JM Cozzoli

Here's a nifty giveaway for Blood Orgy of the She-Devils: the hypnotic eye psychometry test. It's very simple. What do you do to drum up interest in a no-budget horror by Ted V. Mikels? Why, just add orgy and blood in the movie's title and hand out cool stuff like this at the theater. Of course, that would entice me for sure, so I may be biased here. The double-sided card is 4 x 6 inches and I'd die to have a stack of these to hand out as tricks for Halloween. I can see those smiling faces on the kids' parents as I think of it.

While the non-American pressbooks can be short on pages and promotional and commercial tie-ins, the artwork and printing layout can be quite creative. Here's the French pressbook for Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

See Mary Poppins pressbook Part One.

In this second part of the Mary Poppins pressbook is the incredible merchandising. My favorite is the Louis Marx wind-up, but you will find Gold Key comics, Whitman books, records, puzzles, her carpet bag, Golden Books, clothes, and more. Toy merchandising on a grand scale may have started with the Star Wars franchise, but Disney was years ahead in tying loads of merchandise to its movies.

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Mary Poppins (1964) Pressbook
Part TwoRead More »

At 44 pages, the pressbook for Mary Poppins is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, indeed. Every Disney pressbook I’ve seen has an incredible amount of merchandising and promotion packed into it. While the sequel, Mary Poppins Returns was enjoyable, there’s magic to be found in the original that cannot be repeated. The Sherman Brothers music score is emotionally compelling and the talent-filled chemistry between Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews certainly does make you want to dance. Using the Edwardian period was a smart move, too. P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins author, may have hated the movie, but boy was she wrong. Everything, from the casting to the set designs, and even the animation, created a wonderful film. Well, maybe except for Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent, perhaps, which he did own up to and apologize for (his voice coach couldn’t do one either). But as a kid, I hardly noticed, good or bad. Now that I think of it, it does remind me of when I visited London in 1982 with my father, who couldn’t stop himself from using a really bad cockney accent everywhere we went. If looks could kill, we would have been dead for sure. Had I a magic umbrella and a strong wind to carry me away, I’d have left him toot sweet.

ComicRack reader version: Download Mary Poppins Pressbook (this is a big file at 115MB!) See Mary Poppins pressbook part two.

You don’t need to wait until the wind changes direction to see more pressbooks from Zombos’ Closet!

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Mary Poppins (1964) Pressbook
Part OneRead More »

The Living Dead, also known as The Scotland Yard Mystery, has another mad scientist somnambulizing people (yes, I think I just made this word up!) into a zombie-ish trance to do his criminal bidding. Since my favorite color is purple I couldn’t pass up this pressbook. That poster art is pretty cool too.

ComicRack reader version: Download The Living Dead Pressbook

See more entrancing pressbooks from Zombos’ Closet.

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The Living Dead (1934) PressbookRead More »

Had Mighty Joe Young sold well at the box office, the sequel would have been Joe Meets Tarzan. Sorry to not see that movie get made. Do not hate me, but I tend to enjoy Joe more than King Kong. Both are great movies, but I like the happier ending in this one. Although Ray Harryhausen began stop-motion animation with Puppetoons, this is his first major movie animation that would lead to more fantasy and monster films. I had the pleasure of meeting Terry Moore at a Monster Bash some years ago.

ComicRack reader version: Download Mighty Joe Young Pressbook

See more mighty fine pressbooks from Zombos’ Closet.

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Mighty Joe Young (1949)
British PressbookRead More »