need that if,

you know, if it made, you know,

if it made, you know,

if it funded on day two.

and then made a little over

its funding amount, by the end,

I'd be quite happy,

and it's easy to do this.

It's crazy you brought that up,

because not just that one,

but when Mark Spears did Monster,

or Monsters,

his very first one was done

on Kickstarter before it

was picked up by a publishing company,

and that thing was like,

I think maybe a day,

day and a half or something.

And then within a week,

it was picked up by a publishing company.

Wow.

So it was kind of crazy in seeing that.

Was that early days of Kickstarter?

No.

Muster's come out earlier this year,

I believe, or late last year.

Oh, is he well known?

I don't know.

Mark Spears?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely.

He's got a very unique art style.

style and it's very vibrant

and colorful not to the

level of um what's his name

the dude who did the art

for daredevil born again

the tv series you're like

frank miller or you're not

thinking of him right not

frank miller no um barley

um something mac oh david

mac or daniel mac something like that oh

he he does really cool

abstract type of covers but

mark spears is a very like

very um sort of look for

like almost ultraviolet in

the coloring of it like if

you were to put it under a

black light or something

the colors in it would

really pop but it's just

very cool like covers and

stuff like that but again like

I think by the end of his

campaign or something like that,

he was picked up and funded

by the Keen Spot,

which is a hundred percent

indie company as well.

And I think they're doing some really,

really good work right now, personally.

There's some really cool,

really good indie companies

out there who are putting out some very,

very good books that that's, you know,

I'm an indie guy.

I love indie comic books.

I think they're doing some

really good things don't

run with scissors if you I

don't know if you've heard

of it there's a very good

horror comic book from done

by an artist and a writer

out of italy oh okay and

the covers are really fun

and really unique but the

story itself is like this

dark very much horror

filled comic book and I'm like

I see what you're doing over there.

It's not something you imagine.

France did that one shark

movie where there was a

shark under the water.

It was in the sewers of

France or something.

Exactly.

That sounded terrible.

It's very unique.

It was different.

I was just like,

they bring a new fresh feel

of horror to their stuff.

I'm like,

I'm like, okay, I can get behind this.

And it's been a phenomenal,

phenomenal read.

I know we're off base right now.

I'll reel it back in for us.

So walk us through some of

the rewards readers can

expect with this Kickstarter,

both for returning fans and

for brand new backers as well.

I know you touched on it just a little bit,

but I'll let you expand on it.

Yeah, I mean, the obvious one is, you know,

you have the digital solo, you know,

issue nine,

both digital and hardcover for

people who are returning

who already have the book.

If you buy the hardcover,

you get the digital with it.

And then, you know,

then going up from there

for the digital fans, we have, you know,

all my digital, you know,

all the Shark of War digital,

which is nine issues.

And then if you want everything,

you get all of Shark of War, nine issues,

Cthulhu Man,

three issues of Vicious Vixens,

and two issues of Samson.

And the universes,

you can see how it all ties

together in those books

with characters from, you know,

Shark of War appearing both

now in Cthulhu Man and Vicious Vixens.

And in issue three,

we're going to see a cameo

by one of the characters

from Shark of War in Samson.

Oh, nice.

I was about to ask.

I'm like,

we haven't seen a tie-in to Samson yet.

Yeah, well,

Samson right now is taking

place at a different time period.

But we're going to start to

see how that era unfolds.

it takes place in the

nineteen nineties leads up

to to to to shark of war

that's really no I like

that kind of current day so

we're going to see a cameo

by one a major character

from from those comic books

I like it I like that's the

number three um so like

when a big universe like

that can be tied in

together and like all your

works kind of have that one

little element that can

bring them all together

Yeah, I wasn't going to do it at first.

I was going to have Samson

be a separate universe.

And my younger son was like, no,

you have to have it all be one universe.

You have to have a consistent universe.

And at first I was resisting it.

And then I started thinking

about it and like, you know,

that'll work.

He ain't wrong.

He's not wrong.

Listen to that young man.

At first I thought it wouldn't work.

And then I thought about it more and more.

And I said, you know, that will work.

And it actually will make

things improve things.

