New Banner! And Kid's Con Recap

Kid's Con this year went as to be expected - I actually made the same amount as I did last year - only like $30. They didn't advertise well this year because the coordinator had his hands full doing lots of other conventions. Not much crowd flow because it's really hard to get to. Not only is it in the Bronx, but once you get into the college, it's all the way in the back building. Maybe next year they could try for a new location? In any case, it was still nice to see comic people, meet new people and hopefully inspire kids that may not have seen anything like this before.

I debuted my brand new banner! Staples had a 40 or 50% off merchandising sale and I got this 3ft x 1.5ft outdoor quality full color banner with 4 grommets (holes at the corners) for only $25. I've been wanting a banner for awhile, and totally jumped on the sale. A lot of comic exhibitors have huge banners, so it's not revolutionary or anything, but I'M SUPER EXCITED about my banner! When I look at other banners at comic cons, I'm attracted to cool characters. My old Mindy Indy sign says my name, but doesn't represent my drawing style (except for that Japanese sun-burst line thing). I found out a super cool way to vectorize drawings. My drawings for these mini comics are done on 8.5x11 paper, scanned at 600dpi, but even that wasn't big enough for the banner because scaling photoshop images up pixellates them. But if you import any drawing into adobe Illustrator, select Object>Image Trace, and it converts the art into vector graphics that you can scale to enormous proportions! It's not perfect and kind of puts more "bumps" on the curved lines for some things (like the balloon dog), but it's pretty cool. As for color, I realized if I colored it naturally it would be mostly skin tones, which don't really stand out. Instead I went for big bold colors and it separates the images well to be distinguishable from afar.

My favorite sketch from Kid's Con: Killer Bee from Naruto, based on the character below. I love to have fun with the sketches!

And... what's this? A Misfortune Cookie/Lucky Penny crossover??? A little teaser for ya ;)

Both years I've done Kid's Con there was a sudden torrential downpour out of nowhere near the end of the day. THANK GOD it didn't happen as we all dragged our suitcases to the subway, but it was close.

MoCCA Fest was AWESOME!

Charlie Brown, licking his lips about to feast upon all the MoCCA-festers.

Finally am recovering from MoCCA Fest. It was SO GREAT this year! Met some inspiring indie comic creators, reconnected with old friends, sold some of my comics, got some interest in my freelance services. I heard there were over 4,000 attendees on Saturday alone, which was more than both days last year! I felt very honored to be a part of such an amazing festival. Everywhere you looked there was someone's comic/merch/fun stuff they poured their heart into.

Thank you to everyone who got any of my mini comics, got a sketch, or just stopped by to say "Hi!" Shared a table with my friend Nadia again. We both had new merch! She had new bookmarks and prints, and I was promoting my custom comics (in the frame) and finished my new story in time! Literally spent all of the Friday before finishing it up. Thank God for 24-hour Staples ;)

This is a page from the 5 page mini comic: "The Lucky Penny: Unlucky in Love?" I made sure not to title it "The Lucky Penny 2" because "The Misfortune Cookie 2" doesn't sell as well as the original "Misfortune Cookie" even though it's a self-contained story, people think you have to get the first one and aren't gonna buy the second one alone. "Unlucky in Love?" sold pretty well! I'm very proud of this story - the main character expresses thoughts I'm going through, and I challenged myself with drawings (those hands at the bottom were tricky) and perspective. Super glad I finished it on time and had something "hot off the press" I could tell people excitedly about :)

Also did my usual sketching. It wasn't as crazy non-stop like NYCC, but it was pretty good. This one came out the best, and the kid was absolutely thrilled :)

Ever since the Society of Illustrators took over MoCCA Fest, it's gotten better and better. I think my favorite part this year was such a nice reception with free food and booze for all the creators and volunteers. It was wonderful to be treated to something like that and I got to make friends and network and just talk about comics and animation and all that cool stuff. I wish MoCCA was more than just once a year, because it has an underground, artsy vibe that NYCC or the more "fanboy" shows don't have. I want to get into more indie fests. Didn't get into SPX this year to exhibit, but maybe I'll go just for fun.

MoCCA Arts Fest TOMORROW! And Sunday!

MoCCA Fest is almost here! I'm almost done inking the second Lucky Penny story. Here's a little pencil sketch preview: This was a bit tricky to draw, but still not as tricky as trying to bend perspective to my will for the city building backgrounds :/

See you at MoCCA Fest this weekend! Here's the facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/680867505305370/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

HAPPY NATIONAL FORTUNE COOKIE DAY / FRIDAY THE 13TH!

