Introducing Boxing Kitten

Designer Maya Lake in one of her dresses.

In keeping with the African and vintage-inspired theme, I thought I should highlight designer, Maya Lake who is the brain-child behind Boxing Kitten. You may recognize her designs from Beyonce and Alicia Key's upcoming video "Put It In A Love Song" and Rihanna's video for "Rude Boy." Other celebrity fans include Fatima Robinson, Solange Knowles, Fergie and Erykah Badu. I love the uniqueness their pieces but be prepared to pay between $50 - $270. You can view the entire line at www.boxingkitten.com.

Neon Harley Still For Sale + Some New Items

My etsy shop has been neglected for several months but I'd like to draw attention to my crazy version of Harley Quinn. I need to attend the Comic Con International in San Diego this year so that I can be the +1 of Dave Wachter whose comic, the Guns of Shadow Valley has been nominated for an Eisner. The Eisner Awards are the Friday night of SDCC. We will be flying out Friday morning and coming back to PA on Sunday. It's crazy but it's really important that we be there. The hotel prices are crazy and if anyone knows the horrors of trying to get one with the con discount, you know they sell out within minutes. At this point, it's pretty late to try and get a room and even ones a few miles away are well over $200 a night.

So why am I whining about all this? I do have a few items up for sale and I'd really appreciate if customers jumped at the purchases now to relieve my mind a bit about paying the SD trip. I'm even going to bail out of Heroes Con in order to have a day and half at San Diego (unless money suddenly falls into my lap).

Besides the traditional comic book themes, I have a couple of other tote bags that I need to post. Hopefully I'll get those up there in the next couple of days.

I'm willing to part with some other items too, like my Star Sapphire T-shirt Mod.

(UPDATED):
I added the pink & black tote bag and the Star Sapphire T-shirt to the Etsy shop. Please take a look. I'm not taking any special orders at this time so what's listed is what I have available until I can make more updates.

Guns of Shadow Valley gets the EISNER NOMINATION!

Dave Wachter's comic book the Guns of Shadow Valley was just nominated for an Eisner Award! If you follow my feeds you've heard of it and probably seen pics of me wearing the t-shirt. I'm uploading a video right now of the behind the scenes from my photoshoot.

Head over to AmberUnmasked.com or my YouTube channel to see the PG-13 version of the video trailer!

The Eisners are literally the "Oscars" of the comic book industry. It  a VERY big deal to be nominated. Of the hundreds of thousands of webcomics and other digitally distributed comics available, only FIVE are accepted as nominations. Congratulations from the bottom my heart to Dave, Jim and Tom for all their work on Guns!

ASOS Launches Africa Line

ASOS AFRICA Printed Tie Waist Shorts, $68.38

ASOS AFRICA Printed Jumpsuit, $128.21

My favorite U.K. online store for about 9 yrs now recently launched an African inspired line. I've been shopping at ASOS since it was pretty basic but I love how they've evolved over the years and become a force to be reckoned with. This latest line mixes ethnic prints and vivid colors with contemporary shapes. Now I must admit, you could probably get and African relative to buy the fabric pretty cheap and have these styles made for half the price, but if you don't have that "African connection" then ASOS is ideal for you. Click here to see the full collection.

Coming Up in April - Pittsburgh Comic Con

The Pittsburgh Comic Con (not in the Pitt for some reason) is April 23-25 this spring. It is a fun medium-size show. I does fall into that hybrid category though of "entertainment expo" more than "comic con" since there are always a fair share of horror B-movie celebs from the 70s, wrestlers and toy dealers. However, when it does come to comics, a show like this is good because lines are generally not long for the creators (rare exceptions of course like when they have to sell tickets for someone special attending).

This time around the Costume Contest is on Sunday. It will be broken down into 3 age groups (kids, teens, adults). Coming to the show in costume on Sunday gets you into the show for free. The categories with costume contests are always a bit "grey" since there are plenty of crossovers; i.e., Marvel not only has comics but cartoons also, etc.

• Comic books
• Cartoons
• TV/Movie
• Literature
• Original Concept
• Other

Since Joe Sinnott will be there, I will definitely spend some time in my Fantastic 4 suit. Otherwise, don't forget to come visit me at the Guns of Shadow Valley booth with artist/writer Dave Wachter.