Dan Henk is an author, illustrator, and tattoo artist. His artwork has been featured on every cover of the highly revered Splatterpunk Zine, as well as on numerous other books and album covers.
He’s also had a number of horror and dark fiction novels, and short stories published. His work ventures down nightmarish avenues of horror often blended with elements of dark science-fiction.
DLS Reviews managed to grab a slice of time with the man behind this vast array of creative output, to find out a little more about his work, his inspirations, and what more he has in store for us…
DLS: Many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed on DLS Reviews.
To start off, with you having so many creative outlets in your life, I’d be keen to understand if you perhaps have a favourite, if you unusually have multiple projects underway at any one given time, and if you see more particular creative form as being your main creative outlet (writing, painting, pen and ink illustrations, tattooing…)?
DH: I enjoy all my pursuits, or 25 years later, I wouldn’t still be doing them! If too long of a gulph of time passes between tattooing, drawing, writing, or pursuing martial arts, I feel the “call of the void” and need to fill that spot!
DLS: Which of these creative forms came first for you? In fact, I’d be keen to know a little about your background and the journey you had into all these different forms of art?
I got serious and decided comics were for me after I read Watchmen! If you haven’t read it-read it now!
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a writer or artist, and after seeing that masterpiece, I was like “I can do both!”. I lived in a northern Florida college down at the time, there was an indie comic shop (rare in those days), and a used book store, both employing indie artists, and I’d badger them weekly for advice and tips, my latest comic pages in hand.
Luckily, they tolerated me, in fact they were very helpful, and most of my resistance come when I moved to a much more conservative area. I took advanced classes in creative writing and art, and got kicked out of both for my “horror obsession”.
Temporary homeless (like living in the woods, showers in McDonald’s rest rooms homeless), thanks to my conservative military dad who kicked me out of the house and moved, I eventually got on my feet, and started doing art for local bands. Madcap Magazine picked me up as a regular cartoonist, and Maximum Rock and Roll used my art for their cover story “You’re Dead”.
But I wanted to get into comics. I put myself through art school (you know how hard it is to balance art supplies on the handlebars of your shitty, 20-year-old motorcycle?) and then moved to NYC to get an art career.
DC Comics wanted me to draw mainstream superheroes and wouldn’t let me write my own stuff. Penguin books loved my work, but I found out they gave you maybe two jobs a year, and that wasn’t enough to live in NYC.
A tattoo artist friend of my brother convinced me to start tattooing, and I figured I’d just do that until I managed to a get a “real job”. Only I liked it, and the associated culture, so much, that I stayed.
DLS: For your literary work, I wouldn’t necessarily badge your fiction as horror, but more dark speculative fiction with a strong sci-fi and/or cosmic horror bloodline running through the tales. However, if you had to, how would you describe your fiction and have you any thoughts or plans to explore any other genres?
DH: Lovecraft, HG Wells, The Twilight Zone, and the Outer Limits were all huge inspirations. I just feel there is more meat to the story if all sorts of weirdness, especially cosmic weirdness, is involved. All genres are fair game, but I’m a punk rocker! I never play it straight!
DLS: Nightmares seem to be a constant theme within much of your work. Whether its nightmare sequences embedded into the stories, or the story as a whole coming across as a strange, vividly disturbing nightmare (like with your short ‘The Small Spaces In Time’). Is this a conscious element you choose to utilise, or rather one which naturally and quite organically infiltrates itself into your stories?
DH: I think the bridge between all the different diasporas of reality is very thin. Maybe we all live in the Matrix, who knows? Or maybe reality is just so shitty in general I’ve created my own version of Ready Player One.
DLS: Your first novel – ‘The Black Seas Of Infinity’ (2011) was a magnificent piece of sci-fi horror which felt like it had a very personal journey also being told through it. How much of you and your own life did you incorporate in the story? And what brought you to the point where you decided to write the tale?DH: I would like to reiterate, for all the Karen’s out there, that the main character is not me! Yes, many of the incidents are heavily based on events and areas in my life, but hey, write what you know! If you don’t know it, go there and experience it firsthand! At least that’s the way I feel.
DLS: You later rereleased a completely re-edited and expanded version of the novel which was released in 2023. What made you want to go back over the novel and rework it so heavily for such a rerelease?
