The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Black Seas of Infinity by Daniel J Henk

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

The Black Seas of Infinity by Daniel J Henk https://amzn.to/3saEaku Danhenk.com Visions of pulp era heroes fill his thoughts. He dreams big, but harsh reality digs in as he grows up, and he resigns himself to building surveillance drones for the military. After a brief probative period, he’s moved into the clandestine world of investigating crashed alien craft. Fascinated beyond anything he thought possible, it’s a dream come true. A strange find leads to obsession. Combined with his lack of social skills it eventually gets him fired. But he’s seen too much. A year later he returns and pulls off a bloody heist. Fleeing into the woods, the military in hot pursuit, he makes a mad scramble up the coast. This is the 2nd, heavily reworked and edited edition of my debut novel. I loved the story, but after a decade and a half as an author, I felt I could bring the story more to life with my updated skills. Here are some high-level summary notes from the podcast interview with author and illustrator Dan Henk: Dan Henk is an author and illustrator known for dark, horror-influenced artwork. He has published several horror/sci-fi novels. His latest books are a re-release of his debut novel "The Black Seas of Infinity" about an apocalyptic alien encounter, and an anthology "The Never Dead" with 14 authors contributing horror stories. Early influences were sci-fi and horror books, as well as drawing political cartoons and album art for punk bands. He aimed to be a comic book artist originally. He incorporates visually striking and often disturbing illustrations into his book projects. His art style frequently features horror and nihilistic themes. Life experiences like surviving a stabbing, brain cancer, and his wife's tragic death have shaped his outlook and creative drive. He maintains productivity across writing, illustrations, tattooing, podcasting, and more. On his podcast "Skull Sessions" he interviews other creatives in the horror/sci-fi world about their work and inspirations. Overall Dan Henk has channeled darkness in life into prolific artistic output across multiple mediums, carving out a distinct niche in the world of horror.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Chris Voss Show.com. The Chris Voss Show.com. What can you say, man? Once the opera lady says it, it becomes official. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, we're bringing you the most amazing minds, brilliant authors, Pulitzer Prize winners,

geez, billionaire CEOs, you name it. All the great people who tell all the great stories. And as I always say, it's kind of become a hallmark of the Chris Voss Show. Stories are the great lessons of life. They are the owner's manual of life. And it's how we share our stories, whether it's through fiction or nonfiction or just sharing our life journey is what we overcome and how we overcome it to help instruct others on how to learn lessons in life. And that's how we learn through stories, whether it's film, movie, TV, books, whatever the case may be, this is how we learn sharing each other's stories and going, wow, I can learn

something from that. And if you don't learn anything from anything, well, maybe you're part of the problem. As my psychiatrist likes to say, we have a great amazing author who's multi uh book author he's written a lot of great works and he's on with two of his latest offerings he's put out this year the first one is the black seas of infinity daniel henk or otherwise known as illustrator dan henk is on the show this today uh he also has a book that he put out January 4, 2023, The Never Dead, which is, I think that talks about my love life, or wait, maybe it's the opposite, that he also put out as well with a bunch of other people. And he's going to be talking to us about his book.

You'll get a chance to meet him. His early career included drawing political cartoons for Madcap Magazine and illustrating Maximum Rock and Roll. In 1997, after getting stabbed by a crackhead, he moved to New York City. Wait, he moved to New York City after that? That sounds like a bad way to get closer to people. No, he lived in D.C. D.C. was horrible.

That was the merrier of the years. Ah, there you go. Well, there you go. That explains a lot. Thank you, CIA. There he produced artwork for the bands Shy Hallude, Indecision, Koshari, Unsound, Coalesce, Most Precious Blood, Locked in Vacancy, Beyond Reason, and Zombie Apocalypse.

All sound like really well-balanced bands. Locked in Vacancy, Beyond Reason, and Zombie Apocalypse. All sound like really well-balanced pants. He had a brain cancer in 2001, and his wife died in a hit run in 2007. Life is a rocky road sometimes, he has to say. His heavily illustrated anthology, The Never Dead, featuring 14 authors and 16 stories just debuted and he re-attained his rights and massively re-edited his debut novel the black seas of infinity for re-release and we're going to be talking about those books today welcome to the show dan how are you i'm good thank you uh for having me thank you for coming and give us a dot com so where do you want people to find you on the interwebs check out my website danhink.com that's everything's there all my links my blog everything

there you go and so how many books you've written you've got quite a few books and offering on your website there well i have three that are full novels and then i've been in a bunch of like uh story collections and magazines but i have three that are fully mine and i have've been in a bunch of story collections and magazines, but I have three that are fully mine, and then I've won this kind of like Twilight Zone, Outer Limits-style anthology with all short stories. And I contributed that, but I had a bunch of authors too. There you go.

