NEWSARAMA.COM: TOKYOPOP OEL: AMY HADLEY ON FOOL'S GOLD

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

Oh, don’t be a pyrite (read on to find out what it means) and pick up Amy Reeder Hadley’s Fool’s Gold from TOKYOPOP in June.

Fool’s Gold has it all: love, fashion, deceit, labels, growing up, and the uncertainty of human nature. Just the right ingredients for those of you who love to read Vogue, W, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE and Glamour.

Seriously, how many fashion manga are there out there anyway? After all, according to TOKYOPOP editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, “in shojo-land, clothes play a pretty big role in establishing character and making a series cool and attractive. In comes Amy Reeder Hadley with Fool's Gold. Amy told me that she set out to do a modern version of the classic Pride and Prejudice, but things changed along the way, and we got a dash of Emma thrown in for good measure. Not that I'm complaining, mind you!”

Hadley was a runner-up in the fourth Rising Stars of Manga contest with her story “The Østberg Study.” Aside from her winning RSoM entry and now, Fool’s Gold, her one other comic was “a 15-page story told without words that I entered into another manga contest and lost. So I guess you can deduct from that that I’m definitely not TOKYOPOP’s most experienced creator! In fact, besides very random, very crappy doodles in my college notebooks, I’ve been doing this for less than two years. Since then, I’ve basically dropped my future plans with my teaching degree and dedicated every spare moment I have to improving. I’m still learning a lot, and it’s been a fascinating journey. I have a great life!”

Like other past winners who’ve made it with their own Original English Language (OEL) manga, RSoM proved to be a major turning point in her life. She admitted that the process is long and tedious but it’s all worth giving up her teaching career for. “After I made it into the fourth Rising Stars anthology, I was lucky enough to find that an editor at TOKYOPOP was interested in helping me come up with a story pitch,” Reeder recalled. “It was an eight-month process, and for a time I got sort of lost in the shuffle, but Queenie Chan of The Dreaming cheered me on and inspired me to stick with it! Eventually, the editor I started out with left TOKYOPOP and somehow Lillian, aka “The Best Editor Ever” picked me up and in two weeks, I had compiled a story pitch and it was accepted! So my message to those of you at that pitching stage is, don’t give up! If they act interested in you, it’s because they are. Work hard and maintain a presence. This had been my first “official” editorial pitch, but I know people who had made several before they landed a book deal. It’s all about how badly you want it!”

The story centers on Penny Nilsson, a charismatic 15-year-old high school girl who is an aspiring fashion designer. “Penny lives in a small tourist resort town in the mountains of Colorado, with her conservative father and her young, bohemian aunt, Nicole,” Reedly explained. “She’s a very cute, freckly girl who thinks of her appearance more as a form of art than a form of competition among other girls. She can have an attitude at times, and isn’t afraid of looking or acting different. Her confidence has given her the power to have a strong influence on her peers’ minds, and she’s not afraid to use that power. She’s not shy at all, but she’s an introvert in that she loves being alone in her free time.

“Penny comes to the realization that all girls are fatally drawn to jerks. So she starts an underground club that identifies these jerks and puts girls through a ritualistic oath that they will never have anything to do with said jerks again. Their nickname for these jerks is “pyrites”, pyrite being the technical word for fool’s gold, and thus you have my title.

“Specifically, I’ve dabbled in fashion design and wanted that to be a big part of my story, and my plot inspiration actually came from Pride and Prejudice, although at this point they are quite different stories. And finally, while this story is different from my life in many ways, I’ve always been very interested in (and concerned with) the fact that adolescent girls seem to have this fatal attraction to guys who treat them like they’re a dime a dozen, while the nice guys remain ignored. Or was that just my school?”

Other than Penny, there is also her one and only friend, Katie Burnes. “Katie’s a somewhat goofy 16-year-old with a great big teethy smile who pays no attention to fashion whatsoever. Luckily for her, she has plenty of natural beauty. Her jerk of a boyfriend is what inspires Penny to form her anti-pyrite club. Katie would never gossip and loves to make others happy, but she assumes everyone is as good-natured as she is, and she’s very gullible. Katie is my only character who’s actually based off of a real person, although incidentally, the real person’s life experiences are completely different as her guy troubles have consisted more of “which one to pick” rather than “he’s a jerk!”

Other characters include: “Hannah Nguyen, a 16-year-old drama queen who lives with her rich, hotel manager parents who are always gone on vacation. She demands attention and admiration at school, which she often gets, and has loads of designer clothes in an effort to challenge Penny’s originality. As Penny forms her club and gains notoriety, Hannah searches for ways to curb that attention. She’s an overachiever in the worst way because while her parents are often out of her life, they will always come to a performance, speech, or award ceremony that she’s involved in. They measure her worth in tangible accomplishments. She’s the president of several clubs, #1 in her class, models, and even acts in some commercials.

“Orion Carter is a 15-year-old classic Colorado tree hugger, descended from hippie parents. He’s quiet and mysterious, with long hair covering his face, and has the unique hobby of identifying any species of bird he sees or hears. It takes a while for Orion to feel comfortable enough around a person to say more than two-word sentences. But one thing he is openly excited about is saving the environment. And he may just be the non-jerk Penny’s looking for in her life!

“Blake Delauney is a rich, perfectionist grammar nazi who moves into town in early October. Branded a Pyrite the third day into his stay (for reasons I won’t disclose!), he becomes Penny’s arch-nemesis. He constantly has a sour look on his face, and uses big words to say the simplest things. He’s very well versed in classical music, has a beautiful voice, and aspires to become a famous composer.

Rounding up the cast are her aunt, Nicole, and her father, Steve. “Penny’s aunt, Nicole, is a free-thinking 26-year-old who is also trying to become a fashion designer. But her lack of success has left her penniless, so she moves in with Penny and her dad and starts a costume shop with the monetary help of Steve. She’s somewhat wild, immature and selfish, but loves the adoration she gets from Penny, and teaches her all that she knows. She provides her costume shop as a place to sell Penny’s fashions, as well as hold secret meetings for Penny’s club. Nicole looks young for her age, mostly because of the way she dresses. She’s very sarcastic and likes to be cool.

“Penny’s father, Steve, is an ER doctor who wishes that Penny would go for something more practical than fashion design as a career. He feels a huge obligation to raise Penny “right”, as her late mother would have wanted. He’s hard to please, and Penny sometimes wonders if he really even loves her. Steve’s greatest fear is that Penny’s aspirations to become a fashion designer have nothing to do with her own wants but rather her desire to become just like her dead-end aunt.

“At least, this is who these characters start out being.”

Check out a preview of Fool’s Gold at TOKYOPOP’s Manga Online site by clicking here.

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