So I'm going to do it.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

That actually kind of

changed my thinking about

how Samson three was going

to go a little bit.

um but yeah anyway so for

also for everybody there

are there are two variant

covers there's the base

cover which is inspired by

an old marvel marvel

monsters cover and then

there's the two variant

covers I always do a spoof

of the jaws movie poster or

one of the jaws movie

posters this one kind of is

you know spins it around

and you see he's he's not

the attacker he's the attacked and the uh

the woman in the jaws poster

is kind of just being floating aside.

You always have unique

covers on shark of war.

Like that was another thing

when in the bonus material

that you'll see is,

I always put the colors in

the digital bonus too.

So you get a, you get a copy,

even if you don't buy them,

buying the actual copy,

you get to see it.

Um, yeah.

And the other,

the other variant cover is a,

is a homage to fantastic for number one.

with, you know,

the cast of characters in

place of the... No,

that's another really good one.

So, yeah,

so those are your... So those are

kind of your base,

what I call your base rewards.

And then, you know, you have the rewards.

You can get all three covers.

You have the rewards.

You can get all the physical

copies of Shark of War, you know,

including the hardcover,

which collects issues one through five,

issues six, seven, and eight,

nine as floppy issues.

and there's the jaws version

of those covers as well, which is,

you know, so what you do.

And so with the new art starting,

are you going to take six

through nine and do a

hardback of those as well?

I don't know, you know,

from a business point of view,

I don't know if I sell

enough of the hardcovers to

make it worthwhile yet.

Yeah.

So I'm not sure if I'm going to do that.

I thought about it, but, but you know, it,

you know,

to make, to publish hardcovers,

you really have to,

you have to buy a ball in

bulk from China.

So, so you have to, you know,

if you're not selling a lot of them,

you're,

you've got a lot of inventory left over.

So I'm not sure if I'm going to,

I'm in a rush to do that.

I could,

I may wind up combining the last

two arcs and make, you know, one,

you know, you know, make,

have issue five and then, you know,

one through five and then issues,

you know, six through, you know,

twelve or whatever it goes.

Okay.

You know,

you know however many issues

it takes to for the third

arc and have that be one

hard cover well okay but

you know yeah I I I it the

the economics of it you

know and the effort to do

it don't always make it

work out so yeah but so so

at this point you know if I

was larger you know I'd

definitely do it um because

then the the economics

would definitely work out um

So then you have one arcs

where you can get rewards,

where you can get all, you know,

all the books.

And then there's, you know, the, the,

the biggest reward of course,

is being drawn in the book.

Um, you know,

there's a couple of cameo spots where you,

you get, you know, you're either killed.

in the battle or you're with

the shark of war is one of

the bad guys or you're one

of the henchmen or something like that,

you may or may not get killed.

But there's at least three

or four possible be drawn in a cameo.

It's only a panel cameo.

So it's not even normally I

charge for bigger scenes.

Like last issue and issue eight,

we talked about the creatures,

the monsters.

Those people paid to be...

The faces you saw on those,

those were people, backers of the book.

Every one of those.

Nice.

That's really cool.

Those main people.

But I know that can be...

Yeah.

Hard to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so that, that, so that was a, you know,

a pretty higher tier reward because,

you know,

they not only got to be drawn

into creatures,

they each got several panels,

good panels of, of them, you know,

in action.

In the escape.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, it was kind of cool too.

Like one person, you know,

he does his own indie comic

and he wanted his indie comic.

He didn't want himself drawn

and he wanted his own indie comic.

Oh, that's really cool.

Yeah.

And that's one of those things where,

you know,

I'm kind of the same way when it

comes to my social media presence.

You're not going to find, like, my stuff.

But for me, it's about the podcast.

Right.

So I try to make everything

about the podcast.

Like, no matter what I'm doing,

I will circle it back to what I do here.

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm really trying to

bring people in to the podcast to see Ben,

to see Mike, who was just on,

and before that,

Bruno earlier this month.

Oh, okay.

I know Bruno.

Bruno's good people, man.

And so is Mike.

But I try to circle

everything back so I can

get eyes on people like you

who come on and present

their Kickstarter for everybody.

