There are very few artists who get to preside over their own estate sales.  In fact, my estate sale has been a rolling affair, taking place all over the country for the last decade.  I only got in on the action recently. 

It's understandable to be behind the times when you're dead, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  The good news is I may be the first and only dead artist to sign my work now so you don't have to wait for it to go up in value.

Of all the millions of dollars' worth of inventory and possessions I lost with Allied Van Lines, the most heartbreaking loss was a doll.

Odessa, a character from my syndicated Kisses comic strip, was the first African American rag doll ever created for the American market. Despite the manufacturer's serious reservations, my efforts were vindicated as it had been a hit.  The Chicago Tribune used the dolls as a subscription premium. I even think I caught a glimpse of an Odessa recently when Oprah's African American Doll Collection was featured on Inside Edition.

There were lots of Odessa dolls in the world, but the one that was stolen was much more important than all the rest—this was the prototype of a new Odessa doll which took me three years to develop and design and that was to be a new beginning for the toy manufacturing industry.

You see, I had discovered that my Kisses dolls were being made by child slave labor when I entered the wrong room in a Taiwan factory. I was only 21 when I began my business and totally unaware that 240 million children around the world are slaves.  When I made that wrong turn in the factory, I entered a world I could never have imagined. Cots next to sewing machines, deformed legs, skin that looked like it was spray painted to skinny little frames. Even now I can still smell the stench.