DH: The core story I first came up with when I was 12! It heavily evolved, transmuting through a whole range of storyboard incarnations until it finally became an illustrated novel, but it’s always been a pet project I’ve held near and dear to my heart. I finally managed to first release it in 2010, but after 13 years of experience (writing and editing, taking author seminars, attending conventions and getting feedback, the works) I knew I could make the story much better!
DLS: In the rereleased version, you mention you originally intended for the story to be a graphic novel. In fact, you produced a few pages of the proposed illustrations. Can you tell us a little about what happened, why you dropped the graphic novel version and instead chose to go with a novel?
DH: The main determination was my DC Comic interview. The story was way too long and complex for me to slave away over the course of years and make no money to pay bills, and I decided that what I really liked were the large, visually dramatic, full page (they are called splash pages) in comics. Some of my old favourites, like those pulp era The Shadow and Doc Savage, featured a few miniature drawings interspersed in the book. I loved that, and figured an amplified version would be the best of both worlds!
DLS: In ‘Black Seas’ the story starts out in Fort Bragg, which I understand from our previous chats, is where you grew up as a young lad. The setting of Fort Bragg also appears in a number of your other stories – such as the short story ‘Fort Bragg’ which appeared in Jack Bantry’s Splatterpunk Zine: Issue 10’ (2021). Can you tell us a little about your experience growing up at the military training ground during the 80’s and its influence on you and your work?DH: Fort Bragg is the home of the 82nd airborne, the woods are covered with long abandoned fox holes, trenches, roads, and the foundations of old buildings. And tons of secret warehouses that maybe host the secrets of Roswell!
In the era I grew up there, helicopter parenting wasn’t a thing. Me and my buddies would play soldier in the old training grounds, using bottle rocks stuffed min empty hairspray cans as makeshift bazookas! I’d explore the abandoned trails and fantasise my own make-believe world.
DLS: Staying with ‘Black Seas’, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but one of the chapters in the book which I’m not ashamed to say, completely choked me up, was the section about your late wife, Monica. The entire chapter was one thick with what felt like insanely raw emotion. Was that section difficult to write and was there a particular motivation for you including the chapter?
DH: Monica was a huge part of my life, and always my biggest supporter. My life with her, just as I moved to the big city and started to make it as an artist, was so impactful I felt it was necessary to include it. The whole arc makes the character who he is, a dark tunnel of nihilism I could see myself almost falling into.DLS: Your next book to be published was ‘Down Highways In The Dark…By Demons Driven’ (2015) which was a novella-length tale alongside a collection of selected short stories all sharing a similarly nihilistic theme. Did you purposefully write the stories to go together into a single publication? And was there purposefully this overarching nihilistic theme to the collection?
DH: I love that comic book aspect of everything being in the same continuity, and some stories throwing easter eggs in to cleverly point at other characters and timelines. I have a similar overarching theme, but the main motivation behind writing them, was to continue on the journey after the debut of my first novel. I wasn’t ready to write a full sequel yet, but I had stories I wanted to tell. Initially I’d just post them on Kindle, as a cheap download, but eventually I collected them into a book.
DLS: The opening novella-length story in this book, ‘Down Highways In The Dark’, is a dark sci-fi piece which deals with the story’s principal protagonist having a special gift whereby he experiences visions whilst witnessing sudden deaths, which leads to him being able to walk between dimensions, travelling to places beyond our world. What inspired this uniquely imaginative story? Also, was there again some of you embedded in the tale?
DH: I would say about 2/3rds of that story is either from places I lived, people I knew, or stories that were recounted to me. An ex-EMS worker told me about a guy being pushed in front of a subway. I was a bike messenger when a courier was hit by a bus that then proceeded to run over his head. I lived in DC and Fairfax, Virginia for a while, and in Virginia I had a nihilistic friend who lived with his grandparents. So, aside from the aliens and special powers (which might or might not be true!) a lot of it is based off real life.
DLS: The story of ‘Down Highways in The Dark’ is a character-driven, almost coming-of-age journey, which again, feels like a recurring theme within many of your stories. Is there a particular reason why you might be drawn to writing these elaborate journeys through a character’s life?
