Mark Puette

[Randy]

Anyone on the board ever had or seen a Puette cowl? was he before Wally?

[Scott Sebring]

Haven't seen one in person (only pics). His were before Wally. Not terribly accurate but many people were glad have something in the days before the Chuck ones came around.

[Chuck Williams]

Yep, before Wally. I've only seen photos as well but they looked pretty darn good for the time.

I believe he made the belt Adam is wearing in the suit Wally put together for Adams poster in the Adam West Remembers Batman mag.
His belts are on a couple of museum display "original" batsuits from back in the day.

Mark is the author of the costume guide from back in the day I think.
I'm Facebook friends with him and he's a super nice guy.

Mark Puette's cowls, like Wally's in my opinion, are collectors items on their own merits.

Chuck...

[Mark Racop]

Here's a pic of Mark from back in the day, probably one of his earlier cowls because the one I saw was much better.

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[Randy]

Thanks Chuck and Mark. I remember that picture. Did he sculpt his own shell? Was it fiberglass or styrene?

[Chuck Williams]

Mark was the guy that had a casting made from Hubies original shell .
It is now the shrunken shell you find copies of on ebay every once in a while.
His cowls were fiberglass I believe.

I'm pretty sure this is a Puette cowl at a Superhero Museum in farm country. It was owned by Adam West and sold on ebay by him years ago. The belt is also from Mark I believe.
Mostly reproductions but boot spats were from the show.

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Hey Chuck, it was GREAT chatting with you earlier! I have not spoken to Mark in at LEAST fifteen years, but back in the early '90s when I was doing ALOT of the larger conventions in NYC (Creation, Fangoria, etc.) I met a make-up artist/sculptor named John Dodds. John LOVED doing monster stuff; he did the creatures for the lowbudget Jersey-based flick "The Deadly Spawn", did some props for "Ghostbusters" and also created some of the headpieces for Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast" for Broadway. He was also producing a stopmotion dinosaur movie in his basement. Anyway, when I got to know him, I was selling vinyl kits (Horizon,Billiken, Kaiyodo etc) and he was looking for a fullsize vinyl Gremlin kit from the second Gremlins film
which was cast from one of the props used in the movie. I was actually able to get one for him at a great price, and offered to sell it to him at my cost since he was such a cool guy, and he had given me ALOT of advice about pulling molds, painting etc. Being a VERY cool guy, John did me one better and offered to do a sculpt for me in exchange for the kit. What he ended up doing was doing a lifecast of my head, sculpting a cowl shell onto the plaster head, then making a mold and pulling several copies in fiberglass. It has been a VERY long time, but I think I ended up with five or six (one was damaged being pulled from the mold, but I was able to repair it with a girder from an Erector set and either two part plumber's putty, or maybe a fiberglass patch kit from Pep Boys. Anyway, here is where Mark Puette comes in. At the time, Mark had done at least one cowl for himself using celastic. Celastic is fabric that is either dipped or sprayed with fiberglass or a similar resin, allowed to harden then sold in sheets (about the size of posterboard IIRC). Mark also worked with a lifecast and taking pieces of celastic, dipped them in acetone to soften them then draped/shaped them over the plaster head to create his shell. I never met Mark in person, but we had a mutual friend (I think it may have been Joel Eisner, who was also a vendor at the shows I was selling at) put us in touch with each other. What ended up happening was I sent Mark ALL the shells I had, he had a seamstress cover them in satin and we traded; my shells to him in exchange for him sending me three covered cowls. I ended up selling two cowls right off to collectors at shows and kept the third (with the repair) for myself. Ultimately I ended up selling this one to Mark. Having said all THAT... Mark and I went our separate ways not too long after that. If any of you have Mark's Batman technical manual, I THINK I have an acknowledgement in there. This is because the "blueprints" of the Batboat, Batcycle and Batcopter were provided by me. The Batboat is a tracing from a copy of the Fox blueprints I got from Joel Eisner, the cycle and copter were from the original Aurora tooling drawings for the model kits (the Batcopter NEVER produced) that I got copies of from Andy Yanchus who worked in R&D at Aurora. Anyway, my dealings with Mark were straightforward and satisfactory. The last I heard, Mark WAS providing costume elements to Adam, and maybe Adam gave him access to one of his personal cowls or a Hubie cowl or some such. But having spoken to Chuck, he believes it is possible that the ACTUAL source of this cowl that is being circulated MIGHT be the Dodd's sculpt I commissioned WAAAAY back in the day. Before anyone asks, I have NO photos or ANY evidence other than my personal memories, and will NOT suggest any misrepresentation by ANYONE, but comparing notes with Chuck, he points out ALOT of mistakes on the cowl(s)
he has seen associated with Mark that WOULD jive with a shell sculpted from scratch, shaped for a head that was NOT Adam using what little reference there was (a few stills from Eisner, a few more from Jerry Ohlinger and of course PAUSING the movie on the VCR.)
Wow; I have not thought about that for YEARS!!!
Tom

[Chuck Williams]

Great talking to you Tom!!!
It's always fun to reminisce about pre-internet fandom and just how people found each other back in the day.

