I didn't know about this interesting story appeared in the New York Post
Long story short: Spider-Man name and outfit could have been inspired by an Halloween costume produced by the company Ben Cooper, Inc.
Nobody actually claims it and it could be a bit of a stretch, but there are some clues that make this theory fascinating.
1) The outfit has a webbed motif, and the mask presents a spider-web centered between the two holes for the eyes.
2) The name Spider-Man was printed on the suit
3) The model was discontinued by the company, who replaced it in their catalog with an actual licensed Spider-Man costume, the first licensed Spider-man product (or maybe even Marvel's first licensed product) in early 1963, long before Spider-Man reached popularity.
4) In his book The Silver Age of Comic Book Art Arlen Schumer claims that the creation of the Hulk may have been the popularity of the Frankenstein 1961 toy, which displayed a green-skinned creature on the box (hence the mandate to color Hulk green, instead of its original grey) - This as well is an assumption, not supported by any evidence, but if true, it reinforce the idea that Marvel was not shy of picking up ideas and trends from toy producers
I must stand with Ditko, who rebuts the "accusations" (if we can call them) and says that clippings alone do not equal proof. Besides, Spider-Man suit design, however unusual, is very much in line with other Ditko stuff.
---
On the theme of creatorship and credit, I discovered Michael Chabon has written a short story about two ageing comic book creators, who essentially are a thinly-disguised fictional version of Lee and Kirby.
I haven't read the story... yet.
More on it soon.
---
It was John Romita's idea to kill Gwen Stacy.
---
This Supergirl illustration is beautiful.
Long story short: Spider-Man name and outfit could have been inspired by an Halloween costume produced by the company Ben Cooper, Inc.
Nobody actually claims it and it could be a bit of a stretch, but there are some clues that make this theory fascinating.
1) The outfit has a webbed motif, and the mask presents a spider-web centered between the two holes for the eyes.
2) The name Spider-Man was printed on the suit
3) The model was discontinued by the company, who replaced it in their catalog with an actual licensed Spider-Man costume, the first licensed Spider-man product (or maybe even Marvel's first licensed product) in early 1963, long before Spider-Man reached popularity.
4) In his book The Silver Age of Comic Book Art Arlen Schumer claims that the creation of the Hulk may have been the popularity of the Frankenstein 1961 toy, which displayed a green-skinned creature on the box (hence the mandate to color Hulk green, instead of its original grey) - This as well is an assumption, not supported by any evidence, but if true, it reinforce the idea that Marvel was not shy of picking up ideas and trends from toy producersI must stand with Ditko, who rebuts the "accusations" (if we can call them) and says that clippings alone do not equal proof. Besides, Spider-Man suit design, however unusual, is very much in line with other Ditko stuff.
---
On the theme of creatorship and credit, I discovered Michael Chabon has written a short story about two ageing comic book creators, who essentially are a thinly-disguised fictional version of Lee and Kirby.
I haven't read the story... yet.
More on it soon.
---
It was John Romita's idea to kill Gwen Stacy.
---
This Supergirl illustration is beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment