Today's Daily Misfortune is inspired by the Dove chocolate saying: "Hug someone today."
Inspiration comes from everywhere
So I've been eating those chocolates I got on sale post-Valentine's Day. They're Dove dark chocolates (YUM!) with the little messages inside each wrapper. I remember the messages used to be really good and creative, but the ones I got in this bag are kind of lame. I think in years past they used to be longer and more inspirational, but these ones are short little corny romantic ideas or suggestions. Perfect fodder for The Daily Misfortune! Today's comic is based on the Dove chocolate saying: "Laugh until your heart overflows."
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This could be you if you don't get out there soon. The good news for you, dear reader, is that THERE IS STILL TIME! GO TO DUANE READE NOW! There's none at Walgreen's, though.
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Today's Daily Misfortune is based on the fortune: "You will be called to fill a position of high honor and responsibility."
Happy Valentine's Day!
Today's Daily Misfortune is based on the fortune: "There will be someone sharing your warmth." Hmm a little risqué there, fortune cookie!
Ghosting
There are tons of inspirations for The Daily Misfortune I find on facebook! This poor friend in one night also had a ton of paperwork and got stuck in traffic, among other things. PS: "Ghosting" is when you're texting with a date and they stop responding and don't give a reason. I think it's a New York thing.
Ski Bunny!
I went skiing for the first time this weekend and it was awesome! It's usually too expensive for me to go, but with a group of 30 friends the discount was incredible - only $25 for lessons, equipment, and lift ticket! I did very well on the bunny hill, but got too confident and wiped out on the next biggest hill :P But I'm ok and didn't die!
Wintry Mix
Crossing the street is like an obstacle course when it's snowy/rainy/slushy hell outside. I came across a 3 to 4 foot river of slush all around the corner I was on and needed to cross the street. Oddly there was some office chair that got thrown out in the middle of it, and I used it as a stepping stone. It was a success! But maybe some were not so lucky.
Testing...
This Daily Misfortune is based on the fortune: "You are talented in many ways."
Is this thing on? I recently moved my mindy indy site to SquareSpace and am loving it so far! It has better security than Wordpress, so I think that will solve the spam problem I had awhile ago, which was why I stopped posting. Luckily, a techie friend helped me backup Wordpress and convert all my files and do stuff I didn't understand, but I think we're on track to getting back to normal with my mindy indy updates. I'm still in the process of building the SquareSpace site, but it's really spiffy looking so far! And has more of a professional portfolio look to it rather than just the blog layout of Wordpress. Anyway, hope most of my mailing list peeps receive this update - I'm sorry for being gone for so long!
We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.
Testing, testing! Hopefully we won't see spam above this paragraph. I just finished going through my old blog posts to back up the files, and looky what I found:
Hidden in the comments section of blogs I did way back in 2011, the first signs of spam! I'm wondering how it got there, because only I can approve comments. I have a feeling these people read one of my blog posts and said something related to it to get me to approve them, because once someone is approved, they can post freely. But I saw this and got rid of it! Now, here's hoping that we don't see spam in the email updates. To all new people on my list from NYCC - don't be scared, I'm working on technical problems. But this caused me to reevaluate the direction my site is going, and I'm thinking about having a portfolio site on Wix.com that links to my blog on tumblr. We'll see!
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I dreamed I lived at my day job. Scary. Luckily, today I'm doing some inking work all day at Carmine Street Comics!
New York Comic Con!
So did I mention I got into New York Comic Con this year after all? Late last month they said a space opened up in Artist's Alley, and I coordinated with another artist, Nadia Burgess, to share a table! Nadia does cool crossover illustrations and AMAZING comic themed cakes! We're very excited to be in NYCC this year and have much to prepare. Find us in the North Pavilion at table V15. This is a slightly better spot than last year when I was in aisle Z.
You can still get a Thursday ticket to NYCC, but all other days are already sold out. Hope to see you there!
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Spent like an hour tearing apart my room looking for Microsoft Office, but I finally found it! C4280 is my HP scanner/printer. I really want one of those oversize scanners they have in art schools, because it's a pain to keep scanning comics in pieces, then piece them together. Someday....
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This, unfortunately, is NOT an exaggeration :/ My Mac's HD crashed, but luckily, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, I was able to back up pretty much all my files before it failed completely. Except the programs... had to redownload/reinstall all of those... pain in the butt. I should've learned the first time to back up my whole computer regularly (not just the art files), when my external HD failed. Having bad luck with technology this year. Thinking about uploading everything to "the cloud" but I'll need to research it more... kind of freaks me out that all my art files would be floating around in space :/ But seems better than another external HD in case of theft, fire, other disaster. Let's hope that none of those are in my future...
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Haven't posted The Daily Misfortune for the past 2 days because of computer troubles. You'll see a whole string of Daily Misfortunes about THAT topic this week :/ Usually exaggerated, but still...
My Friday the 13th/National Fortune Cookie Day event went well last Friday! People seemed amused by it :) Sold a few comics, met some new people, it's all good! Thanks to all who visited!
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....
In Memory...
No Daily Misfortune today. Instead, please take a moment of silence / prayer / meditation in remembrance of all who died tragically on September 11th 2001. Let's also strive for peace in the world, especially in light of the recent attacks in Syria.
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!
