1. What is The Wizard’s Lair and what will visitors to the site see there?

The Wizard's Lair is a superheroine in bondage/peril/distress website. What people can expect is high quality material, of 2D and 3D art, as well as stories, which is devoted to superheroines. They will see A LOT!! Unlike many sites, we did not post some material for a limited time and then remove it to be replaced with other materials. With the exception of when the 2257 regulations came out, which caused me to remove some material from the website, most art there has been there since it was posted, some many many MANY years ago. So, new visitors should probably pack a lunch, make sure they have fresh batteries in their flashlight, because it can be a while till they see everything that there is to see.

2. What led you to create The Lair?

When the internet was young, and slow, there really wasn't much out there. Most things were more academic or sales types of things, but of course there was also a great deal of porn that could be found. One thing that turned me on since I was young (more on that later) was superheroines in bondage and distress. So, looking around there really wasn't much of anything that would show that there were others that felt the same way. Until I discovered Mike's Supergirl.net website. Holy Smokes!! I wasn't alone!! So, in time, I devoted material to his website, but before long, DC came down on him and Supergirl.net was taken down. But, the bug had bitten, so I then created the Wizard's Lair, and was hosted by Abductor.com (when it was still free). After a while like that, the host discovered that there was money in them dar hills of the membership theory of websites, and gave me the opportunity to go on board with him with that. However, I had always strived to keep TWL as free, so I moved over to Super Heroine Central, and since then DanO has been a marvelous host to me and my contributors.

3. Can anyone become a Wizard’s Henchman and contribute art or stories to The Lair? How does that work?

Hmmm.... I like to think that the Henchmen (and Women) of TWL is a pretty select bunch. They are folks that love the genre of superheroines in distress, and pretty much have the same outlook as I do towards our 'little' community here that enjoys the genre. That is to say, that the things you see us do to our 'victims' here are pretty much tongue-in-cheek. While we do horrible things to heroines, we also love them and respect the women that we base our heroines upon.

Also, 95% of the Henchmen (and women) have approached us at TWL about my hosting their material. This shows that they WANT to be involved and associated with TWL. Now, they don't always stay with us, and quite a few have moved on to other sites where they become professional (as in FOR PAY) artists, and we always feel a sense of satisfaction that we may have  helped them in that journey as giving them a place of exposure that led to such greener pastures.

Now, as far as "how does it work" - If they had a small body of work and was limited to just that, then I had them in the Guest Pages (which was one of the sections that got hit the worst with the 2257 regs). But, if they were going to be consistent with their contributions (mainly talking visual artists here), then we would give them a Henchman Gallery.

The format and methodology, which is pretty much the same since I created TWL, has been modified to fit the various webmasters following me, Scarlet Witch and now Zeta Clark.

But, I was usually asking for an initial outlay of 9 to 12 images, with the understanding that images will be sent in on a semi-regular basis. Now, many can look and see that many artists have not been very regular, and some haven't send much in after the initial outlay, but that is all part of the nature of artists. We cannot all be A-Emis or Syncros.

4. How is it possible for The Wizard’s Lair to contain so much content and not charge a membership fee?

First, DanO at SHC is extremely generous with his bandwidth. Subscribers to SHC, in a way, pay for us to do what we do for free. Also, none of the webmasters, artists, or writers get any monies for what we do (with the exceptions of contest prizes), so there is no overhead. Think of us not as Netflix (membership) or CBS (advertising) or such, but PBS. Well, the only thing that we DO have to do is to just have a SHC banner on every page, but there is no problem with agreeing with that!!

5. To what do you attribute the longevity of The Lair?

Now THAT is a hard question. There are two sides to TWL, and I can probably (maybe) answer one half of the question. We have the half of the writers/artists contributors, and the other half which is the visitors/fans of the website. More myself (then Scarlet and now Zeta), we gave and allowed the contributors pretty much free hand with what they did and what they sent in. Mind you, we did require that artists not be overly violent or cruel and that they followed the nature of the website (fun tongue-in-cheek style), as well as having a certain degree of quality assurance (there had been some art that I rejected as being ... crap!) So, the contributors didn't have to worry about me or the other webmasters breathing down their necks for material type and quality and within a deadline. The artists got a good place to display their material which has a rather large following. Some of these artists then moved on to other websites where they became professionals as artists.

