The Gold Standard: Talking to Amy Hadley About Fool's Gold
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on July 11, 2006 Sign up now!
by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 7/11/2006
Colorado cartoonist Amy Reeder Hadley makes her publishing debut at the end of this month with Fool's Gold. Published by Tokyopop, this original manga title tells the story of Penny, a young woman in high school who's fed up with the poor treatment she and female friends receive at the hands of young male heartbreakers. She starts an underground club at her school that's part support group and part activist avengers who are working to reveal the many games the opposite sex can play. But the line between the genders isn't so clearly drawn, and Penny becomes the subject of startling rumors about her and one of the most serious male offenders.
A runner-up in Tokyopop's annual Rising Stars of Manga talent contest, Hadley's relationship with the American manga publisher blossomed into Fool's Gold. Armed with an abundance of talent and a degree in social science, Hadley's debut work shows a grasp of the highs and lows of high school drama.
PW Comics Week: What does the title Fool's Gold refer to?
Amy Reeder Hadley: In the book, pyrite, or fool's gold, is the label Penny gives to the jerks at her school. It's her visual of sorts, to help girls understand that while jerks may seem great, they're actually worthless.
PWCW: How would you describe Penny?
ARH: Penny is a quirky, quick-witted, headstrong girl who is blessed with a lot of confidence at a young age. Because of this, she's discovered that she's a powerful leader, and isn't afraid to use that power. I wouldn't really call her a good leader, because she runs wild with ideas and refuses to question herself. But she has good intentions.
PWCW: Penny finds some solace in the formation of an underground club to identify the jerkiest of boys, and to help girls avoid them. Tell us about Penny's impetus for starting the club, and how it develops.
ARH: Actually, Penny isn't the one whose heart breaks; it's her best friend, Katie, who can't seem to pull herself away from her jerk of a boyfriend. It causes Penny to look at the world around her and notice that almost every girl she knows is being picked on by some jerk. Penny refuses to believe that it's fate, and while she reads her geology textbook, she comes across a passage about pyrite, and it just clicks in her mind. She uses the visual on Katie, and it seems to work! Katie has broken up with her boyfriend. And when her geology teacher asks for a volunteer to lead the Geology Club, Penny decides that can be the façade for her own underground club, in an effort to cure all girls of their addiction to jerks. She hands out boring flyers to the guys and secret flyers to the girls. Then, slowly, she develops a huge club that identifies these jerks, creates dolls to represent them and puts girls through a ritual where they recite an oath and throw a dart at said doll, swearing they'll never have anything to do with that jerk again.
PWCW: One of the foremost 'Pyrites' is someone named Blake. What's he all about?
ARH: That's mostly a secret at this point. He's the new kid, kind of an odd sort of rich kid who moves in from the city. News circulates about the Midnight Tagger, a criminal who's tagging signs around Penny's mountain town. Penny catches Blake tagging a sign she made for her aunt's costume shop. They get into a strange argument, and Penny's so outraged that she labels him a Pyrite.
PWCW: So Penny's got her club, and she's at odds with a lot of guys, including Blake. What happens next?
ARH: She's not necessarily at odds with these guys, since they happen to have no clue her club exists, and that it's the reason for their sudden change in social standing. Penny ends up going out with a shy, harmless non-jerk, showing that she didn't have to learn her lesson the hard way. And she lives happily ever after!
Oh wait, I guess it takes a few books for her to get to that last sentence! I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that this story is somewhat satirical and addresses themes of love, power, deceit, labels and human nature. And Penny learns about all of those the hard way.
PWCW: You first came to prominence in the world of original manga by being a runner-up in Tokyopop's 2004 Rising Stars of Manga contest, with the story The Østberg Study. What was that experience like, and how did it translate into doing Fool's Gold for Tokyopop?
ARH: I actually entered Rising Stars of Manga eight months after the first volume inspired me to draw manga. I'd spent all that time taking a giant, metaphorical crash course in art, so I was very happy to make it in my first time. After that, Tokyopop set me up with one of their editors to put together a pitch for a three-volume series. I really wanted to do a long version of my entry, The Østberg Study, but it didn't work out, so I started coming up with lots of plots, hoping my editor would like one. A few months later, I got lost in the shuffle, and didn't realize that my old editor had left the company and that I was lucky enough to have a new editor. Only a week and a half after that (eight months after I took runner-up in Rising Stars of Manga), I had compiled a pitch and it passed, and that pitch was for Fool's Gold. It was a tough wait, but I'm glad it happened, because it gave me more time to improve artistically.
PWCW: The subject of clothing and fashion is sometimes overlooked in the illustration of comics and manga. In Fool's Gold your lead character, Penny, is an aspiring fashion designer herself. How does that play into your story and your artwork?
ARH:I think it's a good thing to come up with a reason that a story should be in comics rather than, for instance, in prose. Superheroics obviously mix well with comics, because the fantasy in it is very visual. I like to write dramas, which are realistic, but in the case of Fool's Gold, fashion offers the visual aspect that necessitates doing the story in comics. In the story, fashion plays a part in many ways. Penny's inspirations for clothing come from things that happen to her. Her aunt owns a costume shop that also serves as a venue for Penny's own designs. As she gains power, sales rise and girls dress more like Penny. Penny is also designing the costumes for that year's school play, Pride & Prejudice, the plot of which has some similarities to the overall plot of Fool's Gold.
PWCW: The book does owe something to Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice; what was it about that story that influenced you, and led you to incorporate some points from it?
ARH:I actually made a list of plot scenarios from books and films I really liked while coming up with the plot for Fool's Gold, because I like building off of concepts rather than starting with a clean slate. Pride & Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite stories, and I suppose I don't have a definite reason for that, other than that it satisfies my girly side of loving complex romance stories, as well as my critical side of loathing corny romance stories. But even more, I happen to have a huge crush on all that Mr. Darcy embodies, and I feel that there aren't enough Darcy-esque characters in the world. So I made one!
PWCW: You come armed not only with serious cartooning skills, but you also have a degree in social science teaching. How would you say that affects your manga work?
ARH:I've used my college education for everything I've done, from coming up with stories that I know enough about to tell, to learning about the industry, to being able to think under pressure, to knowing how to follow instructions for things like story pitches. It even gave me that added confidence that I could learn how to draw well—not to mention that my college experiences make great story inspirations.
My degree has two sides to it: the subject matter and teaching. The subject matter is added knowledge that I can use in school scenes, as well as something that can help characters come to realizations. With Penny's club, I literally think about how empires have risen and fallen in history and the causes for it, because it can make the club more believable if it illustrates human nature. I'm also certified to teach psychology, which I use even more when it comes to storylines, humans and human interaction.
The teaching side of my degree has helped me even more. My student teaching has given me a fresh reminder of what high school is like, and what it was like for me. I decided to teach because I am very fascinated by and concerned about teenagers, and that translates into wanting to write comics about teenagers and high school. I know how school policies work, how students can manipulate teachers and how students treat others, as well as other things that come in handy for doing a high school drama. And part of the reason that I've improved quickly artistically is that I analyze what I do and think about how I might teach it to another person.
