Amber Love 20-JULY-2012
After hearing the devastating news this morning about the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, a lot of people in the comics community asked what they could do to help. Artist Tom Feister has been encouraging people to donate blood. If you’re not local to the Denver area or simply unable, the blood banks will accept monetary donations. Thus, I announced that for this weekend 50% of my Etsy sales after transaction fees and shipping costs, would be sent to Bonfils Blood Center in Aurora.

I remember driving to Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, NJ to try to donate blood after 9/11. Along with many other people, I was turned away because they couldn’t accommodate donations past a certain point. Today Bonfils filled appointments quickly and had to stop taking donors.

Originally I posted that my sale would be for today. Sales have been dead in the water for weeks despite lowering all my prices on the costumes. I was even doing a weekly sale item marking one thing down even further but nothing budged. Honestly some of my items will cover only the cost of the fabric, zippers, thread and my shipping costs from New York to order those supplies because fabric stores in New Jersey don’t have much in the way of a spandex selection. I have several costumes that are below $100 where flaws were made. I have a very cheap Batman tote for only $15 because of a mistake made in that construction. I don’t see that these items shouldn’t be sold when they are perfectly usable. I’m not designing for Broadway, only fun.

Then I have other things that came out darn near perfect for my skills like the Andromeda costume in it’s figure skating style. It was my first time making that style and I love how it came out. I make characters like Andromeda that are obscure because consumers can simply buy things like Supergirl and Wonder Woman in Party City and Wal-Mart. I’m selling my gently used Harley Quinn suit because I don’t particularly care for the character anymore. I liked her on The Animated Series but I haven’t really liked her in any other way. It’s a difficult suit to make. People often ask me for commissions of it so I don’t know why buying it when it’s only been worn a couple hours won’t sell.

I can’t lower my prices any more. I will however take the opportunity to do a bit of good if possible. Maybe it’s for Karma. Maybe it’s just to feel more connected to the humanity that seems to be dissipating from the Universe. I’m not sure. But I’m taking this step on donating 50% of the sales from today, July 20, 2012 to July 22, 2012.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.