And that's really been a

direction I've been taking forward.

Inadvertently, but I love it,

taking the podcast to help

spotlight Kickstarter

campaigns and that kind of stuff.

That's really what I've enjoyed doing.

That's all I've done this month.

You're my third one this month.

I got one more after you.

When I say this, it's literally like...

If you know somebody with a

Kickstarter going on and

they need a platform,

that's what the USDN has been here for.

And I will continue to make

it here for that.

Yeah.

I think you're on our, my list of, yeah,

I think you're on our, our,

we have a shared

spreadsheet that we share

amongst ourselves.

And one of the tabs,

this list podcast and you're, you know,

you're listed on there.

So, so people, you know,

different creators want to

want to look at that spreadsheet.

Cause I share it with

several Facebook groups.

They can know that's awesome.

It's an open invite.

It's literally an email.

That's how easy it is.

Like all you do is show up and,

talk about your comic book.

I mean, it don't get no easier.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's been very easy to, to,

to talk with you and I,

I appreciate you having me on and stuff.

I hope your audience enjoys it.

They're, they're sticking with it.

It was funny.

Like before I was always like,

I wouldn't know, you know, like,

but now here lately I've

been getting a lot of posts.

Like I just had, um,

Duke Electric on with Greg.

Right.

Beautiful Ash game he sent me.

Really cool story.

And like...

I think there was like five

or six people at one point

watching his interview.

And then it was like days later,

somebody found that

interview and left a comment on it.

It was like, hey, this is really cool.

And I'm like, oh, this is dope.

I love this.

I love when somebody finds

their new favorite indie

creator through my channel.

I love that.

So, yeah.

That's enough about me, though.

Let's get back to...

to the shark of war.

So we're coming up.

This is the conclusion of a

major arc within the shark

of war without giving away too much.

What is next for the shark of war?

Once mega wealth showdown is done.

Um, basically you're going to see in,

in an all out war, um,

between the United States, you know,

what happens at the end of

issue nine is basically

going to lead to a state of open warfare.

Um,

we've seen Lupita Tiburon grabbing

power and, you know,

it's going to wind up in a, you know,

and what she does is,

is like somewhat shocking.

Um, I think,

Vaguely a little bit.

I think people in the real

world will relate to it a little bit,

you know,

without getting your shark

aboard doesn't deal with

real world issues that directly, you know,

but, but you'll, you'll,

you'll kind of recognize what,

what the threat here is and

that it's going to require

a major response.

So I've called tentatively

dubbed the arc World War Shark,

which is kind of a World War Hulk.

And also a reality of what's

going to happen.

And the issue is it goes even bigger.

Shark of War gets bigger and

bigger with each issue.

And at least that's the intention.

And it gets bigger and bigger.

some point you can't top yourself.

So it's probably why it's

only going to be a trilogy.

That's perfect.

I mean,

unless he starts going into outer

space and, you know, and fighting,

fighting, fighting, you know,

let's save that for the

Fast and Furious franchise.

Okay.

But then, yeah,

then we're going even

further and I want to go, but.

We're going too fast and too

furious on this one.

We've got to calm down a little bit, Ben.

It's going to be a really big couple.

The final story arc will be

a really big couple issues with it.

I like it.

It'll end in a place where

the story can continue,

but you'll feel that you've

gotten a satisfying ending

for the whole trilogy.

I like that.

I like when...

There's nothing better than a good,

satisfying ending that can

be replayed later if needed.

Yeah, I think a lot of stories,

even stories that have done really well,

a lot of times the ending

is kind of unsatisfying.

Mm-hmm.

you know that you're like oh

the first part of that was

great yeah that ending was

kind of dumb but okay yeah

exactly I'm hoping marvel

and dc are notorious for

that where they start a

story strong and then it

goes for maybe three or

four issues longer than it

should yeah and then you

just get this shit ending

pardon my language for

anybody out there but it

happens way too often

they would have just stopped

it at that one issue and

then just be like okay

that's we we stop it there

we'll put the character on

the shelf for a little bit

then reach back up and

bring them back for another

story later but sometimes

they just like oh we're

gonna make this a twelve

store twelve issue story

with like four story arts

happening in it and you're

like y'all need to calm

down all right you're doing

too much you lost this

after number five okay

I won't say what book that

was that I just finished

with because I think it's

still a few more issues left on it.

