Second GlancesLooking back on Fool’s Gold volume 1
To celebrate the release of volume 2 of Fool’s Gold (coming out December 11 2007), I thought I’d put together a bit of book 1 trivia. You may just want to give it another read before you dive in to the latest volume!
Second Glances
- Appearance of Orion in each chapter
Although we don’t meet Orion until the sixth chapter of the book, he has a cameo in every chapter. But be warned—some of them are very hard to catch!
- Page 18: Geology omen
Penny’s geology teacher, Mrs. Preston, makes the claim that geology will change her students’ lives forever. She might not be crazy after all!
- Page 41: Textbook text!
I had to come up with something that could be passable for a geology textbook as Penny’s reading the truth about pyrite, but this is what it actually says.
- Page 76: Foreshadowing backstab
I was drawing the scene where Penny goes through her whole Pyrite theory, and in a random fit of symbolic foreshadowing zest, I set up a panel where the angle makes it look like the Pyrite doll is stabbing Penny in the back. Hoo hoo hoo what could that mean?!
- Page 82: Mr. Bingley typo
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has some similarities to the story of Fool’s Gold, the parallels of which will become more apparent as the story progresses. But I realized I failed at being a P&P fan when an even bigger fan pointed out to me that I misspelled “Mr. Bingley” on a sheet of paper that Ms. Call is handing Penny!! I wrote it as “Mr. Bingham,” and will forever be banned from Jane Austen’s fan club.
- Page 86: Worksheet with Norwegian
I had to put together a worksheet that Penny ditched out on doing, so I filled it with incorrectly written sentences, and wrote one sentence in Norwegian with bad grammar.
- Page 112: Pyrite sock on Nicole
I like to draw Penny’s aunt Nicole wearing black-and-white stripes here and there (much like the Pyrite dolls), because she really is kind of a jerk.
- Page 116: Doll saying “Weeeeee!”
There is seriously a Pyrite doll flying through the air and saying, “Weeeeee!” on page 116. I thought it was very funny at the time.
- Page 121: Solar system outfit
I really like this panel of Penny wearing a solar system outfit with a doll in the foreground because it sort of makes it look like she’s playing god. I often have reasons for what Penny’s wearing.
- Halloween
In the Halloween scene in chapter 5, I went a bit crazy on costume symbolism. Penny’s Li’l Bo Peep because she’s got a bunch of sheep following her, but we all know what happens to Li’l Bo Peep—she loses those sheep! Penny carries a staff that’s shaped like a question mark, and whenever she’s frustrated and doesn’t have all the answers, the staff’s on the question mark side, and whenever she’s confident, it’s a backward question mark.
I also wrote this in the bonus material of book 1, but I made Hannah in the Queen of Spades, that chancey card you don’t want to end up with in the game of Hearts. I have three different spades incorporated into her costume, some more obvious than others. And when I’d done that, I’d realized Penny had hearts on her costume, so later in the chapter, Blake wears diamonds (argyle) because he’s rich, and Penny wears a club pin because…she always seems like she’s going to club someone. I dunno.
- Page 169: Puffy paint puns
Penny and Orion are making puffy-paint shirts for their tree-hugging club, and I had great fun coming up with their designs. Orion’s is a realistic tree (because he’s an artist), saying “Hug me!” and Penny’s is a pun that (sadly) I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten on their own. Click here if you want to know; I don’t want to spoil it on this page in case someone really does guess it on their own!
Personal Touches
- Fidgety Penny
Truth be told, I am a lot like Penny. I think we have a lot of differences, but people who know me get really weirded out reading Fool’s Gold because it’s like going into some strange parallel Amy-verse. She even looks like me—it was much easier to draw her because I could just look in the mirror for reference! And also like me, she fidgets. Like Penny, I often tear things apart, and who DOESN’T do that cool fan-thing with their textbooks in high school?
- Page 106: ME!!
As if there weren’t enough of me already in Fool’s Gold, I decided to make one of the background characters look like me, with my hair (or at least the hair I had back then). I use her whenever I need someone to say something really shallow. I have her wearing a T-shirt with a shrunken photo of me singing with my college rock band, “Half the Battle.”
- 145 “Intentional embarrassment” essay
Blake’s grading a fellow student’s essay by filling it with corrections. I used one of my husband’s college essays for this and let my inner Blake let loose on the page. I don’t even really know what this would be for in a college essay, but apparently he had to write about “intentional embarrassment,” which I thought was appropriate for what was going on in the story.
- Katie = Marcelle
I designed Penny's friend Katie after my college friend and roommate, Marcelle. Much like Katie, Marcelle would always sneak up behind me and cover my eyes, getting me to guess who she was, but no one besides her would ever do that! So she always lost. We also spent half an hour making weird shapes with our lips in the mirror, so I decided to draw that, as well. She just gave birth to a baby boy; congrats, Marcelle!
-Page 20: Lisa
I don’t know what it is, but when I draw people, they often turn out looking like my youngest sister, Lisa. I can’t help it! -->
- My students
I graduated college with a bachelor’s in social science teaching, and I still keep in touch with a couple of students from when I student taught. I knew I’d be drawing a Halloween party scene and would need plenty of inspiration for all the people I’d need to draw, so they let me use them as inspiration! They even chose their Halloween costumes. My student Lisa wanted to be a bat, and Enos wanted to be a football player with the number “12,” for some reason. What’s interesting is that Enos’ character turned out to be this shady Pyrite who’s become more important in the story than I’d anticipated! But I leave him nameless in the story because he’s nothing like the awesome student I know.
- Page 150: Penny cosplays me!
I sew my own clothes, and my favorite creation of all time is this dress that’s a mixture between ‘50’s diner and Chinese dresses with the side buttons (and I knitted leg warmers to go with it). So I made Penny wear it. I’d mentioned it in the bonus material of Fool’s Gold 1 and how I’d hoped to lose enough weight to fit it again once the book came out in print. I accomplished that, and rocked that dress, but alas, at a comic convention, I had an ironing accident and melted it right on the chest. So may it rest in peace.
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Now that I've given you the inside scoop on volume 1, we'll see what you can catch in book 2! Click here to read a preview and find out what Hannah's up to.
