Painting | Cinema Parrot Disco

OMG I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High as a pre-teen in the Eighties!

I saw this the other day & just had to share it here too. James L Mathewuse, the artist who did over 250 Sweet Valley High covers, takes commissions! I want to be painted like one of the Wakefield twins!!!!

Seriously, though – you can view the artist’s site HERE and a good article about it all HERE. But now I need to reminisce…

Yeah, I read the above three books. I think I stopped at book number thirty-something (I did outgrow them eventually). I wrote to Francine Pascal, the creator of the series, when I was about 12. This was for a school project, okay?? I wasn’t quite nerdy enough to write fan letters in my spare time. 😉 I thought it was really cool when I got sent an audio tape of the first book, though.

I’ve had a lot of fun just now Googling images of the original cover art. It’s shocking how they all came back to me as I looked at the covers! I can remember my favorites based on the artwork. Double Love, Playing With Fire, Power Play, Kidnapped! Those were awesome. How embarrassing… I was briefly very girly.

After Sweet Valley High, I moved onto YA “horror” instead. Christopher Pike’s books were my favorites. Remember Me, Chain Letter, Spellbound… This kind of thing was way more “me” (and my gateway to Stephen King). I really wish I still had those books with their original artwork – I’d love to be able to pass those on. Hell, I’d probably read all the Christopher Pike books again to see if I still thought they were great or if they can only truly be enjoyed by Young Adults.

I’ll shut up now. But I’d love to hear from other Sweet Valley High or Christopher Pike lovers! Jessica was such a bitch, though. I always identified more with Elizabeth. 😉

Yesterday I reviewed Drew: The Man Behind The Poster, which is a documentary about legendary movie poster artist Drew Struzan. Struzan has created some of the most well-known & iconic film posters and I love his work. I decided to do a separate post highlighting some of my favorite Struzan pieces of movie art.

At first I was going to focus just on his art that officially got used (whether originally or for anniversary editions). But in looking at his official website (HERE), I discovered a lot of art I like that I’d never seen before. So I figured I’d include all movie-related work (so, I’m excluding things like his super cool Black Sabbath album cover). I already KNOW I’ll be missing something & I’ll later kick myself for it. He’s done so much that it’s hard to narrow it down and, while there’s a long list on his site, I have no idea if it’s complete plus not all the images are shown.

So, after spending probably an hour looking up Struzan’s art, I’ve decided that these are my favorite. Probably. For now. I’m so indecisive! 😉 I’ll fully admit that I have a very hard time not letting how much I like the movie influence my opinion and, indeed, I like all of these movies. Remember I’m not an art expert in the slightest – I just really like the look of these. Especially number one.

Now here are My Top Ten Drew Struzan Movie Art Pieces:

Honorable Mentions:

Indiana Jones Quadrilogy, Squirm (I don’t know this movie but the poster makes it look awesome despite the 4.4 IMDB rating!), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Back To The Future