The second half ... I think that is a question better asked to those people that come to TWL week after week, month after month, year after year. Why do they? Because we always give them something new each week, consistently?? That may be part of it, but I suspect there is more to that.



6. How much work goes on to run a site like The Wizard’s Lair?

Quite a bit, but probably not as much as there would be if it was a pay site. Also, I think Zeta does much more work now than I ever did as a webmaster, as she is much better than I am at tracking visitors, as well as doing much more writing of the update page than I ever did.

Pretty much is that over the week we would get material from the contributors. While I was doing it, Sunday was usually post day, though now Zeta has post days being Tuesday. So, you want the material for that update received by the day before. Next I would format any of the stories to HTM, and would make thumbnails of any of the art. After that, I would put the material in the appropriate files (each artist had their own within the subcategories of art or stories etc) and then upload them to the SHC FTP to TWL main folder. Then I would go through the most time consuming part, which is doing the HTML, and putting the thumbs onto the pages and making sure that they are linked to the appropriate images in the folders within the FTP. After some housekeeping to make sure the pages are properly linked front and back, I would write out the update page and link the new material. Finally, I would upload the HTM pages. I would do a quick run through of the page to make sure everything goes where it should (though I would usually miss one link every now and then). So, depending upon how much material was sent in, sometimes it took a while, and at other times it can be done in a hour or so.

7. How and when did you first realize that you had “a thing” for superheroines in peril or distress?

Well, that is probably the easiest question. DC comic Adventure #400 starring Supergirl was the comic that drove a kryptonite sledgehammer into my .. ummm... gut. The art wasn't that great, but it was where puberty and bondage and Supergirl and kryptonite and helplessness (within the story that word was used A LOT) hit me all at the same time. Like I said, the art wasn't that good, and the bondage sure wasn't along the lines of Spider-Woman #5 and #6, for example, it still was enough to stir those emotions within, that have never lessened to this day, so many decades after! (Yes, that's aging me, as that comic came out in 1972 when I was 11 years old).

8. What do you think is the allure for both men and women wanting to see superheroines in peril or distress?

Hmmm.... if there is one thing that I have learned over the years, is that we fans of SHIP/SHID have different tastes within. Some, like me like the bondage and weakening of the heroine. Some de-masking. Others de-booting, while others physical domination within battling of various types. It really depends upon what happened to that wo/man that caused him to first find such a dynamic impact upon their life. Some of us are from the written pages of pulps and comics, while younger folks were brought into the ranks from television shows, such as Batman (Yvonne Craig's Batgirl) or Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman. Even today, there are new fans who are coming to the ranks though maerial that they find on-line. Each one of them will have an allure that is usually individual to them, tho shared by many of us, I am sure.

So, answering for me and what my thoughts on this is (which I am sure many of your readers will disagree with) that it is an issue of humans against the gods. We, as humans rarely see us in such total control of our lives as we would like. We have issues with family and work, troubles with cars and pets, and so on. But, what we can control, and do control is our fantasies. And, what better to control within our fantasies, as the weak human being that is so dependent upon the fates that work around us, than to not only fight and battle these superior forces, these gods, but to also defeat them? We can put our troubles of our subconscious into the bodies of those ... heroines (for our example) and thus take out our frustrations/anger on such things, as well as containing (restraining) those issues, and diminishing (weakening) their impact upon our lives.

Or, you can say... because it turns me on!! lol 

9. How and why did you create your OC, Vladi, the Wizard?

Vladi the Wizard is a bit of a combination of two separate things. Vladi is a word that I liked, which was taken from Vlad the Impaler, the most infamous vampire of them all (aka Dracula). Not because of any sort of desire to be a blood sucker undead, but because I was working night shifts, and thus had the life of a vampire. Work at night, sleep during the day. Wizard being from my AD&D days. While I mainly enjoyed playing rogues or rangers, I have always been one that people seen as being (sometimes irritatingly) logical. Also, I loved to learn things, which was what a wizard was all about.

