Kitty Mayer is back...

... and at last, she's built a pay site! I could probably go dig up blog posts where I said exactly this, but I am so, so glad that a female mask enthusiast has finally done the right thing and said "Hey, maybe I shouldn't give all these goods away for free!" Viva capitalism!

Ahem.

Long-time readers probably recall that Kitty is a bit of a legend, having really been one of the first 'genetic girl' maskers to hit the 'scene' and we were all a bit devastated when she went into semi-retirement. Well, great news because she's back and posting new material. There's one catch: you need to pay for it. But just once, and that gets you access forever. Brilliant.

It would have been easy (ish) for Kitty to go with the whole subscription thing, but I'm positive that this method is going to pay off for her (literally) and she'll see floods of happy customers. I'm definitely going to be one, myself. Who wouldn't want a gorgeous female masker in their lives?

So go! Get yourself over to KittysKornerVIP.com and get signed up, already! If you sign up before September 1st, you save!

Twittering

I like Twitter. I use Twitter a lot. No, I won't tell you who I really am on Twitter. But I will create an account on there so you can stalk me there.

I could go into the various reasons why I want to use Twitter, but that'd be boring, would waste time I could spend Twittering - er, writing - and it's easier to just, um, do that on Twitter.

So if you like, sign on up to Twitter and follow me. Or alternatively, just come back here now and again and check out the big honking box on the top right. Or just look on Twitter. It's free. It's open to all. I won't tell.

Oh and don't moan at me that you need to sign up. Just sign up using the email address you use for all the other places we frequent where we don't want our real email address being used. You know the ones.

Here's me, on Twitter. (By the way: this is definitely not me. It's some squatter.)

Thoughts on the Chameleon's return

I warn random search visitors in advance: I doubt you're looking at this the way I am. Also, SPOILERS for Amazing Spider-Man 602.

As I mentioned before, this week's issue of Amazing Spider-Man features the return of the Chameleon, who in the course of the issue manages to kidnap and impersonate Peter Parker as a ploy to get inside the high security of City Hall, wherein J Jonah Jameson is now serving as Mayor. At least, that's what we assume he's going to do, he hasn't done it yet.

The issue's writer, Fred van Lente, has done a really good job updating the character for the modern world. He's written in a creepy, quite chilling way; ruthless in what he does, clinical, professional... and to me, not entirely convincing.

One fairly major issue I have is this: I've never seen the Chameleon as a serial killer. In this issue he kills one bystander so he can take over their life, and then 'kills' (because, you know, I highly doubt Spider-Man himself is about to die off-panel) Peter Parker too. Without much concern for either death.

Now sure, we could argue that many people in this world wouldn't be missed, especially if after the Chameleon impersonates them, he makes arrangements for them to 'leave town'. And yes, I know it makes the character more threatening if he's willing to kill, and I also know it's just a story and no-one thinks these things through. I'm only giving it thought because frankly I've spent way too much time thinking about this character, as I'm sure you realise.

My take was always that if the Chameleon had to impersonate someone specific, he'd get them out of the way if needed, but only temporarily. He'd also quite often just go ahead and do it, and leave others to figure out why there were two people who looked exactly the same wandering around. This has been seen in previous comic appearances, too.

My other thought was that often, when the Chameleon chose a disguise, it'd be one that wasn't even based on a specific person; it was instead just a generic disguise, non-specific, but convincing. If after all you just need to blend into the crowd, how hard can that be?

Of course for us, as particular consumers of a particular fetish, it's the specific impersonation we crave. That's always more fun to read about. Which is why I found it quite thrilling to see the Chameleon impersonate Peter Parker - even though he's done this before (briefly). As you can see in this preview for next week's issue, he certainly gets away with it, to the extent that he actually manages to seduce Peter's roommate, Michelle - who in fact Peter's already slept with.

Which brings up an interesting point; some commenters on that preview have said that this is rape, because Michelle, while she consents to sex, isn't consenting to sex with Peter. Interesting argument, and I wonder how it'd hold up in the courts. If you think for all intents and purposes that the person you're sleeping with is who they say they are, is it rape? I expect the argument would hinge on consent regardless of who it is.

It is of course a downright sleazy and villainous thing to do - to take advantage like he certainly does - but hey, the Chameleon is a villain. And one thing this storyline seems to be doing is re-affirming his place as a Grade-A one, at that.

If that leads to more storylines, great. I've got to say, it's gotten me thinking about the Chameleon again as a character. How fickle am I, eh?

Chameleon returning to comics

In case you don't follow comics like I tend to do, you might have missed this. This week's issue of Amazing Spider-Man, number 602, will feature the return of the Chameleon - and it looks like he's up to his old tricks:
That image, by the way, is part of a five-page preview you can see over at Newsarama.

What's really interesting (well, to me anyway) is that as you can see, he's back to using masks for his disguises. The Chameleon's appearances in comics are infrequent enough that I'm not 100 percent sure of this, but I'm pretty certain the last time he was seen, he was using 'face changing tech'. Or maybe I'm confused with the Spider-Man cartoons.

Anyway, for those of you, myself included, who are fans of this master of disguise... might be a good idea to get along to your local comic store. (This issue is the first in an arc to feature him, by the way. If we're really lucky, perhaps he'll try on a few of those female masks behind him, hmmm?)