DH: Like I said, I’ve lived all over. In Florida, I had a best friend who lived in a trailer home in the woods with his single mom. We’d drink his mom’s beer and smoke cigarettes while starring at the stars from the trailer roof and explore the nearby construction sites. I feel like I’ve lived so many different lives, it’d be a shame to not use that as source material.DLS: Another theme which seems to be present in many of your tales is one of an overall immersion into an oppressive and absolute bleakness. Your tales appear to want to tread further ground than mere dark fiction and become almost nihilistic in their coldness. Is this something which you feel particularly drawn to writing about? Do you sometimes push yourself to plummet further into such abysses? And is it perhaps a sort of cathartic exorcising of your demons?
DH: It’s a cold, uncaring world. As the doctor dying of cancer says in The Autopsy “We are all on the same train, some of us just get off on different platforms”. I wouldn’t say it’s an exercising of my demons, it’s just how I see the world. Happy endings are often bullshit.
DLS: A number of the stories in the collection also lean towards a Lovecraftian style of cosmic horror. Are you a fan of Lovecraft, and if so, was his work a particular inspiration for you? Any particular stories?
DH: I picked up a compilation of Lovecraft at the now defunct Tower Records back in 1990, and his work blew my mind. I’ve been a huge fan ever since, it encapsulated all the elements in science fiction and horror that I loved, all elucidated by an obviously intelligent and well-spoken author. At The Mountains of Madness might be my favourite, but he has written so many great stories, all of which I’ve read, that I might have missed something.
DLS: Speaking of influences, do you have any favourite authors who’ve inspired your wider work? Any who you’d be keen to collaborate with? I could certainly see you working with the likes of William Holloway for example…
DH: Alan Moore, Frank Miller, HP Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Neil Stevens, Walter Gibson, Neil Gaiman, and too many more than I can name all inspired me, and of course it would be a dream come true to work with any of them.
Contemporary writers (many of which I found when they submitted work to my last anthology), that I think would make good collaborators include Tim Curran, Ryan C. Thomas, Christine Morgan, Patrick Lacy, and probably one or two that I forgot to name!
DLS: The last story in the collection was ‘Christmas Is Cancelled’ which you’d previously released as a standalone chapbook through Bantry’s incredible Splatterpunk Zine outfit. The story feels slightly removed from your usual work, although it’s nevertheless still a horrifying piece of dark fiction. How did you come about writing this, and why choose a chapbook for its first incarnation?
DH: I think the chapbook was Jack Bantry’s idea, they aren’t big here and I had no idea what they were. It’s been a while, but I think the inspiration was just to do a dark twist on a beloved holiday, which the for knowledge that much of what we consider passive today is based off much darker, older lore.
DLS: Now seems like a prime time to bring up what seems to have become almost a creative partnership with the Splatterpunk guru that is Jack Bantry. How did you first come to work with Bantry, what’s it been like collaborating with him on his Splatterpunk Zines etc, and can you see yourself ever co-authoring any fiction with him in the future?
DH: Right when I was blowing up, and in books and magazines all over the world, conventions were inviting me, offering free tables, hotel rooms, and sometimes even air fare, if I attended. Jack reached out to me out of the blue and asked if I’d do the cover for his new horror zine Splatterpunk.
Maybe that’s how he heard of me, and I was all about doing some more horror illustrations. I never imagined that 11 years later I’d be doing book and magazine covers for him.
DLS: Speaking of the Splatterpunk Zine, were there any illustrations which you provided for the stories which you particularly enjoyed creating, and were there any stories which you read which you weren’t sure what sort of illustration you’d do for it?
DH: With every story, It’s not hard to visualize a scene that would bring the drama to life. With that said, there are a few that are my favourites...
DLS: I’ve seen on your website you have a huge number of pieces of artwork for sale, both prints and original pieces. Do you get many commissions and have you got a favourite piece?
DH: Yes, I get commissioned quite a bit. If it’s up my ally, I’ll do it. I have prints, including high quality giclee prints on watercolour paper that I sell at conventions. Some of my artwork burned up in the shop fire, but what I have left I sell (but only when I need money to finance a new project). As far as a favourite, it’s hard to choose, but here’s one I particularly like (image on the left).
DLS: Going back to your literary work for a second, after ‘Down Highways’ you released the full-length novel ‘The End of The World’ (2019). This seemed to be a sort of loose sequel to ‘Black Seas’. Do you intentionally write stories which link together, almost like you’re laying down a bleak mythos akin to what Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith created?DH: I love that whole “interconnected, cosmic reality” bit. I like to keep my work tight enough, so individual stories can shine, but have them all link together as part of a greater universe. I describe the connection between The Black Seas of Infinity” and “The End of the World” as sort of “Mad Max to Road warrior”. As in, you don’t need to see one to make sense of the other.
