Mark Puette

[wally wingert]

Hi guys...Scott asked me to jump in with any recollections I may have about the early cowl days.

When I started out making a cowl I did so for my own purposes. Back in 1980, after I met Adam, I decided to make my own costume based on what I had seen him wear in person at the March 1980 World of Wheels. My first cowl was constructed from a scuba hood covered in navy blue satin coat lining, with a Halloween mask (covered in black satin) stitched in by my mom. I painted the eyebrows and nose lines on, and added ears. My first official cosplay appearance was at World of Wheels in Sioux Falls, SD back in March of 1981, when I got to pose with one of the touring fiberglass Batmobiles. I was out of my mind with Bat-euphoria.

The Halloween mask eventually broke and wore out, (probably all the sweat) so I had a buddy of mine at the Sioux Falls Community Playhouse cast my face, and sculpt a Batman face mask that I could stitch into the scuba hood. He made that mask out of celastic...the material explained above. I covered that with black leather.

Around 1987 I had seen a cowl that Clint fabricated out of woven paper. It didn't seem wearable (because a little sweat would have dissolved the woven paper fiber shell) but it was a nice display piece. I think that Clint did wear it a few times for appearances in the mid 80's.

The new leather-covered mask in the scuba cowl lasted for several years. I met Jan Kemp in 1989 and he told me how to make a one piece cowl. I went back to my Playhouse friend and he cast my entire head, and sculpted a cowl shell form on to it. From that he made a celastic shell for me. Then I had it covered and painted and wore that for a few years. It became known as the "Vicki!" cowl, since it was the one I wore on the Vicki Lawrence talk show. It was eventually donated to a charity and purchased by the creator of "The Powerpuff Girls" for his collection.

Shortly after that I had a new shell created that was a 2-part process, with a seam across the top of the head from ear to ear. But the head ended up being too small for many people. I had made a few for friends, and some of those are still out there. I made them out of styrene and had them seamed together with a strip of celastic on the inside. Celastic adhered to styrene plastic pretty well. At the time I believe Mark told me he was using something called Friendly Plastic for his cowl. Unfortunately, if you left one of those in a hot car, it would turn into a blue satin ashtray. I think Mark went to celastic based on what I had told him about my earlier experiences and success with it.

By 1995 Adam asked me to recreate a costume for a photo shoot (Adam West Remembers 30 Years of Batman) so I contact my friend David Miller, a Hollywood make-up artist (Nightmare On Elm Street, etc.) and he was more than happy to arrange for Adam to have his head scanned at Cyber FX in North Hollywood. Once we had that scan printed in 3-D, David was able to clean it up (Adam had a goatee beard for a film he was doing at the time), cast it and sculpt on a cowl shell. Since I only had a few photos to use as reference (internet wasn't really a thing back then) he did a pretty good job! He cast the shell out of clear styrene. Adam said he didn't want fiberglass because it was too heavy and uncomfortable.

We pulled patterns from Adam's original cape (which he supplied) and boots. My pal Sergio Lopez, who worked in the costuming department at Universal Studios (I was working there as Beetlejuice at the time) constructed the cape, gloves and trunks. The boots were made by Duran and I believe Mrs. Kemp did the gloves. The cowl was done by the same tailor I had do mine. I bought a belt from Mark to complete the photo shoot costume. The tights were Capezio, like the originals.

Once we had the shells, I was being asked by a lot of people for cowl copies. Since these were based off Adam's head, they were much larger and fit most everybody. I'm not sure at what point history got twisted from "cast from Adam West's head" to "an original Adam West series cowl." It's like that old game of "telephone" I guess.

[Chuck Williams]

AWESOME WALLY!!!!!

Just got off the phone with Mark.

WOW! Hopefully he will chime in but in a nutshell after sculpting his own shell over his lifemask and going the Friendly Plastic and then the Celastic route, he came upon a collector with a screen used cowl in Orlando that had made a mold and cast of the shell and that is where he got his from.
He had someone cast the fiberglass shells for him.

