The why
I have been a nerd for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t obvious at first, but over time it came to define me in the eyes of others, and it ultimately led to a deeper understanding of myself. If I try to pinpoint the origins of my nerd consciousness, I come up with three faded snapshot memories, all from before the age of five: Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, Speed Racer, and the late 1960’s Batman television series. I can’t say what I thought I was watching, but I still feel a twinge of the excitement I felt back then when I think of it now. These were the first in a long line of strange and inspiring images and stories that have driven me throughout my life.
I was born in the 70’s, and being a nerd back then isn’t like it is today. Back then you had to hunt, gather, gamble, and hide. The sources we had access to, the ones that drove our imaginations, were weird, sometimes ill-fitting, and often pretty bad. Monster movies, reruns of old 1960’s science fiction TV shows, syndicated shows from England and Japan, and after-school/Saturday morning cartoons were what we had, and we voraciously consumed them. Comic books, space adventure stories from the 1950’s, and weird fantasy and sci-fi books from the 1960’s fed our imaginations.
In 1977 George Lucas ushered in the golden age of nerdery we are living in today, and the media started to change. Science fiction, fantasy and horror all started to go mainstream, but that didn’t really have much of an impact on our social lives. We were an out-group, and we used the social artifacts or nerdery and the camaraderie of the excluded to shield us from, or perhaps compensate for, the in-group rites and rituals we were not a part of.
As a kid, I wanted to be a comic book artist, stop-motion filmmaker, film director, game designer, or writer. That never happened. I became a graphic designer who slowly morphed into a front-end web developer. Hope springs eternal in the human breast though, and I have never stopped wanting to contribute to these worlds I love so much. Well, the way I see it, you only fail if you stop trying.
The what
I have a lot of ideas that I am excited to put out there, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly what this will be. I’m interested in revisiting the strange artifacts of nerddom past. There are worlds, plots and—most of all—characters to examine and catalogue in these ruins. Then there are the stories of the people behind these creations, and the history of their own inspirations.
I also want to keep up with the constantly evolving world of nerd culture. Movies, games (video and tabletop), novels (graphic and otherwise), and television shows continue to enter our collective space, and
These days my mind is filled with TTRPGs. They are a multidisciplinary art form that involves illustration, graphic design, writing, game design, improv, and dramatic performance. I‘m currently working on a one-shot adventure zine that uses the Dungeon Crawl Classics system. I love DCC for the way it renders gritty characters and brutal worlds in the classic sword and sorcery tradition. Less Bilbo, more Conan.
Keep an eye out for updates on how that project is going, and more!