It certainly sounds like a logical chain of events. I really love the idea that John Dodds sculpted a cowl shell! I used to stare at his work in the old industry magazines. FUN!!!

The contact between Mark and Adam could have become the semantic leap from a "worn/owned by Adam West cowl" to the assumption that his shell was screen used that people made over time.

Similar semantics the museum in farm land uses to blur the line between screen used and a tour suit.

His contact with Adam and ability to make and cover cowls could have also paved the way to having access to a Hubie shell too, as you say. Even seeing a screen used cowl would allow him to make revisions to his to make it more accurate. Nothing is off the table.

Marks cowls still stand up to the test of time! I'm glad that at least one (and probably two) of them is in a museum!

It's always fun to learn these little tidbits of history. Makes piecing everything together a detective novel!

Wishing you the best my friend,
Chuck...

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Chuck; after we spoke last night, something else occurred to me. SOMEWHERE I have a 45 of Wally's "Adam West" single, which came out in '89 before the Burton/Keaton Batman film ("He's wrestled giant clams, he's been almost barbecued, but he always gets away just when you thought he was screwed"). Could not find it to save my life, but IIRC, on the jacket is a pic of Wally seated behind a table and to one side there is a cowl on a styrofoam wig head. I can't remember the exact year I worked with John, but like I said, it was AFTER the second "Gremlins" film because I traded him that big vinyl figure for the work he did. And I think I told you on the phone, John was involved with doing make-up for the Disney "Beauty and the Beast" during one of my visits
but that could have been AFTER he did the cowl, as I stayed in touch with him for a few years (his house was a VERY cool place to visit with all the suits and masks he had in the workshop.) So I'm thinking it was maybe the summer of 1990, more likely '91. My OTHER cowl I mentioned (an '89 Keaton cowl pulled from Warner molds) was DEFINITELY the summer of '92 when "Batman Returns" was in theaters and the Warners owned themeparks had a Batman stuntshow using costumes from the FIRST movie made by one of the cape wranglers from the second film. Tom Culnan was his name, another REALLY cool guy and like John, I traded him vinyl kits for a cowl!
Tom

[Scott Sebring]

Hi Tom,
That cowl Wally had on the styrofoam head was his own homemade one. Either his first one crafted from a scuba hood or a little later but not his later one after they did a computer scan of Adam's head.

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Still looking for a larger one of this pic. Wally can probably chime in.

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Hey thanks Scott. That IS the pic, but I have only seen it in B&W. But Wally DEFINITELY had done a cowl before I worked with Mark and John Dodds. Again, I'm going back twenty some odd years here, but I'm PRETTY sure Mark had dealt with Wally, I KNOW he knew Clint Young and he was in touch with Bob Butz (sp?) the car guy. I used to have MARATHON phone calls with Mark, usually late at night. He was a security guard at his local phone company so he had unlimited long distance before that was a thing, LOL. Something else I just remembered; in addition to doing appearances in his batsuit, he was also an ELVIS impersonator, LOL!
Tom

[Scott Sebring]

Yeah. Wally knew those guys for sure but he never got a cowl from anybody else until Chuck came around and by that time he retired from appearances as Batman. He definitely had Puette and CY belts over time.

[Chuck Williams]

So that kills the John Dodds sculpture.

I know Clint had a more cowl-ish looking cowl prior to Wally. There is a photo of Wally and Clint together in costume at a show that shows the two together.

I just shot a message to Mark via Facebook so maybe we'll hear from the source.

Chuck...

[Mark Racop]

I met Mark Puette at the #4 Batmobile auction in Nashville in 1998. He was hired to play Batman and to help auction the car. His costume looked great, and he was very funny: "Robin is heading off to college and I need to raise some tuition money!" He had Fiberdyne's Mark Shidler produced a half dozen or so fiberglass cowl shells in exchange for a Battlestar Galactica helmet or somesuch. What a small world!

I'm pretty sure that Mark got his cowl shell from Clint, but my memory of the cowl discussion is fuzzy.

[COPPRODUCTIONS]

Yep, bartering was definitely the way to go back in the day (actually it STILL is and the 'net most definitely makes that easier ). The last time I spoke with Mark, I believe was around '95 when "Batman Forever" came out. My friend Tom Culnan had hooked me up with some chest emblems and utility belt buckles from the Kilmer "Panther" suit and I'm pretty sure Mark was one of the few folks I trusted to trade them to. It does not surprise me at all that Mark would continue to upgrade his costume, and as Chuck pointed out, having possible access to an Adam cowl could only improve the accuracy!
Tom