So on this latest offering, The Black Seas of Infinity, give us like a $30,000 if you would it's a apocalyptic kind of uh my editor calls it speculative fiction um and i was like what the fuck is that he said well it's just you combine everything i don't know if i can curse this but i i combine everything so like some sci-fi, some horror, all that sort of stuff. But it basically deals with a guy who works for the government. They recover a crashed spacecraft. And they hide it all from the people, the populace. And then the whole government collapses. They steal something and it goes to the run.

And then, you know, surprise know surprise surprise the aliens they sold from came back ah it's always those aliens coming back yeah the cover I must say is quite pros pocket if you want to scribe the cover for people yeah it's um well it's my late wife she did a bit of like alternative modeling you know one was she I think I forget it was River or something or other was a photographer and that's her like pouring like milk

on her body and I used that as reference to make a painting and I made a painting where it said milk is blood. Ah there you go so that intertwines a little bit with maybe what goes on in the book? Yeah.

Well, the main character, and I don't want people to think it's me because it's not me, but it's like a very nihilistic version of me. But in it, his wife dies, and he just hates everything. Wow. And he has dreams about this and visions about this. And you kind of have to delve into the book to see the intro he sees the whole situation but uh he like start to he doesn't know if he's like losing it he doesn't he starts to have like you know waking dreams where he sees his

wife did do you think that uh i mean obviously i mean we talked to you, lost your wife in, I think, 2007? Yeah, 2007. Was this maybe part of the journey that you went on of grief and sorrow and things of that nature? Or was this maybe a way for you maybe to expel or experience that or cleanse that from yourself? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. maybe to expel or experience that or cleanse that from yourself or you know you know what i'm saying yeah well i i would say um especially like later reference when you read and you go oh that's where i was at the time but um i i had the story and i developed a story before i ever even met her but i incorporated her into the story or like this character's version of her into the story and i included more elements

as it went along i mean this thing has been i originally started this back when i was 15 i wanted to make a i wanted to be a comic artist and i go to like you know like i lived in gainesville florida which is pretty much like trash but there are a bunch of people that work at like you know bookstores and like comic shops and they're like indie artists and that's when you have that giant boom with like thb nid turtles and stuff like that so you know all these people were working full-time and they were super nice he gave me like i was a little bratty kid but they give me lots of advice and be like i use this you know and i they look at it and they go, well, you should try this.

But it really helped me out. And that story has kind of evolved over time. Awesome, Sauce. So I guess tell us more about the protagonist in the story. Well, the protagonist, he works for the government. He works up. And whenever I do anything, I'm almost OCD, so I do kind of a deep dive into this. I read a bunch of people that at least say they worked for the government he works up and whenever i do anything i'm almost ocd so you kind of deep dive into this like read a bunch of people that at least say they worked for the government you know

for project blue book and you know recovering several roswell and stuff like that and um so this guy works for the government and the theory if it is unreal if this whole thing is real then you know the theory is self-recovered is brought to a warehouse and they kind of partition it out and different people work in different projects but don't know what connects it all like that's what they did with the Manhattan project you know so the government does do that and you know so this guy is one of those guys working for the government and they have a recovered spacecraft and you know, so this guy is one of those guys working for the government, and they have a recovered spacecraft. And, you know, he's working on it. He finds somebody in there, and he's kind of like a – he's not a nice guy.

So they get along with his coworkers. His history gets fired. And he's like, I'm going back, and I'm stealing that. You know, and so he goes back to steal it. But while he's stealing it, the whole government falls apart. So, I was wondering why there's, like, nobody on the roads and everything's closed. There are local militias and stuff, and then it just gets crazier from there. Wow. It sounds like quite the journey.

