Greetings humans, Monki here with a better-late-than-never story for you sci-fi geeks out there.
I'll tell you right now, this is an article about a calendar. Yes. It's February, I know. Hear me out though, this is the annual Nerdcore calendar. Remember last year? I spoke with Jon Gibson about it and gave you some sexy pictures to look at too?
It's been over a year...time to put out another one. The reason why I'm bringing it up now is that for those of you in the New York area, one of the models from this year's shoot (based on Sci-Fi memes) will be at the New York Comic-Con signing calendars for you!
Before you bitch about a way-late article, look at the pretty girls I bring you. I do it all for you! Now then...enjoy this quick interview I did with Jon M. Gibson and Chris Carle, the two lucky sons-a-bitches behind the Nerdcore calendar. Oh, and if you click on the images the glasses go away. Be warned! Pick up your own personal copy at TotallyNerdcore.com and defile-away!
Monki: The first year of Nerdcore was Videogame-themed, then Superheroes. Why go to Sci-Fi this year?
Chris Carle: Sci-fi screams nerd, first off. Sure, you have your 20-sided die nerds and your "Batman could never beat Superman in a fight" nerds, but sci-fi is a very special slice of nerdvana. The dudes who are into science fiction are committed and particular and smart and very cool for all of those reasons, so we wanted to give them - and us, we count ourselves in the ranks of sci-fi nerds - the ultimate calendar. It's something we are really into, it's something we knew our fans would be into, and in the third year, it was something we could finally do. There is actual CG in this calendar, which is something we could not have made happen with the two previous calendars. It was time. And HAL told us to do it.
Jon M. Gibson: Spielberg started small, with a mechanical shark. Then he worked up to spaceships. As we've grown over the years, we've met all these amazing people that have joined our crew. Cherie Roberts, our kick-ass photographer, and Jason Adam, our awesome art director, have been with Nerdcore since the beginning. But the family got bigger with Erik Van Pelt and Adam Jenkins, our two CG guys, who were able to realize the fantasy in our heads, producing what is one of the hottest shots in the calendar - a giant robot holding a nude Justine Joli, walking across the surface of the moon. Shooting on location wasn't gonna happen, so...
Monki: Do you seek out models who are interested in the subject matter, or just the ones who look best naked?
Carle: Both. I mean, first and foremost, we have to hire ladies who are going to properly bring the hotness. But we love working with girls who are also very, very nerdy. Justine Joli is a great example. She is way into things like William Gibson and Ghost in the Shell, so when she's on set, it's easy for us to make a reference to something we're looking for, and she automatically gets it. Karlie Montana is way into Soul Calibur and Kingdom Hearts, and when we shot her for the first calendar, she would get caught up in the game while we were shooting. Almost all of the girls we use are into the stuff we like, and we find that absolutely everyone has a little bit of nerd in them.
Gibson: When we were shooting the Mars shot with Justine, we had to keep taking breaks to fix her costume. When we did, she'd crack open her Nintendo DS to finish a battle on Puzzle Quest. She was really working at this goblin. It really pissed her off. Lots of "Fuck!" "Shit!" "Dammit!" If that's not nerdy, I don't know what is. Only true nerds can get that frustrated by a puzzle/role-playing game.
Monki: Have you had models approach you asking to be involved with the calendar, or do you seek them all out? Do you get random people sending your photos who want to be involved with the calendar?
Carle: We HAVE had models approach us from the professional sector - accomplished models who know what we do and want to work with us. There is also a fair bit of models in the industry recommending each other for the gig. That's helpful and cool, not to mention flattering. But we also get a fair number of submissions, through modeling sites but also directly to our email. We haven't booked anybody this way quite yet, but a couple of things almost worked out for this year, so I'm sure we'll get somebody involved eventually. Keep sending photos! We love people getting into the Nerdcore vibe!
Gibson: Nakedness is our inbox is always a nice surprise.
Monki: How many original ideas do you whittle down to get your final twelve?
Gibson: Ha! My brain's already smoking thinking about it!
Carle: It seemed like about a hundred this time. But there are those ideas that pop, the ones that everyone gets excited about, and those are usually the ones that make it. We have to filter some of the stuff logistically, but this year we pushed the boundaries of what we thought we could do. We are still a small operation, so to get some of the images we did was awesome. Anyway, we have a big brainstorming session that involves all of the best and worst ideas in history, and then talk about what sounds like the most classic and the most fun and we just go from there. It's scientific. We use calipers and graduated cylinders sometimes.
Gibson: There was a shot last year, for the superhero calendar, that Jason, our art director, really wanted to do. He wanted to do a shot of a girl actually flying - like chilling in mid-air above skyscrapers like she's lying on one of those inflatable mattresses in a pool. That never happened, but was just one of the insane ideas.
Monki: Can you give any hints as to what we might see next year?
Carle: We're going to tackle another genre... sci-fi was fun, and we want to take on another area of nerd obsession. We've started to shoot it already, but are sworn to secrecy. If you storm the Nerdcore headquarters to find out, you will be met by a wall of killer robots. FYI.
Gibson: Dude, I forgot to charge the killer robots. I'm sorry.
