Book Con Success!

Book Con turned out to be a surprising success!  Being mostly independent cartoonists and writers, we weren't sure what to expect, but in the end we were all glad to have taken a risk on a different, new convention with a higher booth fee.  I wasn't sure if anyone would even want sketches, but I was sketching the entire time and even had to finish up some at home and mail them later!  A lot of people wanted themselves drawn as Harry Potter.  Happy to say there was a good comics crowd there too!

I'm glad we were all able to coordinate to split the 10ft x 10ft booth space!  This was my first time in a big booth area, and with 5 people exhibiting, it didn't make sense to just have the table across the front and squish everyone in, wasting all the space in back.  I devised a plan to have a "U" shape that customers could walk into, with all our tables lining the walls (luckily there was nobody next to us, so I didn't have to stand while drawing!  Joseph eventually moved his table from the back of the U to that space.)  And the arch Alitha and I built from both of our frame sets made for the most awesome walk-way!  Although it took forever to build... since it was 10 feet across we had to find creative ways to stabilize the structure.

Here's Alitha's side that was behind that big awesome banner of hers.  Hmm I like my new banner, but in the future I'd like to get a huge one like hers.... she's got like a zillion of them!  Ok like 5, but still that's a lot!

At first I wondered if we'd have trouble getting people to walk into the U space, but as you can see that wasn't a problem :)

Book Con THIS WEEKEND!

Wow May has flown by!  And Book Con is this weekend!  Saturday May 31st!  As you may know, the infamous Grumpy Cat will be there in person.  Per suggestion from a friend, I'll be drawing Grumpy Cat as a theme for the convention!  I've already started on other cartoon cats VS Grumpy Cat drawings:

Nermal from Garfield.  I felt Garfield is kind of similar to Grumpy Cat, but Grumpy would still win.

Remember this guy?  Tigers are still cats.  Lots of guys I talk to say Calvin & Hobbes was their favorite comic strip.

Of course Grumpy Cat would get along with Catbert, Evil HR Director.

Book Con is in the Javits Center 655 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001

My booth is 3151

Yeah we're kind of in the corner, but better than not being there at all!  The map does go north beyond what I cut off too.  Show hours are 9a-3p.  $30 admission.  There are lots of great panels going on too!  http://www.thebookcon.com/Home/

Hopefully see you there!

I'm in Book Con Sat May 31st!

In my efforts to expand my horizons of exhibiting in different places, I'm going to be in Book Con!  It's Saturday May 31st, from 9am-3pm at the Javits Center.  This is a huge event for the literary world:  "BookCon is an immersive experience that features interactive, forward thinking content including Q+A’s with the hottest talent, autographing sessions, storytelling podcasts, special screenings, literary quiz shows and so much more."  From Amy Poehler to Grumpy Cat, there's going to be a ton of famous people there! 

A few months ago I began receiving emails about this event from ReedPop (who runs New York Comic Con) and dismissed it, thinking "oh that's a literary event... like prose novels, not comics."  But I did recommend the event to some friends in the publishing industry.  The more I talked about it though, I thought.... why not?  So just for the hell of it I sent the peeps at Book Con a link to my site and asked if I'd fit in to exhibit there...

And they loved my work!  Awesome!  But the difference with this convention is they aren't having an artist alley.... they only had super expensive booths for like $650 bottom price.  My first thought was "oh.... that's not gonna happen."  But once again, some little inkling was telling me - why not?  I'd gotten 10 people to help me with the Bridal Expo, surely I can get 5 people to split this booth.  $100 per person is pretty reasonable for an event at the Javits run by ReedPop, which brings in tons of people.  So I sent a zillion emails.  First I contacted people I bought zines from at the Brooklyn Zine Fest, thinking they're closer to prose than other cartoonists.  In the end, my team consists of mostly cartoonists!  Alitha Martinez (who I exhibited with at Wizard World), Todd Matthy (writer of Wicked Game, a comic I lettered), Amy Chu, and Joseph Carlough (met at BK Zine Fest).  Together with the magic of Paypal, we actually got a booth!  Come see us at booth 3151 !!!

For more info go to www.thebookcon.com

I have major events and conventions every weekend until July, with the 2nd half of June being booked solid with travel both for fun and work.  Freaking out.  But it's good to have a lot going on....!!

