You are listening to the USDN on the DFPN.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.