NYC Boutique white shawl, karmaloop.com; Huit thong.

Ginger Andersen is a nerd … just not the suspender-wearing, protractor-carrying sort. Still, this month’s Inked Girl sees no incongruity between her exterior appearance and her self-proclaimed nerdy personality. Case in point: A straight-A report card was the reason she was allowed to get her first tattoo at 16.

After having what she calls “occupational ADD” (some of her previous jobs have included working in car sales, at a photo lab, and for a strip-o-gram company), she now spends her days working as an artist, nerding out at comic book conventions, and sipping tea. Sounds mellow, but make no mistake: There’s an underlying hint of badass to Andersen. She doesn’t take any shit. Just try asking what pisses her off for a taste of her zestier side. “I hate ignorant or racist comments about my ethnicity,” she says emphatically. “When I say I’m half Danish, one of the dumbest things that gets tossed at me is, ‘Oh, you mean like the pastry?’ Do you ask a French person, ‘Oh, like the fry?’ No. It’s stupid.”

For the record, Andersen is half Danish and half Korean, a dual identity reflected in the tattoo on her back that she calls “an Asian-influenced Scandinavian story.” The “Southern Raised” script and gold catfish on her thigh are homages to her southern ties: “No matter where I travel in my life, my roots are very southern. The dirty South has raised me since I was 3.”

Andersen, who recently moved from Atlanta to Brooklyn, NY, says reactions to her ink differ north of the Mason-Dixon line. “In Brooklyn, the questions are all about where I got my work done, not blatantly ignorant questions like, ‘What about when you’re old?’” Her response to that ubiquitous query may be one of the better ones we’ve heard: “It’s all sex in the dark after a certain age anyway, so who cares?” Good point. In the debate of Ginger versus Mary Ann, we’re Ginger all the way.