What were some of the things that gave you ideas on the book that contributed to it? Well, like I said, i had this episode since i was 15 so kind of the idea has evolved over time but the core element stayed more or less the same and then as you go through life and all this stuff happens to you you go hey well you know i should incorporate that or that had a big impact so they'll probably reach the audience there you go now your other book the never dead looks like this is a compilation of with several different authors that jumped into it give us an overview of that it's basically kind of like Twilight Zone out of the limits like they're they're all little like not

necessarily horror stories but dark stories And I do a lot of illustrations for, like, you know, magazines and bands. I've done plenty of book covers. And what I say is, like, I don't have a lot of money, but I'll bet I can trade original artwork that I did for an author in exchange for a short story. And fortunately, a lot of them were into that. So I gave them the artwork, and they gave me the short story. And I lot of them were into that so i gave them the artwork and they gave me the short story and uh i kind of added through it there were a couple people that

i was like oh yeah man you know i like i try not to say your story sucks but i tried to say it didn't really fit the anthology but the ones i liked i put in there ah so people kind of applied and and uh went through it and uh so it's kind of like an experience like you said, the Twilight Zone. So it's little short stories, I guess. Yeah, like Richard Matheson or Stephen King's short stories. Like I said, like Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt or Unlimited. So there's 16 tales of horror and woe in that's my tagline yeah that's my tagline 16 tales of horror and woe are ensconced in here it sounds like my first 16 marriages

were you really married 16 times no there's a it's a callback joke on the show i i throw it i throw it random like uh yeah it sounds like my first five marriages. You know, we just do different numbers every time. The joke is that I've never been married, so. Well, I tell people everything good in life hurts. I should know. I was married. That's true.

You went and got stabbed. It sounds like you've been through some experiences in your life. Tell us a little bit more about how some of those experiences led to kind of have you written and how you lived your life. I know you're a big tattoo artist as well. Right. Yeah.

I own a shop here in long beach, New York. Um, and, uh, it's called the abyss tattoo. That's actually where I met my wife. She was, uh, I didn't own the shop, but at the time I was working in another shop and she was a counter person and I kept trying to talk to her, but she's an immigrant from

Columbia, so there was like a language barrier, you know, but when she finally realized that in my awkward way, I was trying to hit on her, then she started talking to me. Ah, there you go. And I've seen some of your artwork that you have for tattoo work on the website as well.

This is quite interesting, all the stuff here. I might have some nightmares after this. Well, I had like 15 minutes of fame in the tattoo world back in 2009. I was in all the magazines, probably all over the world yeah like people would say hey uh we do my commission i'm like well i don't know if i can afford it they're like we'll buy a plane ticket we'll pay for your hotel room i'll pay for your booth just show up i'm like okay i can do that there you go uh so what got you into this this genre? I see there's also that kind of theme running through your tattoos. I don't see a lot of daisies and flowers and, you know, positive vibes going on here.

It's a bit of darkness and horror. What do you think contributes to you kind of enjoying this genre? Well, I think it's what you said, basically, which is everything's a story. And the stories that really grab me are the ones that have kind of a dark twist to them. I feel like that's more realistic. That's more what life is. The good guy doesn't always win. That's true.

And I grew up on isolated military bases every where to my dad's army. And we didn't even have a TV. So I just go to the library.'d check out this giant stack of books. I had them all read within a week. In fourth grade, I was reading adult level. My favorites were sci-fi and horror. They always really grabbed me. I used to play soldier in the abandoned training grounds near the base where we lived at.

We'd run around with bottle rockets and shoot at each other and pretend we're troops and stuff. But I always imagined these fantastical worlds all around me. And I think that kind of transferred into my love of this stuff. There you go. There's something to say about not having a TV. You've got to go create your own imagination, your own world. Maybe more kids need that. That's how I kind of was as a kid, where I was like, you run around,

and because you have to create your own imagination in the world and stuff, you develop that. But if you don't, you're just sitting there in front of the TV going, bleh. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. I mean, it's also, it was a different era,

so you didn't have, like, helicopter parents and stuff. So basically my parents would be like, all right's a six so you were six so i get like on my b mix bike and i like bike downtown i bike everywhere you know like i we we had a tree for like went to the scrap lumber yard we grabbed stuff there we're like building a tree for you know it's just like we're finding ways to amuse ourselves and we didn't have tv we didn't have like we didn't have video games we didn't have a computer i mean i'm old so this is like back in the you know early 80s yeah we're both old buddy coming from that era that's for sure yeah it's uh and so it's it it seems like it's worked out really well for you. You've used it for your work.

How many total books do you have? I'm looking at them here on the website. Well, the ones that I put out there are like a solid 300-page. All of me are like three. There's a bunch I've been in where I have a short story, like a splat-puncted one called Bloodstains. I'm sorry, because it's a publisher. It's called Bloodstains.

