Ep. 53: Chasing Amy - An Interview with Madame Xanadu Artist, AMY REEDER HADLEY

Back in April, we were joined on the show by exciting, young newcomer to mainstream comics, artist Amy Reeder Hadley. She's collaborating with critically acclaimed writer and artist himself, Matt Wagner, on Vertigo's upcoming Madame Xanadu re-launch. This native Coloradoan graciously took some time out one sunny afternoon to chat with us about past, present and future.

Amy got her professional start in comics by winning Tokyopop's "Rising Stars in Manga" competition in 2002. Shortly thereafter, she wrote and drew an OEL manga series for them called Fool's Gold. Gold is the story of an artsy high school student named Penny and her social revolution against jerky boys and conformity.

One of Hadley's champions while at Tokyopop was Brandon Montclare, an editor working on staff. He eventually left the company and took a job up at DC with Group Editor, Bob Schreck. When Schreck moved over to Vertigo and the Madame Xanadu opportunity arose, Brandon reached out to his former T'pop creator. The rest is...well, you know.

Our conversation with Amy covers much of the above and a whole lot more, so do check it out. She's a super person with a very different story to tell.

Oh yeah, and she can SING too!

Madame Xanadu hits stores June 25th.

**For this episode, we played a small portion of Ryan Adams' Amy for obvious reasons.

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Comments

[RICO]

You know I had to do this... I fought for as long as I could but, alas, I lost the battle...

Apologies in advance.

I believe that somewhere in this interview you mentioned Masamune Shirow amongst manga artists who use legions of assistants to get their work done. This was a fax pas. The GREAT and MIGHTY Shirow, is one of the strange few who DO NOT use assistants and in fact does not produce mangas on the "Shonen Jump" style, pulp magazine, schedule. He does all of the work himself and works on the product until he is completely finished, at which time, it is all published as a single large book. This goes against the grain or norm in Japan but, the great ones often do. As an admirer and follower of his works, I felt compelled, even thought it all probably has NO bearing whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. Still, I know that you guys like to be in the know.

For Shirow's own words about how he works (pretty funny stuff) check out the written interview that is included in the extra materials of the recently released "APPLESEED EX MACHINA: Collector's Edition DVD". It's fairly short but, quite interesting.

PIECES & LOVES!!!