This past weekend, the goth and geeky communities lost what can only be described as an icon. We lost Cinamon Hadley, the woman whom Death from The Endless was styled after. Now, to many this may be minor in the grand scheme of things, and granted, I can understand. The Endless were, after all, a smaller independent comic line through DC called Vertigo created by Neil Gaiman and never acquired the same level of popularity and world-wide recognition as other DC characters such as Batman, Superman, et al.
That being said – for this young batty goth The Endless were some of the first images of goth anything I was exposed to and Death, especially, was beyond relate-able. Here was this spunky, optimistic, happy and generally well-meaning twenty-something girl who was pretty, intelligent, well-spoken and yet was, well DEATH. Her job was integral to the human existence and she understood that, but unlike all traditional personifications of Death to that point, she was the oddly reassuring part of the experience. She was who you wanted to see when it was time to cross over, not some skeletal apparition full of fear and dread.
Death was ultimately styled off of a friend Mike Dringenberg, who was the original artist for Gaiman’s book. There are ample stories online from Gaiman and Hadley both on how Death became, ultimately, the personification of Cinamon.
To this day, and at 40 years old no less, I’m still trying to figure how and where I can cosplay her.
Hadley passed away this weekend from complications of colon cancer at the age of 48.