Custom Comics on a roll

Custom comic for a client I met at The Great Bridal Expo!

I finished this digitally colored custom comic about a month ago.  Here's what Karyn had to say: "I first [met] Mindy at the bridal expo in NY, and she honestly was the only vendor that stood out.  From our first meeting Mindy has been professional and very in tuned to what my fiancee and I were looking for in creativity.  Professional, creative, understanding, artistic, and very sweet!   

Thank you Mindy for our personalized detailed comic! We cant wait to use our comic portrait at our wedding this September!"

Yay!  Super glad that people are loving my work and are very satisfied with the finished product.  The more I do these wedding comics, the more interesting it is to me how couples met each other.  Mutual friends were in the works for this couple (too bad most of my friends all know each other :P

Lots of times when doing comic work (that's not storyboarding) I'll either listen to music, comics podcasts like Sequential Underground or Gutter Talk, Neil Degrasse Tyson's Startalk Radio, or RadioLab.  RadioLab is super awesome and I feel smarter after listening :)  KNOWLEDGE!!

Invitation Illustrations!

A few months ago I did this illustration for my friends who are getting married in July!  Now it's being sent to everyone and it was cool to receive it in the mail.  So far everyone's loving the cards!  My friends are having a very non-traditional wedding, so this was totally their style instead of the usual calligraphy with silver lettering and 5 envelopes nested inside each other wedding invitation. 

Let me know if you'd like me to illustrate anything for your special events!

The Daily Misfortune 368

This literally just happened an hour ago.  Oh, you can't just quickly pick up a sale item from C-town, NOOOOOO NO NO...  that would be TOO EASY.  Gotta WORK for that extra 50 cents off!

I turned 30... and I'm still alive!

Yesterday I turned the big 3-0!  To be honest, for quite awhile I was dreading it, but in actuality it was a super awesome day!  Took the day off from freelancing and did fun stuff around NYC.  At one point I stumbled upon Nintendo World and played video games for like an hour!  I felt like a kid again!  Did you know that Nintendo bought Sega and you can play Sonic games on Nintendo now?  Apparently that happened like 10 years ago... shows how out of the loop I am on that. 

Thoughts on 30:

I really am glad to have more knowledge about life in general, freelancing, and the comics industry.  I have more confidence in my abilities and am taking more risks with things I didn't think I could do.  I've grown to present myself and my work more professionally, am better at communicating, and can stand my ground.  I feel comfortable turning down projects that don't pay anything/much. 

A lot of people say I look younger than I am, which is great, but there can be a downside professionally.  I'm 30, no I did not just graduate from college (even though I look like it), and I won't work for free or an internship anymore.  Over the past 4 years in NYC I've encountered some people that are looking to take advantage of young people's talent and naivete.  Even though I got caught up in those situations, I know better now. 

I guess I'm technically an adult now.  I need to get my head out of the "starving artist" zone and really put more effort into building a real future for myself through my artwork.  No easy task, but... I really miss having expendable income.  I'm glad I'm making enough to squeak by in New York, but I need to do better.  Treated myself and was treated to some nice things on my birthday, and I realized that lots of adults wouldn't think twice about going out to eat or going shopping.  I want to change that in my 30s.  GAME ON!

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.

Kid's Comic Con Tomorrow May 10!

I'll be exhibiting in the Kid's Comic Con tomorrow Saturday May 10!  www.kidscomiccon.com

10A-6P  FREE!  At Bronx Community College

2155 University Ave, (corner of 181st Street & University Avenue)

Bronx, NY 10453

If you live in upper Manhattan, Bronx, know kids, have kids, etc come on down!  Fun for all ages!

Celebrating 365 Daily Misfortunes!  I could make a page-a-day calendar if I wanted, but not sure since "Mindy Indy's Daily Misfortune and Flipbook" rarely sells.

Btw after this incident, I'm never riding NYC buses again.  This is the 2nd bus fiasco in 2 weeks.  The first one was in an unfamiliar part of Brooklyn, and there was construction where the bus stop should have been according to Google.  No signs telling it moved, no nothing.  What Brooklyn really needs is another cross-Brooklyn subway that's better than the G.  Not gonna happen in our lifetimes though.

Enter title here

Rocket Girl Poster!

