Need help removing background!!

[rdoty]

I'm still not getting it. First, I don't get a complete color fill. I played around with the threshold and it didn't get better so I decided to delete what I could and then work on what's left. After select by color I did a clear and the whole image disappeared (checkerboard). I backed up and tried an invert but it still disappeared. This shouldn't be that difficult so what am I missing?