Pink Raygun Interview #4: Amy Reeder Hadley
Amy Reeder Hadley burned a hole in her favorite dress at the Phoenix Comicon in January, the very dress that shows up on Penny in chapter six of Fool’s Gold. Despite the loss of a very cute dress, Hadley was chipper and eager to talk to all of the fans that came to her table. When I first walked up to her table, a teenage girl asked “Miss Hadley, can I give you a hug?” And she did, because that’s the kind of awesome girl Amy Reeder Hadley is.
Hadley’s Fool’s Gold was the first manga I’ve ever read and I enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s actually from the perspective of a girl, rather than a guy writing what he thinks is a girl’s perspective or a female trying to write a girl’s perspective that will appeal to the largely male comic audience. Here, Hadley talks to Pink Raygun about drawing Fool’s Gold, learning to write, and making clothes.
Pink Raygun: How did you get involved with bringing Fool’s Gold to Tokyopop?
Amy Reeder Hadley: I started out with Rising Stars of Manga, entering my twenty page story into that. The winners were compiled into a book and I was lucky enough to make it into that book.
PRG: Prior to you submission to Rising Stars of Manga, did you have any comic experience?
ARH: Really, no. In fact I was probably one of their most inexperienced people. I wasn’t even really into comics until shortly before then and I happen to be so competitive that I saw that contest and decided to drop everything and learn how to draw. So it’s really the most random life! I actually graduated in social science teaching and had no plans on being an artist.
PRG: In your artwork are use using pencils on paper or do you work digitally?
ARH: I started out digital, which is how I learned to draw. I’ve been slowly working toward doing everything by hand. I started inking by hand first, then started moving up. Now almost everything is by hand.
PRG: One of the things I really like about Fool’s Gold is that the kids in the book look like actual kids you’d see walking around rather an idealized fantasy that would tip over if she existed in real life. How did you go about designing the look of your characters?
ARH: I think there are a lot of awesome, beautiful, real people in the world. I just took little features that I liked from people and put them on faces. With Penny I used a lot of my own features, like thin lips and her eyes are kind of the same as mine. I’m still inexperienced, so I thought that I could be able to look in the mirror and draw something that way. And I gave Penny freckles because I’ve always wanted freckles!
PRG: Fashion plays a critical role in Fool’s Gold. There are so many of Penny’s outfits that I want to make! Did you design the costumes yourself?
ARH: I did. I’m very much into that sort of thing. When I was in college I started learning how to sew and make my own clothes. It was just so freeing. For a while all of my clothes were made by hand. I really wanted to incorporate fashion somehow and thought it would be great if there was a character who was an aspiring fashion designer. I went through most of my own life not even thinking about designing clothes, so I thought, why not give other people who are younger and have more time the idea of doing it themselves.
PRG: The story and the writing on Fool’s Gold is so engaging and so good. I had a professor that said the best writers were readers. Does this apply to you and your writing of Fool’s Gold?
ARH: I’d say no. I’m not an avid reader. I’m just not very patient. But, I went to school and learned everything I could and with writing. I wasn’t that good at it and that upset me. I went to my teachers for help on essays in high school and went to writing lab for almost every essay I did in college until I got to the point where they had nothing to say. By the time I was a senior, I was the TA grading everybody else’s papers. I know that essay writing isn’t the same as fiction, but it has the same idea of keeping the overall goal and not wasting space.
PRG: After Fool’s Gold, what’s coming up for you?
ARH: I am just about to be working on something and I can’t talk about it yet, but it’s very close to being approved and is very exiting. It will have some fantasy elements to it and a lot of history elements to it. I’d get to draw historical clothing, which I’m extremely exited about.
Volume One of Fool’s Gold is currently in stores. For more of Amy Reeder Hadely, visit her website.