DLS: The novel is undoubtedly your most apocalyptic offering to date. Are you a particular fan of the apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic subgenre? If so, any notable favourites? Authors, books, films or series?
DH: Yes, I’ll admit, it’s a preference! Whether it’s great novels. Like Lucifer’s Hammer, The Road, The Day After, Alas Babylon, Swan Song, or shows like The Last of Us, Hardware, 12 Monkeys, or War of the Worlds, I’m all in.
DLS: I seem to recall around 2015 you took up amateur boxing. How did that go, why did you decide to take up the sport, and can you see yourself returning to the ring again?
DH: I’ve been, semi-professionally, in the ring four times. I lost (on points) the first two times and won the next two.
Mostly what motivated me were all the Muay Thai fights I trained for, cut weight for, only to have them cancel the day off. Of the eleven I prepared for, only one went through, which I won unanimously.
The Muay Thai fights would be cancelled the moment an opponent backed out. Boxing fights would usually find a back-up opponent on short notice, and the intensive weight cuts and training that led up to fights were a huge waste of time and effort if they were cancelled at the last moment. So I went with boxing, and would do more fights with enough fore notice, but I’ve been competing in martial arts for over 30 years, and it’s not as much my priority now.
DLS: As many of your followers are aware, you’re also an extremely talented tattoo artist. Is tattooing still a big part of your life?
DH: Tattooing has been a big part of my life for 25 years. I’ve been all over the world, in hundreds of magazines and books, and both BestInk and InkMaster approached me. I’m friends with almost everyone o that first season of InkMaster. Reality TV is not even close to reality, and I would never do one of those shows!
That said, I do enjoy tattooing, I have just narrowed down my time involved to only work on projects I personally feel connected to. Among a whole list of projects I work on, tattooing has become one of several pursuits, not the sole one.
DLS: Have there been any particular tattoos you’ve done which stand out in your mind as being personal favourites? Any which were particularly challenging?
DH: I view tattoos as art projects. I’m working primarily on large pieces now, constantly checking up on new work and techniques that inspire me. Not every piece emerges looking exactly how I envision it, and as time passes, I constantly try to improve my craft, which usually makes my latest works my favourites.
I’m my own biggest critic. That said, I’m proud of a few that came out even better than I imagined, including a space sleeve, an indie horror sleeve, and two universal monster pieces featuring the same cast! One in colour and one in black and grey.
DLS: I seem to recall a while back your tattoo studio ‘The Abyss’ succumbed to a tragic fire. What happened and how much of an impact did that tragic event have on your life as a whole?
DH: It was expensive! The owner took out a giant insurance policy then burned the place down. We hired our own lawyer and private investigators, but as they closed in, the very crooked local city government hired our lawyer, gave him a high paying, cushy job, and just like that, our case vanished.
My sponsors Eternal Ink, Hustle Butter, and Painful Pleasures kicked in over $15,000 in supplies, we raised another $20,000 with a GoFundMe and charity benefit, blew out our savings, and just barely managed to re-start. Now, over 3 years later, the shop is going strong.
DLS: Having produced such a vast catalogue of artwork, illustrations, and indeed tattoos over the years, have you ever considered putting together a book exhibiting high-quality reproductions of all those incredible pieces? I’m sure such a collection would be hugely popular as a coffee table book.
DH: About ten books feature my tattoos, and about twenty feature my art, but an extensive compilation has never been made. Maybe one day. I try to stay focused on the future, not the past!
DLS: Ok, so a bit of a controversial topic to hear your thoughts on next – the recent emergence of AI being used within the creative sector! Now, I personally came under fire on social media a year or so ago when I unwittingly posted an image produced via AI depicting a giant crab playing ice hockey. At the time I had no idea the whole application of AI for producing images was such a problem (I’d simply not given it any thought), and one which I soon found was fiercely opposed by so many who work within the creative sector.
It was the first (and hopefully last) time I’ve been on the receiving end of what I’ve learned is an internet pile-on (I learnt a lot in a very short, but not particularly pleasant space of time). Anyway, I’d be keen to hear your views on the subject of AI, and whether you think there could or should be a justifiable place for AI being used within any aspect of the creative world?