Free Comic Book Day last Saturday was pretty fun - I was at Carmine St. Comics for an hour but it was jam packed!  They'd already run out of the freebies well before 4pm.  I sold a few mini comics, but it was great to meet new people and see friends.  I got to talk with Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare and got Rocket Girl #2 with this awesome poster of the cover!  Totally 80s!  Reading the comic now - just as cool as #1.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY SATURDAY 5/3!

Free Comic Book Day is the first Saturday in May each year, which this year is tomorrow May 3rd.  Comic stores nation-wide have a selection of comics to give away for free as a special happy promotional thing.  Another cool thing is that there are many book signings where you can meet creators! 

I'll be doing a signing at Carmine Street Comics from 4-5PM!  There's a long list of awesome creators signing each hour of the day there!  I'm super honored and excited to share a time slot with Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, creators of Rocket Girl!  They are super amazing, talented, and friendly!  Here's the facebook invite.  Tell your friends!  I'll be sketching and selling my mini comics as usual, and the store is promoting me as colorist of Deadpool Max, so if you have any of the DP Max comics Kyle Baker worked on, bring them in and I can sign them :)

Carmine Street Comics is on 34 Carmine St. in the village.  Take the ACE, BDFM to the West 4th street stop or the 1 train to Christopher St.

Super excited and hope to see you there!  Even if you don't come to see me, come see Amy Reeder!

The Daily Misfortune 362

If the rats were Splinter sized, you'd only need one though. 

Heard about the Dunkin' Donuts rats?  I hope they're not all like that.  One time I almost went to that location.

Watch out for the craZies

*TMTH = "Too much to handle"

There are many different types and levels of crazy.  For example, (and New Yorkers know all too well) if you see someone shouting and cursing in a strange erratic way on the subway platform, you know to obviously stay away from that person.  However, I think it's the more subtle forms of crazy that are the most dangerous.  The kind where you think the person is friendly and normal at first, and you let them into your life.  Then they do a total 180° on you and you're left hurt and confused.  

This is one of those Daily Misfortunes that's actually true.  And this is a problem that I and other people (not just in NYC because there are crazy people everywhere) unfortunately have to learn to deal with somehow.  One of my 2 situations involves a girl who I befriended and brushed off her social quirks at first, because I'm usually friendly and trusting.  Over a few weeks, I began to notice more and more socially strange things about her.  Well, the sh*t hit the fan when that girl came to a party recently on some kind of drug (meth, maybe?) and was very inappropriately harassing me the entire night, among other disturbing behaviors, and didn't remember it the next day.  The problem is, she's in the same social groups, so I have seen her after that and will encounter her again.  Not sure what to do.  The other situation is not as extreme, but it involves dating a guy that's even termed himself as being "an emotional basket case."

Not to bash anyone with any kind of mental imbalance, disorder, or anything, because if those people are getting help and are on the right medication with the right doses, they can live happy normal lives.  I've known such people and have seen them contribute to society in a positive way.  Usually growing up, people with disorders are being taken care of and can be ok, but when they're on their own as adults, what if they don't or can't get the help they need? 

I find the brain pretty fascinating, and have read some legit books and watched documentaries on some mental disorders like schizophrenia and others.  At the Zine fest, lots of people wrote about struggles with mental health.  I have a growing desire to learn more about these kinds of issues. 

OK, enough of being a Debbie Downer.  I was going to post this video yesterday, because I went to the Zine fest and it has the lyrics "I want to publish zines and rage against machines," but it actually rings more true for today's post.  "Flagpole Sitta" is a very catchy tune, and I loved that song in high school and still love it now, but I have a new understanding of the lyrics.

'Zine Fest Rocked!

Had an awesome time at the Brooklyn Zine Fest this weekend!  (fyi "zines" are like little self-published magazines).  It was a super artsy vibe and everyone was so friendly!  So much creativity out there!  These tiny zines have lots of personal stories in them, some are just pictures of Brooklyn, some are compilations of many writers and artists.  There was one lady making balloon animals, hence the balloon dog :)  I also saw lots of books with graffiti art and poetry.  I keep trying to understand poetry but it's not really my thing.  I kind of went overboard on getting cool stuff, but I rarely do that anymore because I hardly have time to look around conventions when I'm exhibiting at them.  Also, these purchases are tax deductible for me as a cartoonist in this field!  It's easier to keep track and get receipts by paying with a credit card, which luckily most vendors had the Square Reader.  Hopefully I'll get into this fest next year!

