Today, my daughter and I will be heading home from the out of town portion of our week off of work and summer day camp, and I think we’re ready to get back to our own stuff, our own routines, and our own beds. And I will be ready to get back to the nitty gritty of working on the costume.
For today, though, we have another Spider-item for discussion: Spider-Man’s oddly ovular head.
We have several convenient, though unintentional, illustrations of what I am talking about straight from the comics. Here’s one example:
Of course, this little classic technique that has been around since the early Ditko Spidey comics is merely a symbolic representation of Peter’s dual identity, employed for various reasons. But for my purposes, it serves well to show the magical transformation that the shape of Peter’s head undergoes when he dons his Spider-Man mask. The degree of “head smoothing” depends on the artist, but generally his ears disappear, his hair is fully flattened out, and his nose and mouth become less apparent, even in profile.
This was surely just an easy, stylized way to draw him, and the shape of his head in-mask has become a rather integral part of his iconic look. The modern Spidey movies have even put special effort into achieving that magical Spidey egg-head, using an under the mask “shell” similar to the one pictured below (there are a number of folks who make them for cosplay costumes).
But in practice–that is, in the world of the story– the movies, like the comics, represent the mask as being just a mask:
Pictured: no mask shell
But I don’t mind this bit of comic and movie magic. After all, in real life, pulling a tight head mask over one’s head can result in something like this:
Somehow, that just doesn’t look as cool.
Up Next: Home!!
Spider-Man Mashup Cosplay Costume: 