Thursday, December 30, 2010

Nancy Drew Cameo Book Club Advertising Materials

I recently purchased a set of Nancy Drew Cameo book club materials at eBay. The set came with the book club's letter, a flyer/poster (double sided) on the club, and a mail in card.

What was really neat was the artwork on the reverse side of the Cameo flyer--which was not used in the books themselves--see image below:

The artwork shown was probably just for the advertising as it appears to be all one collage image with scenes from books 30-36

Books were priced at 1.49 each and The Clue of the Velvet Mask would be 10 cents as the introductory volume in the club.

Jenn:)

8 comments:

Lea said...

Hey isn't that the image of Nancy you were trying to match up a while back (the one where she is peering back over her right shoulder). I knew it was familiar! I have a cameo flyer too and that must be why I recognized it but couldn't put my finger on it. Is it perhaps an internal?

Jenn Fisher said...

Good question--it's no from the internals--I have small scans of those here:

http://www.nancydrewsleuth.com/cameo30.html

I think the image was used for an article on Melanie Rehak's Girl Sleuth/75th anniversary related stuff if I remember right.

Jenn:)

Jenn Fisher said...

Yep I thought it was Boston Globe, here's the article with that image:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/09/11/nancy_drew_and_the_mystery_of_the_mean_girls/

Jenn Fisher said...

What's really weird to me, is that they used that image--of all the ND images out there, that's so odd to use an image that was only used in some Cameo advertising (which not very many people have on hand). Unless this image was used somewhere else I'm not thinking of...

Jenn Fisher said...

Ok, I'm about to out comment myself (ha!) but I just noticed in the Globe's image of Nancy from the cameo ad--there's a crease looking line still in the image, and checked the flyer and it was folded along that very line there so they had to have taken it from the flyer.

Kansas Mad Man said...

Jenn---I am pleased you found one on E-bay. Hopefully I can find one, since the Reader's Club editions are a large part of my collection. My saved search apparently was lacking any of the terms found in the listing. :) Since a few others own it, it must not be impossible to find. I like what appears to be Nappi art making the Nancy very closely match the iconic blue endpapers Nancy, particularly her hairstyle, with the side part and funky swirled bangs. Was Bolian, a prolific illustrator, too busy to do the ad images, or, was Nappi more available, or, was Bolian perhaps on a "per book" fee where Nappi was not? I almost wondered if Bolian completed Velvet Mask first and earlier than the rest, because she changed her techniques for indicating darkness, her "frame" technique for the picture, and more closely follows the story action on all the rest of the stories---example, George is still wearing a wig and half hat in the iconic image of her being propped against the tree trunk; Bolian has Nancy and Bess wearing different dresses in the internals than in her cover art. . . . which occurs the same day. Congrats on the find.

nancycollector said...

I recently purchased one of these flyers/letters, too, through an e-Bay auction.

I'm wondering how to effectively display it in my collection. It will need to be framed, both front and back must be visible since both have print. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Bill
aka nancycollector

Jenn Fisher said...

Bill,

Congrats on getting the set too! I would suggest putting it between 2 pieces of glass and them having that framed so you can hang it on either side and switch it up when you want. Or in the alternative if you want both sides showing at once. Make a color photocopy at the copy shop of one side and then frame both the original and the copy to hang together. Then you see both sides at once.

Jenn:)