DH: My response is probably going to be hugely controversial as well, but I think good art is good art regardless of its source. At one point punk and rap weren’t considered music. Guitar wizards in metal received no credit because their chosen style wasn’t respected. Kindle novels weren’t respected as valid and now people like Jeff Strand win awards with them. And I could go on and on.Personally, what I respect most in art and writing is that unique, personal tough that master’s of the craft deliver, and I have yet to see that in AI.
DLS: I’m gonna stick with potentially controversial topics for a minute longer, as I’ve another burning question I’m always keen to hear your thoughts on – and that’s Splatterpunk.
So, I remember the term ‘Splatterpunk’ representing hard-hitting and utterly uncompromising horror which also, and in my opinion quite fundamentally, incorporated a punk / rebellious side. This in my view is not one-and-the-same as extreme horror. I wrote a somewhat verbose foreword to Bantry’s ‘Past Indiscretions’ (2019) anthology on the subject (or at least my thoughts on the subject).
Now, I get that genres can evolve, and that sometimes pigeonholing stuff often isn’t all that productive. However, I can’t help but think that the recent resurgence of the term ‘Splatterpunk’ to cover what appears to instead be ‘extreme horror’ is perhaps misrepresenting some of the ethos of what Splatterpunk was. Am I alone in this? Is it even something that needs any consideration anymore? I have no answers, other than my ‘stuck-in-my-ways’ view that Splatterpunk should include at least some element, or undertone, of rebellious or anarchic ‘punk’. Although I’m keen to hear your thoughts?
DH: I tend to be pretty open and love the mixing of elements. Which has ushered me into a lot of arguments! To me, punk is a mentality. A risk taking, sometimes obnoxious (but not obnoxious just to be solely obnoxious), open minded, inquisitive mentality. If you narrow it down repetitive tropes that revolve around gore for gore’s sake, it’s not Splatterpunk. The theme is right there in the name. You don’t need mohawks and spiky leather jackets, but work like The Terrifier franchise is not Splatterpunk.
DLS: I can see over the years you’ve attended quite a number of different conventions, both for tattooing as well as horror and sci-fi genres. In fact, we met at Wayne Simmons’ SCARdiff Horror Expo back in 2014 (where I picked up what I believe was your last remaining copy of the ‘Christmas Is Cancelled’ chapbook!) Are you still attending conventions, and do you have any plans to return to the UK anytime soon?
DH: Unfortunately, SCARdiff is no more, and Wayne Simmons has disappeared! The tattoo world has changed dramatically, and my horror heavy style is not the big draw it once was. As far as international conventions and guest spots, which I used to do all the time, don’t even break even for me anymore, so I stopped doing them. I would return to the UK or Europe if I saw the draw and was invited, but that seems to have gone the way of the buffalo, so to speak.
DLS: As I’m sure everyone will now recognise; you’re one insanely busy and creative individual who’s worked a huge array of projects over the years. Are there any particular highlights, or any aspects of your output, which you’d like to mention and perhaps tell us a little about?
DH: I’ve delved into way too many projects, all with varying rates of success! I’ve interviewed some of my idols on my podcast, Skull Sessions with Dan Henk, won awards in everything from Tai Kwon Do competitions to Muay Thai, published books, illustrated calendars, and done art for everything from comics to novels, t-shirts, tattoos, and calendars that I’m proud of. People stop me at conventions and tell me I inspired them, and that is a great feeling. But being a little OCD, I tend to see all that as in the past and just want to accomplish more in the future.
DLS: What’s next for you? Are you currently working on (or about to embark upon) any new projects which we might see come to fruition in the not-too-distant future?
DH: I have a new anthology with a whole slew of authors, entitled “The Joke is on Mankind”, and the fourth novel in my Cosmic Horror series will hopefully be out before too long. I have two new apprentices at my shop that I have high hopes for, but I’ll just keep on trucking until I drop dead. Hey, with the way the world is going, that could be any day now!
DLS: Finally, in these interviews I like to ask people’s top five all time novels. Do you fancy offering up yours?
DH: At the Mountains of Madness, Snow Crash, Lucifer’s Hammer, The Graveyard Book, and, I know this will be controversial, but Atlas Shrugged!
DLS: Many thanks for taking the time out to all those questions, Dan.
© DLS Reviews
DLS: Many thanks for taking the time out to all those questions, Dan.
© DLS Reviews
