In this episode Gizzy B chats with Darling Stewie, co-founder of the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club, blogger, and proud self-proclaimed Hufflepuff. They discuss the IGGPPC, the importance of a positive geek community, Geek Girl Brunch, and try to figure out what powers they would get if they could just find a vat of toxic waste to fall into (that’s a good plan, right?). Make sure to check out Darling Stewie at her blog, darlingstewie.com.

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Our guest this week is Aabria Lipscomb — personal trainer by early morning, stand-up comedian in the dark night of Los Angeles. Most importantly, she is also a big effin’ Lady Geek. Listen to our conversation about being a nerd during everyday, muggle living.

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Let’s all just admit it. Most days, we feel like everyone else is doing fun stuff without us. You feel like you’re just sitting in your own cave, watching Netflix while all your friends are high fiving each other on a flying, real life Tardis that one of their other cooler friend made for that one party that you weren’t invited to. Then you tell yourself that it’s okay because you’re kind of a boring person anyways and no one wants to hang out with you. EVER. The cycle of feeling bad for yourself continues forever.

Well, my fellow geeks — it’s time to buck up.

We got to geek out with Tara Bennett, who made a career out of her fangirl skills by writing for magazines and companion books for some of our favorite movies and television shows. Listen to her many experiences on different sets, studios and what’s it like to become a zombie on The Walking Dead and be shot in the face by the Governor.

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Regina is a writer, a podcaster and a gamer and runs a blog over at www.gameongirl.com. She encourages intelligent and fun conversations about video games on her website and podcast — so if you’re a gamer (girl or boy!), you should check her out. Read her guest blog for us below to get an idea of her journey into the academic world as a Lady Geek.

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I am not sure when I was first called a geek. It was probably when I was pretty young. I had my glasses, my books, and my video games, each something that defines me as a geek.

One of the most important aspects of geek culture and of defining myself as a geek is that it allows me a certain amount of freedom that other titles don’t allow. I can enthusiastically love the things I love, without shame or questioning. Even when I was younger and realized how different I was from many around me, constantly choosing the fantasy worlds books offered me over mindless TV watching, I knew who I was and was comfortable with that. I knew I was different and I didn’t care. That’s a pretty powerful thing.

I wanted to put my art on a flyer for the website because I needed motivation and inspiration to draw a new illustration. It has been quite while. I get so busy these days that it’s been hard to sit down and get inspired with just a pencil and drawing paper. This was done within a few hours and colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. My two concept were the Lady Geek ‘sunglasses’ and a shirt that says Frak Off – which was inspired from an episode of Chuck.

You can get this flyer on Free Comic Book Day on May 5th at The Comic Bug.

Follow the Space Pirate Queen on twitter @punkagogo.

I met Rebecca at Geek Girl Con 2011 in Seattle and she is so funny and talented. Rebecca created the popular web comic, Little Vampires, about little 7-inch (or less) vampires who try to be as fierce and frightening as the big vampires. Except, they are just too darn cute. Rebecca illustrates art and creates all kinds of merchandise to sell at different conventions around the country. She talks about her project and her convention experiences below in her spotlight interview. Trust me, this woman is the person to ask when it comes to sitting at a table at convention’s exhibit halls.

DEFECTIVEGEEKS: Tell us about your web comic ‘Little Vampires’ and what inspired the concept? Why did you start this webcomic?

REBECCA HICKS: The Little Vampires webcomic is about a group of miniature monsters that try really hard to be big and fierce but fail spectacularly at it. The focus of the comic is their misadventures, but it’s also about their friendship with Wolfie (a little wolfman), Frank (a little Frankenstein’s monster), and other little monsters, none of whom sparkle. There is no sparkling. Little monsters, big fun, no sparkling. Unless they cover themselves in glitter.

There’s been a lot of buzz in the nerd community about Los Angeles’ newest and most kick-ass comic book convention, Comikaze Expo. The woman behind the legend is Regina Carpinelli, a real life Wonder Woman and she has been working non-stop (seriously… non-stop) to make this convention mind-blowing-ly awesome.

I started talking to Regina by chance when they contacted Defective Geeks because they picked up one of our cards from Fortune Cookie’s artist alley table at Anime Expo. Right away she embraced our team and our blog like we were old pals and we met her in person at San Diego Comic Con this year. She has kept us involved with Comikaze ever since and we love her for it. Can I just gush for a moment and say what a funny and energetic lady geek she is?

Comikaze Expo is going to have an epic first year and we think you better be there with us. You bet Team Defective Geeks will be representing. For now, get to know Regina a little better and read our interview with her.

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How did you come up with the name of the convention? What’s the story behind the octopus logo? Do you wish you could have a real, giant octopus as a mascot during the convention?

CARPINELLI: We chose the name “Comikaze” for a few reasons. We feel that there is only ONE “Comic-Con” and it lives in San Diego. A lot of other shows use the name Comic-Con to ride the coattails of San Diego’s success, but they are in no way affiliated. We have a lot of respect for SDCC, but we wanted to create something unique; we are our own brand. The name Comikaze makes perfect sense, since we planned on doing a full on LA Invasion. We pretty much “Kamikaze’d” the geek world – we just came out of the blue!