I have a story in there. I've got stories in magazines. I've got stories in various anthologies. But just mine alone, three books. Wow, that's pretty good. And then you've got the anthologies there as well. Do you ever think you'd write a book like Martha Stewart, Positive Daisies and Roses and Love and Peace and Happiness?

What, you're saying these books are positive? I don't know. I didn't mean to play that at all. But, you know, I'm a Metallica fan. And, you know, there's something cathartic about sometimes darkness and dealing with the hard edges of life and stuff. There's something cathartic about it where people will be like, I'll listen to something really heavy, and you're talking about some kind of dark stuff.

And you feel better afterwards. You're kind of like, ah, I feel less depressed now feel less depressed now cleanse all that i've exercised the day they told back in the day they told great stories you know yeah like i i just after in just for all i just pretend they died you know a lot of people feel that way it definitely it definitely has changed over the years with them um so uh on these books what do you what do you feel uh appeals to most of your readers on the two new books you put out this year well that that's the kind of weird thing like like for instance uh it sounds like i'm going off topic but i'm not so when I went to art school and I do stuff and people are like oh I love your style I'm like what style I'm just you know illustrating what I see

but you know you put yourself into the way that you envision the world so you know when I first put out my books it was just like hey you know I like this so I'm sure everyone will like this. That's not true at all. But, you know, I put it out, and over time, I've tried to not change the topics or anything, but, like, you know, angle it a little bit more so, like, more people, it grabs their attention, then immediately you run it off. There you go. And sometimes you just have to find your audience

and build it, right? That's true, yeah. You have to curate your audience, get them interested, find the people that like you, and then hopefully word of mouth spreads and more people refer you and stuff, and you can get into it and so on. So you've been through an incredible journey, and how do you stay positive? How do you stay, you know, how do you bounce back from some of the trials and tribulations you've been served in life?

Well, I figured that nobody really cares in the end except for you. So if you fail and you don't make it, you know, maybe a couple of your friends are like, well, he was talented in this tragedy, but nobody really cares. End of the day, nobody cares. So like I remember a person person who had brain cancer,

and I was doing, I was painting a cover for the band Shia Lude, and, you know, I was like, 35 hours to a 40-hour painting, and I called up Matt Fox, the main guy band Shia Lude, from a hospital bed. I'm like, you know, I have cancer,

I'm in the hospital, but I'm going to finish your painting. He's like, just get better, just get better. I'm like, no, I'm going to finish your painting. I'm like, in the hospital, but I'm going to finish your painting. He's like, just get better, just get better. I'm like, no, I'm going to finish your painting. I'm like, I might die, but I'm going to finish your painting. So I just feel you have to do stuff. And part of the impetus for, you know, getting the books out, as much as I, like, I always had that in mind. And then it's kind of a, like, it's a long, complicated road,

but I ended up tattooing that blew up in the tattoo industry so i got all wrapped up in that then my wife died in the run so when she died you know that combined with with brain cancer like life is short i could die tomorrow i gotta get this done yeah that that kind of gives you an outlook on life of realizing how fleeting it is, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And how important it is. They're there one minute, they're gone the next.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so you've just got to get it done and all that good stuff. The book that you put out, The Never Dead, I guess there's a lot of illustrations in it from some of your artwork? Oh, yeah. Well, like I said, originally I wanted to be a comic artist. So even when I first

went to art school and my teacher said, if you want to make an artist, you got to move to New York. So I moved to New York. I moved on like a 10-year-old motorcycle, everything I owned in a backpack, you know, just moved to New York. I remember I interviewed with DC Comics.

That's right when they almost went bankrupt. The movie saved them. I was trying so hard. I finally managed to find a guy at Pratt that worked for them. He hooked me up with the interview. The interview didn't really go the way I liked. They wanted me to draw their characters like they they pulled out a superman comic and superman punching let's say third

and they're like you want to do this i was like no they're like we don't have a job for you wow so and then like an interview with penguin books you know penguin pays a lot for a book cover but you might get a book cover like every year every year and a half i was like i can't live off that yeah so i i like i love to do well like not to get off topic there but i i love to do illustrations and i like to write as well and and i was like well when i write i'm gonna do a bunch of illustrations and kind of bring it to life. You know, have you thought about doing a comic book series of horror?

