"With rare exception, girls are fatally drawn to jerks."—Upon discovering this sore truth, Penny takes it upon herself to form her own underground club to identify said jerks, and to cure girls of their addiction to them. When the club identifies a guy who falls under the jerk category, they label him a "Pyrite," create a voodoo-ish, pirate-looking doll to represent him, and throw darts at the doll while reciting an oath that they will never go out with him again. Suddenly Penny discovers that she has unintentionally changed the social structure of the school, and that she's at the top of the pyramid! But will it last?

Penny:
Penny is an imaginative 15-year-old girl who lives in a small resort town in the mountains of Colorado with her conservative father and her young, bohemian aunt Nicole. The fact that she doesn't allow others to mess with her makes her popular in spite of her kookiness. She constantly thinks up new fashion designs from the things she experiences around her. Penny's a wonderful public speaker and loves to exaggerate and use unique metaphors. She's cute and freckly and thinks of her appearance more as a form of art than a way of competing with other girls.
 
Blake:
Blake is a rich, perfectionist grammar nerd who moves into town in early October. He's sixteen, borderline OCD, and has a need to constantly fix everything around him. His family bought a famous mansion on the mountainside, and he lives his life in cleanliness and order. Blake has a hard time expressing himself and comes off as much more of a snob than he realizes.
 
Orion:
Orion 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 the environment. He invites others to join him in activities like planting trees and cleaning the roadside, often to no avail.
 
Hannah:
Hannah is 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 her loads of designer clothes are a challenge to Penny's originality. When 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, is #1 in her class, models, and even acts in some commercials.
 
Katie:
Katie's a spacy 16-year-old with a great big toothy 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. Penny does have friends, but Katie's the only person she thinks of as someone she's truly close to. Katie has no desire to gossip, and in many ways she's a very pure person.
 
Nicole:
Penny's aunt Nicole is a free-thinking 26-year-old who is also trying to become a fashion designer. 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 she loves the adoration she gets from Penny and teaches her all that she knows. She also provides her costume shop as a place to sell Penny's fashion and to hold secret meetings for Penny's club.
 
Steve:
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, but he's hard to please, and Penny sometimes wonders if he really even loves her.

Pyrite ('pI-"rIt) n.
Naturally occurring, gold-colored iron disulfide mineral. Often referred to as "fool's gold."
A worthless jerk who girls chase after regardless of how much they get hurt. One detail that aspiring manga creators often don't pay enough attention to is fashion. Think about it...especially 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, the story of a high school girl in Colorado who is an aspiring fashion designer. Penny isn't terribly concerned with brand labels on clothing, but she's a little too concerned with labeling people. I swear, I want Penny to open up a boutique in my neighborhood (Amy and I have frequent e-mail conversations about how we both want to make all of Penny's outfits for ourselves), but her meddling ways are just about guaranteed to get her into trouble. I love how she's so smart and so bold, but she's got some of that high school overconfidence that feels awfully familiar.
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! This is a tremendously fun series to work on, not only because the story of Penny's rise to popularity (and subsequent fall) is really enjoyable, but because Amy herself is so wicked cool. A runner-up in Rising Stars of Manga vol. 4, her art has grown phenomenally in the last year and a half, and I can't wait to see where she goes from here!
~Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, Editor