The Fantastic Ben Cooper Character Costumes!

[Hepcat]

Here are images of two of the Ben Cooper Creature costumes issued over the years:

 

[Hepcat]

Here's a look at the Ben Cooper Iron Man costume from 1966:



An the noble hero himself:

[Hepcat]

And here's a look at the Ben Cooper Thor costume from 1966:



Plus the great hero himself:

[Hepcat]

Here for a change of pace is the Ben Cooper Mighty Mouse costume from 1971:





The costume offered a very decent likeness of the character:

[Hepcat]

Here's an interesting article on Ben Cooper including an interview with Ira Cooper, the son of one of the company co-founders:

Behind the Plastic Mask: When BEN COOPER Ruled Halloween - 13th Dimension

RetroFan: Speaking of superheroes, in the '60s, Ben Cooper produced some of the earliest merchandising for superheroes, including Spider-Man and Green Lantern, anticipating the decade's superhero boom. Who on staff first realized the appeal of superheroes?

Ira Cooper: This was nearly all Nat—something for which he rarely gets the credit—although it was Ben who saw it, let's say, concomitantly, and turned the comic and cartoon art into Halloween art that kids would want to wear. But it was Nat who pushed it, as he was directly connected to the growing world of comics and TV cartoons (which he monitored in great detail).

Ben saw the immense value in the costume front being a "billboard" for the character's most salient features. Had they gone for realism (with some notable exceptions) they would have lost that "look at me" value of the costume that the child showed off one night per year.

[Hepcat]

Here are some shots of the fabulous Ben Cooper Atom Ant costume:

[Hepcat]

Here are some shots of the rad cool Ben Cooper Felix the Cat costume:







Here for comparison's sake are scans of a couple of my Felix the Cat comics:

[Hepcat]

My favourite Ben Cooper superhero costume is probably this one:

It's not any better designed/executed than the others, but the Fly is such a semi-obscure character that I have to give Ben Cooper kudos for doing a Fly costume!

Hmmmm. So it seems that the pictures I posted previously have all disappeared. No problem. I've now found better ones!





Here are scans of some of my Adventures of the Fly comics for comparison's sake:

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[Mike Scott]

Cool FLY costume!  I wonder why they called him "Fly Man" on the costume?

[Hepcat]

Because unbelievable though it may seem, the buffoons at Archie Comics decided to rename him Fly Man in 1965!

[Mike Scott]

Archie Comics decided to rename him Flyman in 1965!

Fly Man?! Fly Man?! It's like somethin' out of a dang funny book!

[Hepcat]

Here for a change of pace is the Ben Cooper Mighty Mouse costume from 1971:

Ben Cooper of course continually repackaged the same costume over the years. Here's one such later (or maybe earlier) repackaging:







Here are scans of three of my comics featuring Mighty Mouse for comparison's sake:



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[Hepcat]

Ben Cooper issued this looney but dandy Daffy Duck costume in 1982:









Here for comparison's sake are scans of five of my Daffy Duck comics:

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[Mord]

 Really like the Darcy items, Hep. Do you own that costume?

[Hepcat]

"Darcy" items?



Since I don't own any Halloween costumes, the answer is "No" anyway.

Though I really like the Ben Cooper and Collegeville costumes because of the strong feelings of nostalgia I have for my trick or treating years between 1958 and 1964, I've not gotten into collecting them - yet. Ideally I never will since they'd require mega space to store let alone properly display and I have too many collecting interests already.