Well, I thought, see, here's the thing. It's like a full page where 11 by 17 is like the standard working size and the ones where it's like one image for the entire page is called a splash page. And one of those takes me three days to do so when i did because i'll pencil it i i even remember

when i interviewed with dc comics and they're like your pencils are very detailed most inkers can't handle them i'm like oh i'll let you know myself like oh no no no i mean what they're worried about is they're worried about they want 24 pages a month, every single month. And, you know, if you run behind with that, they kind of get screwed. They don't make any money. So, you know, there's a lot that goes into it.

So even if you do it all the time and, you know, the speed through repetition, it's still hard to crank out 24 if you spend an entire month doing nothing but working on the comic yeah a lot of art that works yeah we had Daphne Byrne from the Hill House comics that was the title the book was Laura marks from Hill house comics and i guess joe hill is a big uh horror uh yeah he's a nice guy yeah like the same king's son yeah yeah and i guess they do really well we we interviewed them and uh uh you know i was like holy crap the book was amazing to look through it does if you have something that catches people's attention like it was joe hill or like del toro

did book you know so if you have something that catches people's attention like gerard uh what's the guy from my typical romance gerard way i think um he did the umbrella academy so you know if you have something that makes people take a look and it's quality then you're good to go but there's lots of stuff out there that's quality that nobody ever looked at yeah it's unfortunate but you know sometimes you have to build the audience and like i said you have to curate it and stuff so you know maybe there's a future there but it sounds like you're kicking ass on what you're doing well what do you have working on in the future is there any additions to your book collection that you're putting on now yeah there's well i'm always

working on something uh like my girlfriend tells me that i do way too much um but you know you know it's all about time right there's only so much time yeah well i i write i i draw i have a podcast i tattoo i help I help run a tattoo shop, I help manage and pay people. So it's like, I'm doing a lot of stuff all the time. What are you talking about on the podcast? Let's get a plug in for that.

It's called Skull Sessions with Jim Hick. I interview artists and authors, mainly authors, because I do a lot of like author conventions now. And I'll meet them and I'm like, you should be on my podcast. And like, they'll be on my podcast. And then what I love to do is like, I kind of took this from John Stossel,

the whole like, you know, put up lots of imagery and stuff like that. And I was like, yeah, that's a great idea. So, you know, if they talk about a book, boom, it's on the screen. If they talk about a movie, I try and clip a little scene from that movie and put it on the screen but yeah we talk about like what led them to where they are like some people it's more like you know what techniques do you use some people it's more like you know hey well uh what what made you go for this job in the first place they'll be like be like, well, I was a medical technician, and I was always running lots of blood,

and maybe that should have been a sign. Yeah. So what genre do you talk about all sorts of books and books, authors on your show, or is this a horror genre? Well, it's mainly horror. Also, I focus on sci-fi, but it would be like dark sci-fi, like Event Horizon or Alien or something like that. But it's not that I'm necessarily turning people away. It's just those are the people that gravitate towards whatever they're on.

There you go. And so it's fun, man. You're doing so much. And I think what you're doing is really enjoying life and make sure you're maximizing because you've seen the darkness of life. What was it like going through cancer? I imagine that had a contribution on your outlook in life. Well, it sucked. I had headaches, and I was broke at the time,

and so I went to a local clinic, and they and they said oh you got migraines and you know then the headaches got worse and i went to a pharmacy and they couldn't even read his handwriting and so i had to go to a more expensive clinic and they said oh you're dehydrated to call tomorrow it's either worse and the next day like me and my girl we had chinese food the day before the next day i was throwing it up i I was hanging over a bathroom sink. I don't want to shoot myself in the mouth. I felt like I had a jackhammer to the back of my head. Wow.

And so then we went to Bellevue Hospital. And while we were going to Bellevue, she's trying to guide me straight. I can't even walk straight. I'm walking sideways. And I get in there. And they're like, what do you do? I said, well, I do tie. They're like, oh, it's a brain bleed.

They put me in the CAT scan. They go, oh, it's cancer. Wow. And I was like, okay. And they're like, well, it was called medulloblastoma. It's a slow-growing tumor. They're like, yeah, you know, it would have burst open, and you would have been dead.

You probably had about two weeks. Holy crap. So, I mean, you've gone through some things where you've learned to really appreciate your value and time in life. Right. Yeah. I think so. It's that outlook where you're so busy now and you try and enjoy your life and get a lot done. That's true.

