In the Makeup Chair for Space Cases

Originally published January 19, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1157

What with going “home for the holidays” (after an extended stay in Montreal), I find myself crunched for time this week. Therefore the adventures of Ðìçk Cosmic, the Cosmic Ðìçk (which has grown far more in the telling than I had anticipated), will be delayed one week. Instead, we have a time-saver column from the set of Space Cases, the kids’ science fiction TV series I co-created with Bill Mumy.

(Space Cases is scheduled to begin on Nickelodeon Saturday, March 2, at 9 p.m. EST. Naturally, we suggest parties be held. Send us the most interesting pictures taken at said parties, and we’ll run them in BID.)

One episode, entitled “Forever Young,” calls for the debut of an evil multi-minded spacegoing probe/entity called “Ninestein” (rhymes with “Einstein”). It was decided that the nine incarnations of Ninestein would be represented by nine slowly rotating life masks in a large silver cylinder (which, when combined with special effects, should look quite cool). Kind of like a cake display from Hëll.

What we needed next were nine terrifying individuals to have life casts made and masks molded from them. As the make-up people were pondering whom to draft for this chore, I strolled into the room. Once the screams of horror subsided, I was tapped for Ninestein duty.

Just follow the numbers to see how I was transformed into a monstrous entity for Space Cases (as if being a producer isn’t monstrous enough):

1. Since I wouldn’t ditch my beard, make-up wiz Annick had to smear petroleum jelly heavily on my face and facial hair. Looking on are co-creator Bill Mumy and series line-producer Irene Latinsky (both of whom are smart enough not to get involved).

2. A plaster-like substance is being applied liberally over my face. The trick will be to adopt a hideous grimace, so that the mask will have some attitude to it, and then maintain it.

3. Pieces of burlap are applied to the first coat to give it additional cohesion. By this time, I am scowling furiously under the mask. (It’s no trick; I’m thinking about certain people in the industry, and my face just naturally twists into a sneer.) I’ve also got my teeth gritted, which means the goop is in my mouth, bumping up against my teeth. I’m hoping that, when they pry the thing off, they don’t take my molars with it.

4. The second layer has been applied. Several things are happening now.

First, the entire thing is tightening as it hardens over about 20 minutes.

Second, it’s also starting to get hot. And, as it gets hotter, my muscles are trying to relax. If I do that, then I lose the entire expression on the mask, so I have to fight to maintain my grimace. I mentally catalog a number of decisions by certain comic book companies over the past year or two and keep that scowl in place.

Otherwise, unable to breathe except for little air holes to my nostrils and unable to see or feel anything, it’s like a little taste of death.

5. They have peeled the mask off my face. Ever have a bandage stick to your hair and hurt a lot when it was removed? Imagine a bandage attached to your entire face and being pried off.

If I’d shaved the beard, I could have spared myself the agony. On the other hand, the beard gives it a texture that the others don’t have (because no one else with facial hair was stupid enough to go along with this).

Note that my mouth, indeed, remains open. That won’t be much of a shock for anyone who knows me.

6. In the middle row of the Ninestein entity, my face is painted silver, with red highlights around the eyes and lower chin.

They’ve also inserted brown eyeballs.

The peg in the forehead is for the attachment of a tube, and all the tubes will feed into one central brain.

My face on national television. Perhaps this will be the first TV episode in Nickelodeon’s history to carry a “This program may be too intense for younger viewers” advisory.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)