Oh and fans of the Black Cat might be pleased to see this cover image for issue 607, which is coming in about five weeks or so (now that Amazing Spider-Man comes out three times a month):


... especially because if your mind works like mine does, it probably sparked a few Spider-Girl ideas...!

A search related addendum: By far, this is the highest traffic post on this blog. I can only assume it's some magic combination of 'Chameleon' and 'Marvel' going by the search terms, but then again, I find myself on page 10 of the Google results... so I have no idea what you're looking for.

On the off-chance that you, like me, find the Chameleon an intriguing and in fact exciting character; if the phrase 'master of disguise' does special things for you... then you might like my fan fiction series which features him heavily, especially in the first four issues. Read the first issue right here.

New way to get issues: steekR

I've been wondering for a while if there was a way I could share issues with everyone without making you sign up for the Maskingwriter Yahoo! Group.

While I think if you're interested in mask fiction you totally should sign up for Maskingwriter, especially as you get to read a whole load of other stories from other authors, I also realise there may be people out there who don't want to sign up for it - or frankly, just want to get the new issues now now goddammit now and can't be bothered to login to Yahoo! Groups to get it. (I myself would probably be one of those people, if I was you.)

So anyway, I think I may have found a solution. On the right hand bar under 'Latest Writing' there's now a link to a file sharing (and storage) service called steekR. Click here and you'll see a folder with all of the latest issues from the Crossover arc of Spider-Girl. Or should.

If you like this as an option of getting issues, let me know in comments, and I'll throw up a bunch of other stuff in there. Some of it might not even be Spider-Girl related... wink wink.

Good morning (good morning!)

We've slept the whole night through...

Well considering I started this morning by dropping my laptop onto our wooden kitchen floor (Thank you, Laptop Gods for letting me escape with no damage... and thank you to Lenovo for hard drive shock protection!) things got a lot better as soon as I checked my email.

Another message from Steve Zink over at Maskingwriter was first. Steve's a fellow author who I know appreciates the value of commenting on stories (and whose prodigious output I will probably never match). If you've never read any of his stuff then frankly, why the heck are you still here - get over to SuperStories and read all 100 (!!) of his published pieces on there immediately.

Second, I heard from another author who I'm not going to name write now, as they are working on a new piece of mask fiction... we've been batting emails back and forth about it and OH MY GOD I WANT TO READ IT RIGHT NOW DAMMIT. Those of you who know my tastes may have an idea of what kind of thing I'm hoping for... and I'm sure none of us will be disappointed. Believe me, if this thing turns out good I'm going to be shouting from the rooftops.

Speaking of rooftops and shouting (??) my third email was from Andy Rodriguez, who is the owner and principal creator at New Phoenix Filmworks.

(Long aside to set the scene: New Phoenix is an outfit I've had my eye on for quite a while; they make superheroine short films. Now, I've been a subscriber to a number of superheroine sites over the years, most notably Superheroine's Demise, but frankly I've never been happy with any of them... the primary reason I want to look at this stuff is for transformation scenes (Surprise! Not) and generally, they're just not on the agenda; it's usually the euphemistically termed 'peril' that superheroine sites are primarily concerned with. I'm repeating myself here - go read this previous post if you want to know more of my thoughts on this.

Anyway, to finish setting the scene, I've exchanged emails with superheroine site webmasters before where I've basically said "Hey, you know, doing transformation stuff will probably get you a whole new audience!" and been told "I know my business and if I had a dime for that" etc. While I'm sure these people do know their current business, they're missing a trick with new business, and that was what bugged me. End of lengthy aside.)

So basically I purchased a movie from New Phoenix recently (more on that in a moment) because I was hoping for some nice transformations; the trailer certainly seemed to contain a few. In the end while there wasn't as much as I was hoping for, the movie was fun and I was happy I spent the money... so I started thinking I might buy some more, but wanting to see where I'd be best placed to spend my cash I drop the New Phoenix folks a line. And got a reply from Andy, which I thought was cool; he seems to belong to the same school of thought as me, which is that while the customer might not always be right, they deserve to be listened to!

But here's the best part; Andy actually listened to my idea (which, unsurprisingly, was "Hey, how about more transformation stuff??") and entertained it. Here's a man who knows if there's one person asking for something, perhaps there's ten behind him who are also interested, but aren't saying anything. While he certainly hasn't promised anything yet (although he's teasing me, dammit) he at least considered the idea... which is more than I got from other webmasters I could mention. So we'll see.

Back to the movie I bought briefly, before I go; I picked up Retrogirl 4: Nightmare, which was quite a bit of fun. While the production values aren't exactly $100m Hollywood movie, everyone involved took it seriously, Andy's script is fun (with a nice, genuine twist) and the cast are pleasing on the eye... especially the lead, Megan Redstone, who looks fantastic in her Batgirl style Retrogirl costume. Yeah, bet you ain't surprised I went for that movie....

Anyway, keep an eye on New Phoenix, folks. They have plenty of back catalogue material, and you can watch trailers for almost all of their movies on YouTube. In particular check out PowerCat 3 - it's due out in a couple of weeks, according to Andy, and damn, if that evil impostor theme isn't giving me ideas. Lots of ideas....