Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy Photo Booth Strip by Thomas Pitilli (after Tim Sale)

“And I long for a time when a girl I knew with an incredible smile and SO much good in her heart made me think… life CAN be great.”

Spider-Man: Blue is one of my favorite comic books and one I revisit often. Loeb and Sale tell such a beautiful story of how Peter and Gwen fell in love. Each time a read it, I always linger on the last panel of the book, the one with the photo booth strip of Peter and Gwen. I love that it gives the reader a small peek into how happy they were together. It’s a panel that has always stuck with me.

When I got the idea to commission an artist to do their own interpretation of the photo booth strip, Thomas Pitilli came to mind. I’ve been a big fan of his art and how he draws facial expressions and thought his style would be a perfect for a photo booth strip commission. I reached out and thankfully he thought it was a cool idea and was excited to work on it.

Boy, did he knock this one out of the park! The photo strip is a beautiful homage to Sale’s work, but Thomas also added his own spin on it. A couple of my favorite things — 1) the sparkle in Gwen’s eyes in the top photo, she’s beautiful, and 2) the third photo — Peter’s look of “I wish this moment could last forever”, his loving embrace, and Gwen tightly clinging to his arm. Fantastic. Adding Peter’s shadow in the background was a great choice as well, it captures his sadness and longing for Gwen, it’s heartbreaking.

This piece is the first of three commissions he worked on. I thought it would be really cool to also have a photo booth strip of Peter with MJ, and a third with Peter and Felicia. Those came out great too! Huge thanks to Thomas who was nice and great to work with!