Hot Nerd Girl

Tag: seth grahame-smith

  • Babe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Photoshoot & Contest

    Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is one of my very favorite books. I love it so much that I read it twice in a row in two days. The movie….alas, notsomuch 

    I’ve always been a tomboy and I’ve always liked dressing up as the female version of male characters (e.g. Thor and Batgirl) so a while back I decided that I was going to dress up as Babe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter for Halloween. I was way overdue for an HNG photo shoot and after talking it over with a few friends and my fabulous photog buddy Jonny Ups over the biggest frappuccino I’d ever seen (next time I’m buying Jon) we agreed that it would be crazy fun to do a Babe Lincoln shoot. I’m very fortunate to have some hot, nerdy friends so I enlisted the help of my friend Meghan who agreed to be the sexy vampire Henrietta Sturges to my Babe Lincoln.

    Yes, I know that I’ve got a fake axe and not a real one. Before you give me a hard time about it there are 3 reasons for this. 1) I couldn’t find a real one that had a wooden handle and not a plastic/rubber/epoxy one and none of my friends had any. 2) Real axes are heavy. Great and fine for chopping wood. Not so great for running and leaping while swinging them over your head. 3) (and most importantly) I was not about to swing a real axe at a good friend of mine. Sorry. Her safety is 10 million times more important to me than holding a real axe is. I’m a theatre person. Safety is paramount. Would I have liked a real one for the times when I’m just standing there? Yes. I refer you back to reason #1. If any of you photoshop pros want to take a stab at photoshopping a real axe in there, have at it!

    Hope you enjoy the pictures and that you have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 

    What’s that? You want to win a signed copy of one of these pictures? Ok, fine. There’s a contest after the pics.

    My name is Lincoln. Babe Lincoln.

    I’m a Vampire Hunter.

    This is my bff Henrietta Sturges. She’s a vampire.

    Sometimes we get together for tea and training.

    It turns out Henrietta doesn’t like tea.

    But she does like training.

    We practice a lot.

    My frustration amuses Henrietta.

    Until I get mad and chase after her with my axe.

    Sometimes she gets the upper hand.

    But I always fight back.

    It’s all fun and games. Right, Henrietta?

    Training is exhausting.

    Afterwards we head back to my house.

    To, you know, hang out and stuff.

    I like to sit on my porch and admire the scenery.

    What? You don’t like scenery?

    Henrietta often joins me.

    And we share a laugh or two.

    She’s an awesome vampire bff.

    When she’s not fucking with me.

    Until next time, Babe Lincoln out.

    A huge thanks to Jonny Ups for taking such smashing pictures again, to Meghan for being up for anything and making it the funnest HNG photo shoot yet, to Mama Jedi for assisting with everything from shoe changes to stovepipe hat holding to lighting gear stabilizing, and to Darcy for being my constant partner in crime.

    Now for a little fun.

    Leave a comment below and I’ll throw your name into my stovepipe hat for a chance to win one of five autographed 8″x10″ prints from this photo shoot. I’ll pull the names on Halloween night so make sure you leave a comment by then. This is my first ever contest/giveaway type-thing so here’s hoping I’m doing this right.

  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – OH MY!

    Wanna make out?

    It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a nerd in possession of an illness must go on a Jane Austen bender.

    At least it does for this nerd.

    For someone who fancies themselves a writer (or an aspiring one at least) I don’t write nearly enough about books. Which is strange considering the rate in which I devour them.

    I don’t know what it is but whenever I get sick (I’m just about recovered from the second illness in a row) I become obsessed with something and hunt down every form of it that I can. About half the time it’s Jane Austen.

    What can I say? I’m a chick.

    So it was this last time around. I watched every version of Pride and Prejudice I own (1980, 1995, and 2005 twice), Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Becoming Jane, Lost in Austen…I even watched Vanity Fair hoping it would be Austen-esque (it wasn’t, it was awful in spite of all the great actors in it). And I finally got around to reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

    Girls! The Pentagram of Death!

    I don’t know about you but I always have a stack of books as tall as I am that I need to read.  I go through them pretty quickly but I’m constantly adding to it so the pile never really shrinks. And I just can’t bring myself to use the Kindle. I love the smell and the look and the feel of books too much. I have a BookMate and that’s good enough for me. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been in that pile for years now. Probably longer than any other book. I didn’t pick it up for two reasons. The first being that when I got it I was on another Austen bender and had just reread the OG P&P, Darcy’s Story and Mr. Darcy, Vampyre and I was kind of Austened out. The second reason is that it has zombies. And y’all know that my biggest fear is zombies.

    And the Violator.

    And Fire Marshall Bill.

    But mostly zombies.

    But every time I went to the pile my eyes would inevitably land on the Seth Grahame-Smith redux. I knew it would be good; I’d read and fell in love with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which I HIGHLY recommend). So on a (totally inevitable) whim I grabbed it from the pile last week.

    To my very pleasant surprise I not only loved it but it didn’t scare me. No nightmares, no heart palpitations, no slamming it shut. I even studied the pictures with glee! Though I’ll probably never look at cauliflower the same way again… but mostly I laughed. A lot.

    Mmmmmm….cauliflower brains……

    Of all Jane Austen’s characters, I’ve always related the most to Elizabeth Bennet. She’s stubborn, witty, and says things that are borderline inappropriate. I would really like to believe that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I would rise to the occasion as a zombie slayer like the Lizzy in this version (albeit without the slow zombification of my BFF). Imagining her kicking Darcy in the face had me in stitches for a good 5 minutes at least. Seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh make her do one-fingered handstands and fight ninjas was epic. Even the detail of modifying the questions printed at the end was hysterical.

    Take that you woeful wooer!

    And now the truth. I feel like I’m going to end up in literary hell for saying this, but I actually enjoyed it more than the original.

    There. I said it.

    Now please excuse me while I go and administer the seven cuts of shame.

    ***

    “And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

    I do, Mr. Darcy! I do!

    On to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters!