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Jun. 5th, 2023 03:22 amI've been in a mood for awhile now. On the plus side, it's been helpful for reading, as I've been making decent progress on my GR goal for the year. On the minus side, I've been in a mood.
After reading the article about Hodges Soileau and then going through trying to figure out which pieces I would try and snag if I had a gazillion dollars, a warning bell went off in the back of my head. To be fair, there's a very good reason this bell is primed and ready at the moment, but we'll come back to that at a later time. (not this post)
So, heart in hand, I looked him up and sure enough, James/Jimmy Mathewuse died a few years ago. He died October 14, 2021. :/
This broke my heart more than I expected, but honestly, it shouldn't come as a surprise. I definitely connected more to the SVH covers in general and part of that was probably the SVH stuff was more ~aspirational~ because what kid in the 80's didn't hope on some level to find themselves among their own fabulous clique? Also, I had longer to want to be a Liz or a Jessica than the BSC because of the whole middle vs high school aspect.
But also?
The cover for Double Love is fucking ICONIC, and yes I know that word's been overused a lot but dude. There's a reason it's the callback image used for when the book covers changed later on. His artwork on the series was pretty damn consistent, all things considered. You know if you were looking at Jess or Liz, or Jess as Liz, or even if a lookalike cousin popped up. I also tend to forget that he did a lot of work on the Nancy Drew Files books and I loved those covers as well, so really, his work left a serious mark on my childhood.
So I've been sad and nursing a broken heart for a little less than a week at this point.
After reading the article about Hodges Soileau and then going through trying to figure out which pieces I would try and snag if I had a gazillion dollars, a warning bell went off in the back of my head. To be fair, there's a very good reason this bell is primed and ready at the moment, but we'll come back to that at a later time. (not this post)
So, heart in hand, I looked him up and sure enough, James/Jimmy Mathewuse died a few years ago. He died October 14, 2021. :/
This broke my heart more than I expected, but honestly, it shouldn't come as a surprise. I definitely connected more to the SVH covers in general and part of that was probably the SVH stuff was more ~aspirational~ because what kid in the 80's didn't hope on some level to find themselves among their own fabulous clique? Also, I had longer to want to be a Liz or a Jessica than the BSC because of the whole middle vs high school aspect.
But also?
The cover for Double Love is fucking ICONIC, and yes I know that word's been overused a lot but dude. There's a reason it's the callback image used for when the book covers changed later on. His artwork on the series was pretty damn consistent, all things considered. You know if you were looking at Jess or Liz, or Jess as Liz, or even if a lookalike cousin popped up. I also tend to forget that he did a lot of work on the Nancy Drew Files books and I loved those covers as well, so really, his work left a serious mark on my childhood.
So I've been sad and nursing a broken heart for a little less than a week at this point.