'Tis a joyous day! According to HolidayInsights.com, "it's pretty clear that the Fortune Cookie did not originate in China. Rather, it was invented in California. There appears to be some uncertainty over who invented it. Some historical references suggest it was Makoto Hagiwara who invented the fortune cookie at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco in 1914. Others believe that David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company, was the first to make fortune cookies in Los Angeles in the 1920s." Fun facts!

Plus, here's a sneak peek at the coolest page I drew for "The Lucky Penny:"

What's gonna happen when he picks up that penny? You won't be able to sleep at night until you find out. So stop by Carmine Street Comics tonight from 7-9pm and you can get your own copy of "The Lucky Penny" PLUS your very own lucky penny to save you from the horrors of Friday the 13th! It's gonna be a fun time! :D

The Lucky Penny is Coming!

Here's the cover for "The Lucky Penny," my newest mini comic! I spent a stupid amount of time searching for the right fonts they use on the penny, because the date font is different than the font at the top.

You can buy "The Lucky Penny" tomorrow for $1.99 and get your own special lucky penny to protect you from the evils of Friday the 13th! Go to Carmine Street Comics from 7pm-9pm and I'll hand out FREE FORTUNE and MISFORTUNE COOKIES for National Fortune Cookie Day. Get a special Misfortune Cookie Card for a friend, and/or a misfortune cookie drawing. You can pick up a copy of "The Misfortune Cookie" and "Mindy Indy's Daily Misfortune and Flipbook" if you haven't already. The perfect way to scare the sh!t out of your superstitious friends this Friday the 13th :D

When I had longer hair, this was much more of a threat. But I still think about it. Had some pretty close calls....

National Fortune Cookie Day this Friday the 13th!

Awesome news! This Friday the 13th is National Fortune Cookie Day! Don't believe me? It's true! In honor of this great day, I'll be giving out FREE FORTUNE COOKIES at Carmine Street Comics! You can get either a regular fortune cookie, or special misfortune cookie! How serendipitous for Friday the 13th! I'll also be selling my Misfortune Cookie books and drawing fortune cookies.

This will also be the debut of my newest story, "The Lucky Penny!" "The Lucky Penny" comic and actual penny you'll get with the copy will save you from terrible misfortunes this Friday the 13th!

Very excited! See you there from 7pm to 9pm at 34 Carmine Street in the Village! Speaking of, I'm here working on comic stuff now because it's Tuesday. I'll be until around 8ish tonight.

Baltimore Comic Con Recap

The Baltimore Comic Convention was a great time this past weekend! This was the first time I shared a table with 2 other people (Ellen Stedfeld and Carlos Abdu). There are pros and cons to sharing a table with a lot of people. Cons are that you have less space, it takes some time to coordinate things like transportation etc, and we learned that we needed to figure out how to work together to talk to people who passed by - don't talk all at once - either take turns or one person should give a summary of everyone's merchandise.

There are some cool pros too: We had a special deal where you could get one custom piece of artwork done by all 3 of us! Here's how it worked: A customer wanted the character Ryu from Street Fighter. Carlos penciled it:

Ellen inked it:

And I colored it!

And it came out beautifully! GO TEAM!!

Other pros of sharing a table are (of course) keeping costs down. It's also advantageous have someone else "man" the table if you want to leave the table. You can also pool your resources together when you have multiple people. For this trip Ellen found us all a place to stay with her friends (thank you Marie & Jeff!). I took charge of the food by grocery shopping for us all the night before and making lunches for everyone. It was so much cheaper buying a loaf of bread and everything for 3 people's lunches to last 2 days than if we'd all bought lunch individually.

Another perk was that we could share each other's display stuff. I have my own piping archway that hung our sign, our drawings, and Ellen's mobile (as shown in the top picture). Below, you can see my new story, "The Lucky Penny," in a special standing case that Carlos shared. I want to get more of those! He also shared those star Post-Its for pricing, which are super cool and effective because you can stick them right on books. I had the new Power Rangers Megaforce book for sale (thanks to Michael Petranek for comps!). You'll also see a bonus sketch of Mindy Indy as a Dodgeball Teen by Emilio Velez in the back.

Overall, we all sold some stuff, had a good time, and learned a lot. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our table! As always it was great to meet new people and reconnect with friends and fans :) VICTORY!