GR translation: her crepe-paper and spider-italics young ladyhood

[Mike Jing]

V661.12-25   “You, poor Katje. Your story is the saddest of all. She looks
up to see exactly how his face will be mocking her. She is stunned to see
tears instead running, running over his cheeks. “You’ve only been set
free,” his voice then breaking on the last word, his face brushing forward
a moment into a cage of hands, then uncaging again for a try at her own gay
waltztime gallows laugh. Oh, no, is he about to go goofy on her too? What
she needs right now in her life, from some man in her life, is stability,
mental health and strength of character. Not this. “I told Slothrop he was
free, too. I tell anybody who might listen. I will tell them as I tell you:
you are free. You are free. You are free . . . .”
        “How can my story be sadder than that?” Shameless girl, she isn’t
humoring him, she’s actually flirting with him now, any technique her
crepe-paper and spider-italics young ladyhood ever taught her, to keep from
having to move into his blackness.

What is "spider-italics" referring to here?
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