IT'S PLOTTING!!!

POSTPONED!

Saturday's signing of Wicked Game has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.  Ah well, these things happen.  But hopefully they won't change it to a date that I can't make, like anytime in June.  But knowing The Daily Misfortune, that will probably happen. 

Meanwhile, I found out about The Brooklyn Zine Fest going on this weekend.  I think I'll check it out!  Now that I know about it, I can hopefully apply in time for next year.  But it's nice to go to shows just for fun too.  Happy weekend!

Wicked Game Signing This Saturday!

So I lettered a comic called "Wicked Game" that one of my comic friends, Todd Matthy, wrote, and now it's actually published!  We're both going to do a signing THIS SATURDAY April 26th at Carmine Street Comics to celebrate the launch of the book!  Here's the facebook invite.  34 Carmine St. from 5-8pm.  You can see a preview of the book here.  YAY this is my 2nd signing! :D  The lettering in this book was tricky, because for some pages there were many panels on one page depicting a lot going on, so I had to really get creative with the word placement.  The story is in the detective/drama genre and is about assassins and manipulation and stuff.  I love how the artist has the whole film noir style too.  Intrigued?  Check it out this Saturday!  Hope to see you there!

Been cooking with lots of veggies!  Really getting into cooking Indian food, because my roomies have curry in our cabinet, and I can control the amount of spiciness (unlike in restaurants, which are too spicy).  Am I on a kick with the color schemes of the Daily Misfortune?  Possibly.

Happy Earth Day!

This is what I drew for last week's weekly "No Tears:  Life With FD" comic.  I wanted to spice up the usual visuals of people standing around talking, and used a zooming in kind of areal view (that's Union Square!).  TOTAL COINCIDENCE it features Earth and it's Earth Day today!  Go outside today and enjoy the Earth!  Or recycle, or something. 

"Earthrise" yep, took that pic myself, of course... yes there's no question...

I'm also a total science nerd and watched some interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson saying something about how Earth Day and many environmental laws were created soon after the moon landing, because of the picture "Earth Rise."  It was the first time humanity had seen the Earth from space in all its natural beauty, without country borders like on a map or globe.  It took man going to the moon to fully appreciate the Earth.

Sonic Test Page

Mindy Indy's test page for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog

I never do "test pages" to submit to comic publishers, because I often find it a waste of time.  Spending so much time and effort on something that's not paid, will probably get lost in piles of submissions, and I'm not passionate about doesn't make sense.  But there is one exception:  SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!  I read the Sonic comics (published by Archie) as a kid and always loved everything Sonic - from the videogames to tv shows to ... I even still have a Sonic pillow in my room right now.  My ringtone and alarm on my phone is the Sonic theme song (in the videogame where he turns "invincible").  I am 29 years old.

So I ran into some peeps at Archie at various comic conventions and decided to do a test page.  Mind you, this was almost a year ago.  I have written the story, which is based on the Sonic comics "Off-Panel" section at the back of the books - kind of like slapstick humor.  I've drawn it and inked all by hand - even hand lettered.  Colored it in Photoshop, trying to replicate their current coloring styles (as they used some different artists, there was still some variation).  I'd work on all this here and there, but this project kept getting pushed back due to paying work taking priority, but it's finally done and I submitted it!  That's one thing to check off my "to-do" list.

I'm not expecting a response.  I've applied to too many jobs and have gotten rejected each time to know that it takes a diamond-in-the-rough to win, and that's when a position is even available.  It may be the case that Archie likes it, but there's no work available.  In any case, for all my efforts, at least it was Sonic and not The Hulk or something I'm not interested in (sorry Hulk fans).

Happy belated Easter!  Speaking of basket-case...

More about Taxes

We'll see how long this organization lasts :P  I guess this is a picture I'd post on Pinterest... if I had Pinterest.  (Yes it's free, but do I want to be on yet another social media site?)  So even though I have a separate business account where all my business expenses are sent to me on my monthly statements, it's still a good idea to categorize those purchases.  And receipts are still good to keep just in case.  One time I saw on my bank statement that I had been charged twice for something when no, looking back on the receipts, I had only bought one.

I'm also looking into Quickbooks.  One step at a time.

This happened for real.  Seriously, gimme a break!