Fool's Gold: A review

For my first post of the new year I thought I would try something different and try to write out a review for one of the books I have really enjoyed. I didn't really set out with any master plan but I just finished re-reading Fool's Gold by Amy Reeder Hadley and thought it would be fun to write up a review of it and hopefully get a couple of people to check it. But, before we get to the book itself I should probably give you my faithful readers a little bit of background on how I came to be in possession of this fine book. Last year I went to Comic Fest (for the first time) here in colorful Colorado and while I was there one of the the writer/artists I met was the creator of this tome, Amy Reeder Hadley. It was pretty cool, though I must confess I wasn't all that familiar with her work before meeting her and really the thing that really piqued my interest in her work was that she had her sketch book open for folks to come by and check out and when I got up to her table it was opened to some of the Sailor Moon sketches she had done and in high school I was a huge Sailor Moon fan, no matter which channel it moved to or what time it aired (even when it started airing here at 6 a.m.) I always tuned in and would be totally bummed if I missed an episode. So, back to the story I flipped through her Sailor Moon drawings and remarked on how much I used to love that series and after chatting for awhile I decided I needed to get some of her work, so I picked out a copy of the first book of her Fool's Gold series and she was nice enough to sign it and draw a neat little sketch for me in the inside cover. So, these facts along with her being a native Coloradan like myself made it extremely hard for me not to like this book upon my first reading of it and if you ever get the chance to meet her Amy Reeder Hadley is a total sweetheart. As you could probably tell by reading this so far I was quite biased in my first reading of this story. Well, since that time (nearly a year since then) a lot of things have gone on in my life some good, some bad, some completely awesome and some completely terrible and the other night as I was getting ready for bed and trying to find something to read before dozing off I figured I go with this story, and boy am I glad I did. Now I'm not really the target audience for this book seeing how I'm a 30 year old hetero male, rather than a teenage girl which is definitely the target audience of this manga. However, even through this second reading I still enjoyed the story quite a lot if not more. If you haven't read the story and I encourage you all to check it out. The story starts off with the main character Penny a fledgling fashion designer who is starting her sophomore year of high school and dealing with her best friend Katie dating a complete jerk whom cheats on her and how Penny keeps trying to get Katie to leave this tool. While reading about pyrite for her Geology class she stumbles upon a classification for the jerks she sees Katie and all the other girls in school fall for and it's during this Geology class the teacher asks for a volunteer to head up the Geology club. This gives Penny the idea to use the cover of the Geology club to get the girls of her school to stop chasing the jerks and look for nice guys to date. Now as a nice guy (and I'm not just that I have references)I enjoyed the idea of girls seeing through the slickness of the douchebags they usually go for(or atleast, did in high school)and seeking out the nice guys in school. Another thing I really loved about this story were the outfits Penny wears,she designs and makes all her own clothes and some of the designs Amy comes up with for the character are just so cool. Plus it doesn't hurt that she mostly wears dresses and if there is one thing I love more than anything else it is seeing a girl in a dress and speaking of the clothes the costumes Mrs. Hadley draws for the school Halloween dance, are just awesome. This story has just gotten better since I've read it again and after reading it the first time I went out and got a copy of Madame Xanadu which Mrs. Hadley also did the artwork for and the issue I picked up by sheer coincidence happened to be the last issue with Amy Hadley doing the artwork on before a new team took over the book. Well, I don't know if this is the best review you'll read for this book. But, I just wanted to share with you fine folks out there on the Internets and Interwebs how much I truly enjoyed reading this book and hopefully turning some of you on to Amy Reeder Hadley's talents as a writer and artist. Plus, I think I may have promised a little more in depth talk on this subject in my posts way back when I first commented on here about the fun time I had at Comic Fest all those months ago.

Comic Fest 2009

So, last weekend was Comic Fest here in Denver. I went Friday and Saturday, I would have loved to attend on Sunday as well. But,a previous engagement kept me from going.My friend Carl's welcome back, which had it not been for seeing a bunch of old school friends and eating BBQ and drink moderately priced beer. I totally, would have gone to the last day. Anyways, back to the fest. It was quite fun I got an awesome Guy Gardner sketch from Armando Durruthy and I got a sign and sketch copy of Fool's Gold from Amy Reeder Hadley. Both of them are super nice folks and I hope that get much attention in the world of comic books.Right now, I'm still waiting to get in touch with Karl Christian to get a print of his drawing of Hank Williams from the his Famous Drunks line he did for Modern Drunkard (magazine). Hopefully, I get that print soon. 'cuz I'm a huge Hank Williams (senior) fan. Another thing I did while I was there was to have Mike Baron (Nexus, The Badger) check out and critique some of my stories. He gave me some really helpful advice and a couple helpful hints to get editors to check my stuff out and even told me I'm pretty good at coming up with neat ideas for comic books. So, hopefully I'll improve in the next year I'll be blowing some minds with my awesome comic book writing skillz. LOL

Woo-Hoo! Party like it's...comic fest 2009

So, here in Denver tonight. Comic Fest is starting and going until sunday. I haven't really gotten the chance to go to one of these before. So, I'm really looking forward to it. Of course, I'm also pretty busy getting ready for it. I have some stuff I want to get a little publicity for like Monkey Knife Fight and, I have some story ideas I'm trying to get seen by the right people (and by right people I mean folks who'll pay me.lol). So, it's pretty hectic today for this little One Letter Wonder. I'm sure on monday, I'll share with you what all went down and the fun that was had and all that neat stuff. But, for now just enjoy a little fun with Foamy the squirrel and I'll see you all next week :)

Thursday slump

Not much to write about today. I'm pretty busy getting ready for Comic Fest here in Denver. It starts tomorrow evening and I've got a bunch stuff to do to prepare for it. It should be real fun (as opposed to that lousy fake fun). I'll write more about it either tomorrow or next week. So,talk to you tomorrow and enjoy yet another awesomely bad Aquaman cartoon XD