- Matthew Holm
-
Contents
Personal life
Holm was raised in Audubon, Pennsylvania with his three brothers and one sister. His father was a pediatrician, and his mother was a pediatric nurse.[1] Holm attended Pen State University where he was the political cartoonist for Penn State University newspaper. After graduation from college he joined his sister Jennifer Holm in New York, creating artwork to self-publish on the internet.[2] Matthew moved from New York’s Hudson Valley to where he currently resides in Northeast Portland, Oregon with his wife who runs the laboratory at Rex Hill Vineyards and dog in early 2007.[3] One of the reasons Holm chose to move to Portland was because he is able to walk or bike anywhere which reminds him of growing up in the country side in Audubon, PA. Holm and his wife are major foodies who enjoy the fresh products that Portland has to offer along with the local restaurant scene.[4]
Career
Matt Holm is a talented, successful writer, web developer, and artist. He started his career as an editor at the Hearst Corporation’s Country Living Magazine. He wrote about topics including homebuilding, architecture, and historic preservation to food, travel, and current events for eight years.[5]
Holm is also a web creative director and business consultant at Hot Knife Design Incorporation, where he aids in developing user interfaces.[6] At Hot Knife he also acts as a copy writer and an information architect. Matt has accomplished building websites with different software. Holm uses his skills in writing and editing, to organize his clients’ websites to be more user friendly. By being a successful web developer Matt has been the Vice Chair of the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO) which is a chapter of the association of computing machinery’s special interest group on computer human interaction.[7] Matt plans to continue to expand CHIFOO.org website where he plans to allow comments and more social network databases among his members.[8]
Holm is not only a successful writer, and web developer, but he is also a successful artist. Matt teams up with his sister Jennifer Holm (Jenni) in creating comic books for children. Jenni and Matt grew up playing with stuffed mice which gave Jenni the idea of writing a comic book about a female mouse that has a girly, sassy attitude, and a passion for pink.[9] Jenni writes the series of comic books, and Matt illustrates them. Matt loved drawing on the side, ever since he was in the sixth or seventh grade, which lead him to become the artist of his sister’s books.[10] They name this comic book, Babymouse. With the help of editor Shana Corey, and visionary director Cathy Goldsmith Babymouse became an award-winning comic book where more than a million copies are currently in print and selling till this day.[11] Matt and Jenni also have a second comic book series that just came out in Spring 2011, called Squish which they plan to make more colourful, more character designed, and more illustrated by using Adobe Illustrator instead of Photoshop which was used for Babymouse.[12] While the two live apart from each other (Matt lives in Oregon, while Jenni lives in Maryland) they continue to work together through the computer and FedEx, expanding on their series of comic books. Babymouse merchandise (t-shirts and messenger bags) were also made on cafepress.com because of Jenni’s friends. Before their more well-known comic book Babymouse, they also have a non-Babymouse novel called Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf which Jenni asked Matt to draw three cartoons in. However, this novel actually came out two years after Babymouse for its illustrations were more complicated.[13] There are several other book that Matt had illustrated on his with other writers besides Jenni called, Suburbageddon (1999), I Fooled You: Ten Stories of Tricks, Jokes and Switcheroos (2010), Gray Highway: An American UFO Journey (2010), and Marty Gray ( Ebook) (2010).
Influences
In a family that consisted of four boys Jenni grew up reading comic books for boys. Matt would be the only brother that understood Jenni and this is what highly influenced their strong relationship and lead them to work together. While growing up Matt and Jenni shared a passion for comic books and cartoon strips, but she believed that the comic books she would read off her brothers were too masculine which gave her the inspiration to write a comic book with a female protagonist.[14] After a bad day, Jenni was in her kitchen and an image of a little mouse popped in her head, so she scribbled this image on a piece of a napkin. As soon as she had the time to see Matt she handed him this napkin and said that they have to make a book and they will call it Babymouse.[15] This is what influenced them to write and work together. In their comic books, Jenni and Matt include their childhood experiences through the life of the main character in their book.[16]
Notable Works
Babymouse Series
- Queen of the World (2005)
- Our Hero (2005)
- Beach Babe (2006)
- Rockstar (2006)
- Heartbreaker (2006)
- Camp Babymouse (2007)
- Skater Girl (2007)
- Puppy Love (2007)
- Monster Mash (2008)
- The Musical (2009)
- Dragonslayer (2009)
- Burns Rubber (2010)
- Cupcake Tycoon (2010)
- Mad Scientist (2011)
- A Very Babymouse Christmas (2011)
Squish Series
- Super Amoeba (2011)
- Brave New Pond (2011)
Other Works
- Suburbageddon (1999)
- Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff (2007)
- I Fooled You: Ten Stories of Tricks, Jokes and Switcheroos (2010)
- Gray Highway: An American UFO Journey (2010)
- Marty Gray ( Ebook) (2010)
Babymouse
Babymouse are the Holm’s most well known children’s illustrated comic book. Babymouse is about a sassy, pink loving young mouse who dreams of excitement and adventure. The series is about a female mouse that goes through experiences that children can relate to.[17]
Cultural Impacts
The Holm’s main target audience are elementary aged children because Matt believes that children nowadays are being influenced too much by electronic devices and the media and he believes that his books will provide entertainment and hopefully teach moral lessons.[18]
References
- ^ Holm, Jennifer. "jenniferholm.com". http://www.jenniferholm.com/02_mybooks/11_babymouse.html. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ MacPherson, Karen. "Children's Corner: 'Babymouse' is a superhero kids can identify with". PG Publishing Co., Inc.. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08176/892045-42.stm. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ MacPherson, Karen. "Children's Corner: 'Babymouse' is a superhero kids can identify with". PG Publishing Co., Inc.. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08176/892045-42.stm. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Unknown. "Interview with Matthew and Jennifer Holm | Interviews and more". Book Wholesalers, Inc.. http://bwibooks.com/articles/holm-holm.php. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Smith, Cynthia Leitich. "Cynsations: Interview: Matthew Holm on Babymouse ("with sisterly input from ")". New York Times. http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2005/10/interview-matthew-holm-on-babymouse.html. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Zachary, Raven. "Matthew Holm :: Portland On Fire". http://portlandonfire.com/matthew-holm/. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Unknown. "Interview with Matthew and Jennifer Holm | Interviews and more". Book Wholesalers, Inc.. http://bwibooks.com/articles/holm-holm.php. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ ReadKiddoRead. "Matt & - ReadKiddoRead". http://readkiddoread.ning.com/page/matt-jenni-holm. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Unknown. "Interview with Matthew and Jennifer Holm | Interviews and more". Book Wholesalers, Inc.. http://bwibooks.com/articles/holm-holm.php. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ MacPherson, Karen. "Children's Corner: 'Babymouse' is a superhero kids can identify with". PG Publishing Co., Inc.. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08176/892045-42.stm. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Unknown. "Interview with Matthew and Jennifer Holm | Interviews and more". Book Wholesalers, Inc.. http://bwibooks.com/articles/holm-holm.php. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
Categories:- Living people
- People from Portland, Oregon
- Pennsylvania State University alumni
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