I also think one other thing I was going to say about the brain cancer was, so they said, you know, is brain surgery, so you have about a 50-50 chance of making it, and we have to operate on you in four days. And my girl started crying, and she's like, oh, you don't care. I'm like, oh, of course I care, but what am I going to do? And I called my parents, and they're like, well, we'd come see you, but, you know, last minute takes are expensive. So, so, kind of, like, me and my parents don't get along well in ways, like, you turn 18, they keep me in the house and moved.

They're, like, super conservative, super religious. You know, I got into punk rock. They're like, alright. Devil inspired. He's out. Oh, yeah. Devil inspired. Yeah's yeah punk rock that'll do it yeah but i had a blue mohawk and a spiky leather jacket and comment i look like a british punk rocker yeah but uh i mean i got a high you know grade point average high gpa you know and i remember i talked to my guidance counselor and i was was, like, trying to get, like, a loan for college or, like, a grant or something.

She said, get ready for a cure of pumping gas because that's all you're ever going to do. What the hell? I still remember what she looks like. I remember her name. You should send her some of your work and say, yeah, I seem to be doing well. How's your pumping gas thing working out there buddy yeah yeah that's a very nice guidance counselor what the hell that's not even guidance it's just cursing you with something or trying to well i'm glad you didn't listen to her

and you rose above it um you know it seems like you've had quite the journey of resilience and uh loss and you know that that's it's an interesting thing you you got stabbed i get cancer you you lost your wife i mean there's a lot of grief and heartache where people that go through stuff like that would just give up and just say uh you know whatever uh you know maybe like the character in your book who's a bit of a nihilist uh after going through some of the similar things that you put into your latest book. Yeah. Well, I think that kind of like, if you do a deep dive in psychology and people like that's a path I could have

gone down. And I know I was feeling more nihilistic when I wrote, but I mean, I don't hate people, you know, but I'm like, I can see how that leads to it. You know, I can see how people get a certain way. Yeah, I mean, I didn't used to hate people and then I started getting to know people.

I'm just kidding. Just some people. I started watching the news. So, you you know maybe turn that news off every now and then it's good to stay informed of people there you go so what do you want to is there anything more we should

tease out about the two books the Black Seas of Infinity and the Never Dead before we go no I think definitely check those books out. The Black Sea's Infinity and the Rice Pack, I was like, I should give people

a reason why they should check this out if they've already seen it. So I did do a massive re-edit and re-write and everything. I figure I'm a much better author now than I was when I first wrote it. I was like, I should give cool stuff to like make them really want to check it out you know even more so like i included a whole bunch of new illustrations i included like a

whole backstory it's like the i call the story of the projects where i say you know it started out as this these are some of my early are some of my early drawings, some of my later drawings. These are some of the drawings I interviewed with DC Comics with. And so I just somehow evolved over time. There you go. Well, it's been fun having you on the show. Give us the final pitch out as we go out, Dan, for people to order up your books,

check out some of your other artistry work. Well, I think, like, I'm a big fan of A.P. Lovecraft, and he has a great quote where he says, Life is indeed comic, but the joke is only a con. There you go. The only thing a man can learn from his history is the man never learns from his history. DanGibbsHu.com

so people can find you on the interwebs, please. It's DanHink.com It's D-A-N-H-E-N-K It's some weird German last name. So, DanHink.com There you D-A-N-H-E-N-K some weird German last name so danhink.com there you go well thanks for persevering through everything you've gone through you're lighting the world and you're inspiring other people

and keep up with the artwork yeah thanks Chris you know it'd be great too if you did like maybe a little movie like maybe a little TV series Twilight Zone sort of thing on the on the uh on the book there well i i do book trailers for all my books oh do you yeah yeah and i i figure it like gives you a little more of like an insight to what's going on yeah and i like one of my books it's called called Don't Always in the Dark by Game is Driven.

It's all short stories. And I got an option by somebody. It wasn't Netflix, but it was kind of like Netflix to like make that into an episode of a series. It never went anywhere. You know, I didn't make like crazy money off of it. But, you know, that was out there. You never know. I mean, those options are pretty fun because, you know, people option them, and then sometimes they don't use them, and then you can just keep reselling them.

So there you go. We have a lot of authors that come on the show that do that. Thank you very much, Dan, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man. Yeah, thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. There you go. And thanks, my friends, for tuning in.

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