Every nerd wants, needs, or has a space to call their own—a special place just for them or like-minded people to nerd out over whatever they love. A place where imagination runs free, uninhibited by rules or reality.
In the beginning, it might have been a flashlight under the bedsheets, reading comics after your mom told you to go to sleep. Or maybe it was a closet decked out with Christmas lights and comic book promo posters (I built one like that for my son). For me, it was the shared bedroom with my kid brother and my desk, where I spent countless hours flipping through comics, sketching late into the night with my headphones on, oblivious to the world outside. Sometimes, I’d be building model airplanes and spacecraft, dreaming of the world beyond my window.
As we got older—maybe in our teens (if we were lucky)—we found fellow nerds to talk comics with. I was fortunate to have a local comic book shop with an owner who loved talking comics, plus just enough space for both the latest Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat machines. It was more than a store—it was a place to hang out. I also worked at a movie theater in the early ’90s, which was like pouring gasoline on my nerdiness. I’d time my "theater checks" perfectly during movies like The Crow, Jurassic Park, Stargate, The Shadow, True Lies, and Pulp Fiction, just to catch my favorite lines.
Then there was my art class crew. I was a mix of jock, art nerd, and car enthusiast, so I floated between different cliques. But surprisingly, all of them had a representative in Ms. Young’s Advanced Art class. That class was incredible. We spent the entire period talking about the birth of Image Comics and artists like Alex Ross, Jim Lee, Brett Booth, J. Scott Campbell, and Todd McFarlane.
Then, adulting happens. If you're lucky and talented, you build a career around your passion. But for many, it doesn’t work out that way—and that’s okay. As adults (and sometimes as parents), we get the chance to recreate those safe spaces, not just for ourselves but for our kids too.
In our house, my wife enjoys comics to an extent (she’s a Wonder Woman fan), but she sees my work area as cluttered. What she doesn’t always see is that my shelves hold layers of who I am—a mix of Sherlock Holmes and Star Wars novels (pre-Disney), non-fiction on art, war, and business, alongside Funko Pops, Star Trek models, Transformers, Hellboy statues, and prized limited edition prints. One day, while we were cleaning, she made a comment about the "mess," and my son immediately defended it:
"Mom, I don’t think it’s messy. It’s Dad—or at least different parts of him, on display."
She begrudgingly agreed and stopped trying to rearrange everything.
At Nerdlocker, as we navigate our next chapter, I want people to know I see all those layers that make up our community. From tabletop figures to limited edition prints, from action figures to art books, it’s not just one item or genre that makes you a nerd—it’s the sum of all your passions.
Our mission at Nerdlocker is to help you find and build that space for your inner nerd—wherever that may be.