So, how Vladi the Wizard was born, it was when I discovered and joined IRC chat rooms, and needed a name for my identity in such. Over time, the character was fleshed out more and more within the channels and the roleplaying that was often done within them.



10. Rank your top 9 “All-Stars” line-up of superheroines you like to see in bondage and/or peril.

1) Supergirl (natch)
2) Wonder Woman
3) Red-Alert (Here more for history with role-playing heroine in bondage/peril than 'seeing' )
4) Powergirl
5) Spandexer (Japanese Supergirl type complete with kryptonite type weakness... but is masked).
6) Spider-Woman
7) Empowered
8) Batgirl
9) Any heroine that an artist, such as what Syncro did and Yvonne Craig, Scarlet Witch and others do now to put The Wizard in Blue in conflict with!

11. In your opinion, what comic contains the quintessential superheroine in peril scene? How about movie? And TV show?

Well, I would go with Adventure #400 because it is what started me on this path, and had much of everything there (including crappy art and writing! But, when you are 11 you forgive a lot! lol ) Supergirl getting knocked out several times, not only with kryptonite, but also with magic (aaahhhh hhhhaaaaa!!!) Then battered around as a bowling kingpin with kryptonite bowling balls. Spider-Woman #5 and #6 also are great because of the quality bondage (and the amount of it for a comic) that it has.

Movie... hrmmmmm... I would actually have to go with a Japanese movie by GIGA, Giro-54, Spandexer in Suffocation Torture (at least the one that is my favorite of late). We have a cute and athletic heroine (and she actually has abs!!) as Spellbinder who goes against a number of villains. To say how good it is (IMO) is that one is a big ugly lesbian (which usually is enough to me stop watching altogether) villainess, but there are a couple of male villains. There really isn't much bondage but we have a lot of kryptoniting as well as strangulations and other breath-play (I find that a very 'clean' type of dire peril which can be very erotic, especially how it's played by some actresses, especially this one). A couple times she was 'killed' and then brought back to life by electro-stimulation (yessss... zappings!!! lol)

TV shows.... well, I don't really watch much television anymore, but I have been following Supergirl on CBS, and while it looks like it is still up in the air as if it will be renewed or not, it did have it's moments of (limited) bondage and kryptoniting. The writers obviously knew that Supergirl had to face some such perils. Now, if we can have some of the perils be along the lines that Batgirl faced in the Batman tv show, then we would really be having some fun!!

12. You’ve been a member of DeviantArt for nine years. Do you have an all-time favorite deviation from your own gallery or from among your favorites?

Of my own, probably what I most recently did. In my gallery, I would have to say while I love Yvonne Craig and what she has done to advance the infamy of Vladi the Wizard, it would be the art by Syncro that I love the best, primarily because he is no longer with us, and he had such an amazing impact as an artist and contributor to TWL. I know that such an answer seems like a chicken-s**t answer, but with my short term memory it is really hard to say that what is favorite today won't change tomor... SQUIRREL!!!

As far as favorites WITHIN my favorites... usually anything with Supergirl in kryptonite bondage. That will always be on the top of my list!! But, then again, see what I just said above this.

13. If you could make any changes to DeviantArt, what would they be?

Stop that one complaint you're gone crap. DA should not take complaints at face value but actually investigate them, and if the person making the complaint is one that is usually complaining just to complain ... kick THEM out for causing trouble.

14. Is there anything else you would like people to know about Vladi, the Wizard or The Wizard’s Lair website?

Actually, there is more out there about me than I probably should have put out there in that past. It's not hard to find out where I am or what I do. I am really not that secretive about who I am, as much as I should be.

As far as TWL goes, people should know that we are available to help out artists. We still get new folks coming into the ranks, and if someone wants to contribute, we would love to hear from them at [email protected]. I also would like to see more people contribute to our Challenge, which has been very popular in the past, but seems to have not as many artists involved with them as have in the past.

Thanks Rob! That was fun