He also saw and mentioned the Clint Young woven paper cowl.

Great touching base with him and hearing more of the pre-internet fan experience!

Chuck...

[wally wingert]

Thanks Chuck...

Not intending to hijack the thread here, but since it was brought up earlier I figured I'd post some of the original color pics from the Adam West 45 photo session. These were the main four I kept prints of.

[Scott Sebring]

Great pics Wally. Which cowl of yours is on the styrofoam head in those pictures?

[Chuck Williams]

More fun pre-internet bat goodness!
You almost had me Wally! I just needed to pay the rent at the time before I could patrol the night.
Stared at this for ages!!!!

[wally wingert]

The cowl in the picture is the scuba hood with leather covered celastic mask. I hadn't done the full celastic shell yet, but I remember it coming very soon after these pics were taken. Because it was right around then I met Jan Kemp and learned all the cowl secrets.

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Wow Chuck, I actually have that same issue of MTC (painting of Roger Moore and Michael Keaton on the cover, right?). IIRC, Mike Stutelberg did some scratchbuilt bat-vehicles and Scot "Scooter" Fleming (later of "Pimp my Batmobile" fame) did some action figure conversions. Wally; if you ever make it out to Chiller again, I will have to touch base with you (IIRC, the last time I saw you there, you were set up across from Richard Hatch from "Battlestar Galactica" )
Tom

[Ben Bentley]

This has turned into one heck of a thread! I'm loving the insights Wally and Chuck!

It would be great to hear from Mark Puette himself. Mark was one of the "big names" in cowls and props when I first discovered the online 66 Batman fandom back in 2004.

For old times sake here's one of the "Cowl-Collages" that used to be used for reference on the old board back in the day circa 2004/2005 (please note this was pre-Chuck and pre-Will).

[Scott Sebring]

Loving this!

[Batfanman]

Bat-Cowl-lage Update!

[wally wingert]

Ahhhh, this really brings back some memories. The CY cowls were essentially my cowls, as I would supply Clint with cowls for his costumes. I could be wrong, but I don't think Clint ever made cowls himself. Anyone?

The main difference between my cowls of the day and Mark's was the material used. Mark would use a type of spandex, similar to that used in dancewear. I didn't like the sheen of it, and it was too grainy for my tastes. So I went with a cotton satin coat lining called Zeus fabric. It had no stretch whatsoever, but my seamstress would steam the fabric once it was attached to the shell.

The steam would cause the cotton fabric to essentially shrink around the curvatures of the cowl shell and hug it, similar to the process behind shrink wrap. For the most part the process worked, but we would get the occasional "trouble bubble." But after seeing all of the bubbles in the series cowls on the Blu Ray, I didn't feel so bad.

After Jan Kemp told me about the "jumbo spandex" he used on the show I considered that option briefly. Until he told me it wouldn't hold the navy blue dye for long and would soon turn purple. Figuring that my clients wouldn't want to have their cowl covers replaced every two years, I opted for the colorfast Zeus.

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Wally, I mentioned this to Chuck on the phone, the cowls I got from Mark were VERY grainy, there was very little sheen, and when painting, it was difficult to get the black areas level and (for me anyway) to paint the eyebrows "cleanly" where the edges were not affected by the grain. They photographed ok, but I sold mine in person at shows, so it was definitely a few points off in what I was able to charge. I think one went in a trade to a Japanese Batfan who was also a kit dealer for another Kaiyodo Gremlin prop (which meant I broke even and still had two cowls in inventory). Now that I think about it, I think I traded ALL of them eventually.
Tom

[Chuck Williams]

I'd like to see if Clint has made a commercially available cowl as well.

I know he bought a couple from us a few years back after Ken stopped making them.

BTW, I prefer this pic over the yellow background shot. The yellow background is not one of the replica cowls that we made.

Just sayin' if you want to show our best effort.

Thanks for including the knitted baby cowl too!

[Randy]

Thanks for all the info fellas

[Batfanman]

How's this?