Goosebumps! Goosebumps! Oh My!

Goosebumps, a book series I was both in love with and afraid of as a child, is coming back back back. Maybe now I can handle them: I should go check out my local GoodWill for some old copies (they have an excellent selection full of old-time favs.). I can't lie: I also liked his Fear Street series, but then again, I was a bookworm of the Matilda sort and just read whatever I could find (before the teenage years where I spent far too much time brooding: see, now you have a brief synopsis of my formative years).

“'That’s when I started to scream' may be the most frequently used chapter ending in the hugely successful children’s horror series 'Goosebumps,' which a decade ago catapulted Mr. Stine to prominence. Now, for the first time in eight years, during which Mr. Stine tried his hand at creating other series, he is back with a fresh 'Goosebumps.'”

My favorite part of the article (aside from hearing about the comeback kid) was the following:

"Mr. Stine got his start writing funny stories, not scary ones. Under the name Jovial Bob Stine, he was the author of dozens of joke books in the 1970s and ’80s. Influenced by the surprise twists of Ray Bradbury’s novels and devoted to comic books, he came to appreciate the way some writers were able to combine humor with the macabre."

Read more via The NY Times

Here's the Comeback Kid!