Spellbound '77

Printed and published in Great Britain by D.C. Thompson & Co. LTD., Spellbound was a weekly magazine of thrilling, serialized comic book stories aimed primarily at young women. This particular issue, #50 from September of 1977, features seven, separate, ongoing adventures featuring strong, female characters caught up in varying degrees of mystery and danger. Each story is nicely illustrated, though very short, and of course the cliffhanger element at the end of each tale unquestionably ensured that readers would be back the following Thursday, panting for more, i.e. the strange tales of Damian Drake, or the weird and wild outer space suspense of the sexy Super Cats (which we'll see later next week), and so on! So in light of our "October Leftovers" fest, today's post focuses on two entries that fall into the horror and supernatural categories. I would love to someday read these in their completed, collected versions (anyone know if this is a reality?) --but for now we'll just have to settle for these brief glimpses into only a single, pulse-pounding, teaser portion of each tale!

Rootie Kazootie & the Pineapple Pies

There's a few more ominous October leftovers in store for you coming up, but since it's November it is of course only right to remember Thanksgiving looming on the horizon, and that of course means food, Food, FOOOOD! And what's a holiday without MF'n PIES!! (thats a direct quote from Rootie Kazootie himself, yo!) Rootie, for the uninitiated, was a cute little puppet boy with his own TV show on NBC that ran for 4 years in the early 50's. Interested parties can check out this complete episode HERE after reading today's deliciously fine Tell-A-Tales story from 1953, which features the incredible art stylings of the great Mel Crawford! Yes my friends, if these illustrations don't make you instantly scream crazy for a piece of pineapple pie-- nothing will, gosharootie!

Exclusive Fun Products by Mail

Regency Mail Order was based out of Niagra Falls, NY and was just one of countless mail order trick 'n gag providers who advertised their cheap, funny wares in comic books throughout the 60's and 70's. Sure, they had the same x-ray spex and joy buzzer stuff as nearly all the other guys, but if I had to pick which company had some of the best ad art, I'd definitely place Regency up near the top-- especially when you blow up their tiny ads about 600+% as I have done with today's post scans-- you'll see these minuscule works of art take on a whole new light.

Meet the Witchmaker!

I have quite a few vintage film distributor press kits in my personal collection, and I thought it would be fun to share one since not only do they contain tons of info about the movies themselves, but they also contain some fascinating insight into the time era as far as 60's marketing and promotions went-- for example these kit excerpts for an odd little fright film I like a lot called The Witchmaker from 1969 (see the trailer HERE.) This press kit is a treasure trove of behind the scenes production info, advertising variant imagery for posters, displays, and photo stills, publicity material and bios, plus radio / television spot coupons-- but most importantly, all of the excitingly hilarious, and gimmicky exploitational promo ideas via stunts and contests to stir up excitement in your community during theatrical engagements. Read 'em and weep, man... seriously, if theaters did stuff like this in our day and age for films (outside of San Diego Comic Con, I mean) people would most likely get arrested! And hey, those of you unfamiliar with the film itself, check it out-- it truly is an underrated, creepy cool drive-in classic!