May 21, 2012
“Hello, Spongey here
Welcome back to Goosebump-athon!
Let’s start with the first one ever written!
…As opposed to starting with number 34 or something”
10 Years Later
Hello, Spongey here.
Ten years ago (well almost, I didn;t wanna post this on a saturday), I did my 2nd attempt at a marathon review thing. In it, I did my first real look at Goosebumps, reviewing the original 62. I did it badly but it was really started my descent into making this blog very Stine focused. It’s been a wild ride, and I’ve grown a lot since then.
For all its faults, Goosebumps always gives me things to talk about, and I will keep talking about it until I’m dead. That said, I would like to return to the past this time. I knew exactly what I would do for 10 years of the Goosebump-a-thon.
And we’ll get into that. But first, I gotta do some stretches. Alright, I’m doing that while typing what I do for some reason. Oh, I just bumped into something. Let’s look at wha-..oh, this old thing. This is machine that lets you peek into other dimensions,. I once spent a month using it see me as different reviewers.
I really should have put that away. We don’t need Spongey in the Multiverse of Madness again. Eh, it’s not like be bumping into it activated it or anything. …And those noises I hear indicate it did exactly that. Oh boy. A portal is opening again. Crap let me turn it off before anything happ-
Universe 792
Hello, Spongey here.
When it comes to books around here, we tend to focus mostly on just one author, that being our lord and savior Betsy Haynes. Bone Chillers has offered us plenty of mixed delights, as well as Fabulous Five and her other works. But sometimes I wanna mix it up. So today we’re looking at someone else that had a not as successful attempt at a kids horror series.
That someone being R.L. Stine. While not the biggest author ever these days, he’s still decently known for his Fear Street series. However, not many know he tried something else in the middle of it that didn’t take off. That being his own kid horror series, Goosebumps. After he hit it big with Fear Street, the publisher wanted him to do something for kids. He wasn’t sure at first but went for it, with the contract just being for 4 at first. Sadly, those four didn’t take off and the series died there. Thankfully, Fear Street was big enough at the time that it didn’t hurt him too much. He’s living fairly well these days, just isn’t the biggest household name ever compared to others.
As the story goes, Betsy Haynes was one of the few that read those at the time and got inspired to do Bone Chillers. As we all know, that took off with a hit TV series and films and all that. So kids got to grow up on some horror after all. Some think Goosebumps is one of those Bone Chillers ripoffs we’ve looked at, but nah, it came first and may have gave her inspiration.
I’ve always been curious about them. How do they compare to what I’m used to? Are they any good? Were they hidden gems that should have taken off? That’s what I’m here to figure out. We’ll start with the first one and some other time we’ll look at those others out of the four. For now, we’ll see how this first attempt turned out.
This, is Welcome to Dead House

This cover actually comes to us from Tim Jacobus, who of course also did the Bone Chillers ones. It’s pretty good. Not super exciting but decently creep with this house. Good use of color too. That random guy in the window is a bit much but overall, it’s a solid and effective cover that draws me in. So yeah, it’s good.
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