But yeah,

I'm going to finish it out

because I'm committed at this point.

But yeah,

it didn't need to go past five or six.

They could have just been like.

Right.

We'd have been good.

But.

So we're going to be we'll bring it home.

but first let's get some

advice from you to other

indie creators thinking

about launching their own Kickstarter.

What kind of advice that you,

what kind of advice do you have for them?

You have to build up your own, your,

your fan base.

You know, Kickstarter will,

will share your,

your stuff out with people on Kickstarter,

but there's a ton of other

projects on Kickstarter.

So you're not going to get funded probably,

you know, just by, you know,

being on Kickstarter.

You got to promote it yourself.

You got to build up a base first.

I, I, the number of artists,

especially who I'm like, you know,

are you, when you're at a con, you know,

ask people to sign up to

your email list to do, you know,

buy your art or something.

And if I did art at a con,

I think I'd have, you know, you know,

I think that would help me

because I'd have a bigger email list.

And I'm constantly shocked

that all the artists who...

I'm on your email list, Ben.

And I like your email list.

Oh, thank you.

I like the way you do it.

You give a little bit of

know like hey here's my

upcoming kickstarter and

yeah oh by the way I just

watched superman and this

is my thoughts I like that

oh thank you yeah we're

bearing with stuff you know

yeah I don't want to spam

people with constant back

my project back my you know

I'm trying to do a

newsletter that that's

entertaining and

interesting it really is

and I'm sharing shorts the

last one was right a week ago

Or two weeks ago?

Well, no,

I did one on Thursday where I was

talking about... Okay, it was Thursday.

I knew it was fresh in my

head for some reason.

I think that's actually

where I discussed the

shared universe concept

that we just discussed a little bit.

I went into the history of

how originally comic

universes weren't shared.

They were somewhat standalone,

even though Batman might be

in the same universe.

You almost never saw them

together until later on.

And then it became...

incredibly tightly knit

universe to the point where

you know nowadays marvel

and you know and their

characters are just so you

know they bump into each

other going to the grocery

store we have literally we

have batman and deadpool

going on right now issue

one dropped on wednesday so

I mean and before that you

know we got batman spawn

that we had we just had the second

you know,

I'm thinking more within their

own universe than within, you know,

cross.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Used to, you know,

Batman and Superman were in

the same universe, but they would never,

you know, it was,

it wasn't until the

nineteen sixties that they

started teaming up.

Yeah.

And then, I see what you're saying now.

Yeah.

And then even then they,

they didn't see each other all the time,

but now it's like, you know,

you pick up an issue of

Superman and he's probably

talking with Batman or,

the flash is running in or, you know,

is it,

there's so many superheroes in

their universe.

It's yeah.

I do like those little cameos like that.

Yeah.

Like give me a good Batman arc, but then,

you know,

maybe him calling Superman for like, Hey.

Yeah.

asking him something or

talking to him about something.

It's just like a panel.

I love those little tie-ins

like that where it's not related.

Superman isn't going to show

up in the story.

He's just having a

conversation with his friend, Clark Kent.

Or Diana shows up, Wonder Woman.

I like those little types of

cameos like that.

Those are always fun to me

because it's like...

See what they did there.

I like that.

You know,

it's just like a frame or maybe a

panel where he's having a

conversation with somebody

and you see the same thing.

Like Superman will swing

through a Batman comic for

advice or something like that.

And it's always really cool.

You'll see him up on a

rooftop somewhere and

they're talking to each other.

And then Superman just flies

off and Batman goes back to, you know,

brood in on the rooftop.

So I always enjoy those

little ones like that.

Yeah.

But no,

now it's like you got Justice League,

you got all that stuff.

And I love Justice League,

especially Justice League Dark.

Right.

But yeah, I know what you're saying.

So let's bring it on home real quick, Ben.

Tell everybody where they

can find you and where they

can find the Shark of War

plush of their own.

Oh, yeah.

You can get, I didn't mention that.

You can get the Shark of War

plushie as part of this.

