If you were really desperate for a Spiderman (sic) suit in 1975, you could enter the Newton Comics competition by completing the statement “Thor’s identity is:”, clipping the coupon, and posting it off by the 4th of August. Or, you could buy one from The Fun Shop in Bourke Street – it says so on the same page!
But you’d have to really be desperate to want this ugly specimen, and damage your copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #4 in the process. Is that not the most unintentionally gruesome kid’s mask you’ve ever seen? The expression on the face reminds me of the Lost in Space episode in which Doctor Smith discovers a machine which makes zombie duplicate Smiths, and Will Robinson is also transformed into a zombie with a facsimile of Smith’s face. Same expression, I swear! Mortifying!
I could never understand why such costumes available in Australia never looked remotely like the genuine article. There was a red and black Batman costume kids wore in the early 1970’s which looked like a cowboy costume with “Batman” written on the vest. Something tells me they weren’t quite officially sanctioned items.
Update 10/1/2019: It appears this is a Ben Cooper costume. Here's a close-up of the 1963 version. Well, the Halloween connection certainly answers the question I posed above.
But you’d have to really be desperate to want this ugly specimen, and damage your copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #4 in the process. Is that not the most unintentionally gruesome kid’s mask you’ve ever seen? The expression on the face reminds me of the Lost in Space episode in which Doctor Smith discovers a machine which makes zombie duplicate Smiths, and Will Robinson is also transformed into a zombie with a facsimile of Smith’s face. Same expression, I swear! Mortifying!
I could never understand why such costumes available in Australia never looked remotely like the genuine article. There was a red and black Batman costume kids wore in the early 1970’s which looked like a cowboy costume with “Batman” written on the vest. Something tells me they weren’t quite officially sanctioned items.
Update 10/1/2019: It appears this is a Ben Cooper costume. Here's a close-up of the 1963 version. Well, the Halloween connection certainly answers the question I posed above.
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2 comments:
Struth, Spiros, for a moment I thought you'd gotten hold of one and dressed your son up in it!
Hey, my widfe can sew - I wonder if she's make me n adult version? Actually, she'd probably just throw the comic at me....
I never had any superhero costume as a child - I don't think any were available locally in the 60s -but when I was 5 or 6 my brother and I received "Zorro" outfits for Christmas, as the Disney live-action series (starring the great Guy Williams -wish it would come out on DVD!) was very popular at the time. Somewhere I have a photographic evidence, though it's actually a friend wearing the costume - I must have been a very generous child.
Around the same time I also sometimes got around in a home-made ninja outfit."The Samurai" was big on Aussie TV at the time, and I was a fan, and we'd often play at being samurai and ninjas. All makeshit outfits, though (incuding home-made star-knives.....) - we had to make our own violent fantasies in those days!
Cheers
Mark
Spiros - Believe it or not, but buried in our family photo album 'archive' is a black & white Kodak snapshot of me wearing the very same black & red Batman costume you speak of! It was taken at my primary school - I think I wore it for a fancy dress day - but the cowl was too big for me, so the openings for my eyes were level with the bottom of my nose. Ah, childhood....
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