As we have seen, the mainstream media often confuses latex with leather and might even throw some PVC into their misleading reporting. It’s no one’s fault per se, and just this past week, there were pictures, broadcasts, and lots of blogs about UK pro footballer (“soccer” as we call it the U.S.) and presenter Alex Scott wearing a leather dress at Soccer Aid. Actually, Scott was wearing a tight red latex dress at the world’s annual biggest celebrity football match, collaborating with UNICEF to raise money, created by singer Robbie Williams.
And she looked smashing.
As one would expect, there was lots of latex couture, pretty much strictly latex couture, worn by attendees to NYC’s Latex Ball that happened at the beginning of the month. So, it’s less of a surprise that one saw all that latex as the fact that Miss Universe 2023 R’Bonney Nola was in attendance wearing…yes, you guessed it. The first Filipino-American to win the Miss Universe contest was wearing a latex catsuit and hat of royal blue. The Latex Ball is held in conjunction with NYCs pride community honoring those lives lost to AIDS.
And having no connection to the latex fashion world whatsoever, save for maybe influencing some cosplayers, we learned today that influential comic artist John Romita Sr. died this week at the age of 93.
Born in 1930 in New York City, Romita Sr. graduated from Manhattan’s School of Industrial Art in 1947 and began his professional life working in commercial illustration and comic book art. In the following decade, he as much worked with Marvel on their Captain America revival, as well as DC’s romance comics. Returning to Marvel in 1966, he brought this romance style to his work on Spider-Man. Taking over as the regular artist on Amazing Spider-Man after Spider-Man’s co-creator Steve Ditko left, Romita Sr. drew the webslinger as less a “nerd,” as Ditko’s had and more a romantic hero, and it was he who introduced Spidey’s love interest, Mary Jane Watson.
In later years, Romita Sr. became Marvel’s art director and helped design Wolverine, the Punisher, and Luke Cage, while serving as a mentor to young artists. His son John Romita Jr. is currently the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man.
As Marvel indicated in a statement today, John Romita Sr. was “a pillar of the Marvel Universe,” “legend,” and “creative giant.”