I'm here for you, Ben.

I had you back on that one.

It's an add-on or it's in a tier.

So yeah,

definitely you can get the Shark

of War plushie.

Very nice little plush

animal with the USS Nasher logo on it.

Yeah, that'll be part of the Kickstarter,

which is, you know,

sow.bitingcomics.com is the

shortened link, you know,

or you can go on

Kickstarter and there's a

much longer link.

I don't know if you'll put

it in the... Literally,

if you go to Kickstarter,

type in sharkof,

It's the very first thing that pops up.

Oh, that's good.

So, yeah, so you can get that,

get the plushie and my

Kickstarter and all my

comics as part of that.

If you want to go to

bitingcomics.com and sign

up for my email list,

you'll be taken to a page

where you can not only read

the first issue of Shark of War,

you can read the second issue,

first issue of Vicious

Vixens of Dakalanga,

and the first issue of Samson.

Plus,

you'll get my handy How to Avoid a

Shark Attack guide.

That was a good one.

It's also on the digital.

It's issue three.

It's in the digital collected.

I think it's three and four, I think.

It's three and four or in the hard copy.

The single trade copy,

it's in there as well as a bonus feature.

I had so many people come up and say,

I'm so scared of sharks

after seeing Jaws.

I figured I'd

I did some research and

wrote a humorous little

four-page for what to do.

The advice is real.

The art is supposed to be humorous.

You accomplished that.

That's really good.

I hope people check it out.

Like I said,

I'm about halfway defunded

with about half the time left.

so I you know I'd like to

get it funded you know I'm

used to getting funded on

the last day if that's when

it happens that's when it

happens but I I'd very much

like to get it earlier yeah

and it is funded where can

they find you on social

media I know you're on

facebook yeah facebook

shark of war uh be lacy one

on twitter uh ben lacy one on instagram

What am I on blue sky?

I'm on blue sky too, but.

I think you're Ben Lacey on

blue sky as well, but I can't remember.

Yeah.

Yeah.

B Lacey one also,

or it should come up as Ben Lacey,

but my handle is at B Lacey one.

Yeah.

I don't go to blue sky a lot.

Cause I, I, I know.

I, I,

At first, I thought people went there,

and then I was like, eh.

So it had a lot of hype in the beginning.

And now, just like any other platform,

it's either you're hardcore

this or you're hardcore that.

I happen to be a podcaster,

so I have to spread my love

throughout all the platforms.

So I'm always-

I think a lot of creators are on blue sky,

but I don't think a lot of

fans are on blue sky.

I think the fans on Twitter

and Facebook and all the creators,

you know, it's funny.

And nobody followed them in the beginning,

in the beginning,

the fandom was all on blue sky.

And then it's kind of like, Oh,

I guess Twitter isn't as

bad as we thought it was.

We'll go back over there.

Yeah.

And I'm still, I don't have a Twitter.

I got a blue sky.

So I'm like,

you know, it works.

It does everything I need it to do.

So I don't,

it is what it is at the end of the day.

But Ben,

I want to thank you so much for

joining us today.

Folks, if you love

Cyber Sharks.

Maniacal villains who make

their way around all of

Ben's comic books.

Boss level well battles.

Shark of War is definitely up your alley.

I enjoyed every issue so far of this book.

It is phenomenal.

It's very enjoyable.

It's readable.

Sometimes you don't get a

book that's very readable.

It's weird.

Like, it looks cool, the art is great,

but when you start actually

reading the book, it falls flat.

Shark Award does not fall flat.

It is very good start to finish,

cover to cover.

Go grab the latest issue,

pick up some of the

previous chapters in both

digital and hard copy forms.

All I'm saying at the end of

the day is back it, support Indie Comics,

get yourself a Shark Award plush,

and at the end of the day, Ben Lacey,

Shark of War, they're all USDN approved.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen,

if you joined us tonight,

I want to say I appreciate you, Ben.

As always,

I appreciate you coming on the

USDN podcast.

As always,

you're welcome back anytime you

want to come on.

So with that,

let me find my outro because

I don't have my outro set.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are out of here.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thank you.

Hey, thanks for having me.