Goosebumps HorrorLand vs Harry Potter

“Goosebumps” sells about two million copies a year, said Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Media, who manages licensing for the series.

Ms. Forte said she considered “Goosebumps” the first book-based multimedia brand, noting that a Saturday morning television show on Fox extended the audience for the series. The TV show may also be stirring interest in the books’ second coming: when the Cartoon Network began rerunning the show in October, Mr. Stine noticed an almost immediate uptick in the amount of fan e-mail he received.

Holding a copy of the first “HorrorLand” book, “Revenge of the Living Dummy,” Mr. Stine admired the flashy cover displaying a theme park entrance and a suspicious-looking ventriloquist’s dummy.

“They’re so shiny,” he said. “They’ve got to be shiny now.” Today’s young readers demand it.

“I don’t really want to terrify kids,” he said. “I want them to have a really good time reading.”

When R. L. Stine’s characters confront a creepy villain, they may gasp, they may shiver, they may even cringe. Mostly, though, they shriek.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

The best-selling author R. L. Stine is hoping to frighten a new generation of readers with a new “Goosebumps” series.
Related
First Chapter: 'Revenge of the Living Dummy' (March 24, 2008)
Times Topics: R.L. Stine

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

With his new “Goosebumps HorrorLand” books, R. L. Stine returns to the series for which he is best known.

“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.” Can he resuscitate the dormant brand?

“Maybe it’ll be hard to do a second time,” he said. “Maybe it’ll happen again. Right now I don’t know.”

Mr. Stine, who was born Robert Lawrence Stine 64 years ago, devotes considerable effort to the cliffhangers that virtually dare you to try to stop reading. For years it paid off with a sizable following of children — many of them now just getting out of college or having children of their own — for whom the slightly scary “Goosebumps” series was a sensation before it cooled off in the mid-’90s, just before Harry Potter took off in the United States.

Now his American publisher, Scholastic, hoping that another generation of readers ages 8 to 12 is ready for his stories, is releasing the first of 12 books in a new series called “Goosebumps HorrorLand.” The author and his publisher must know the odds are against lightning striking twice.

Then again, Mr. Stine said, he often receives requests for new “Goosebumps” books.

Sitting with two dozen shy-looking students in the library of Oak Street Elementary School in Basking Ridge, N.J., one recent rainy afternoon, Mr. Stine asked how many “Goosebumps” books they had read. Frank Petrillo, a fourth grader, proudly cited his tally — 38 — and then asked excitedly, “When are the ‘Goosebumps HorrorLand’ books going to come out?”

Mr. Stine and his editors at Scholastic are betting that boys like Frank will rekindle interest in the series — which, they are quick to say, never disappeared completely. In the new books Mr. Stine intends to link the scary stories of “Goosebumps” with a serialized tale set inside an evil amusement park called HorrorLand. The children in the first book are invited to the park, where they discover a werewolf petting zoo, bottomless canoes, a quicksand beach and other wicked attractions. Their misfortunes will be chronicled in serial form in 30-page installments at the end of the subsequent books, which will focus on different characters. At the same time, the stories will continue online at two companion Web sites for the theme park, enterhorrorland.com and escapehorrorland.com.

Sitting in his Upper West Side living room after a morning spent revising Book 7, “My Friends Call Me Monster,” Mr. Stine said his prime goal all along had been to draw children to books.

“I don’t really want to terrify kids,” he said. “I want them to have a really good time reading.”

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.

He found early success with a teenage horror series called “Fear Street.” “I was having a good time killing off teenagers,” Mr. Stine said, when the co-owner of Parachute Press, Joan Waricha, persuaded him to aim at a younger demographic, and “Goosebumps” was born.

The books, with titles like “Monster Blood” and “How I Got My Shrunken Head,” were major hits in the early ’90s. For three consecutive years, USA Today named Mr. Stine the best-selling author in America. For a time Scholastic was selling four million copies a month.

“It was far beyond anyone’s dreams,” Mr. Stine said. “You know how it changed my life? I had to work harder.”

Along the wall of Mr. Stine’s home office are testaments to the brand’s glory: a “Goosebumps” chocolate Advent calendar, a toothbrush holder, a box of Count Chocula cereal with a “Goosebumps” logo. At the height of “Goosebumps,” there was also a television series and talk of a possible movie.

But then the relationship between Scholastic and Parachute, the books’ packager, became strained. Ownership of licensing rights was disputed as early as 1996, and by the end of 1997 Scholastic had stopped paying advances to Parachute, and Parachute had filed suit. Around the same time, sales figures started weakening.

“The kids got tired of them,” Mr. Stine said simply. “There were too many of them out there.”

After putting the series to rest in 2000, Mr. Stine created new spooky series — “The Nightmare Room,” “Mostly Ghostly,” “Rotten School” — but they did not capture anywhere near as big an audience.

“I spent eight years trying to think of a title as good as ‘Goosebumps,’ ” he said. But he never did.

Scholastic, meanwhile, had found even greater success with Harry Potter, and the rules of children’s literature were changing.

Stephen King, writing in Entertainment Weekly, has suggested that Mr. Stine’s success helped persuade Scholastic to pursue J. K. Rowling’s boy wizard. “He’s largely unknown and uncredited,” Mr. King wrote. “But of course, John the Baptist never got the same press as Jesus, either.”

The publishing disputes surrounding “Goosebumps” were settled in 2003, with Scholastic paying $9.65 million for the rights to existing and future titles in the series. Even without new titles for so many years, “Goosebumps” sells about two million copies a year, said Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Media, who manages licensing for the series.

Ms. Forte said she considered “Goosebumps” the first book-based multimedia brand, noting that a Saturday morning television show on Fox extended the audience for the series. The TV show may also be stirring interest in the books’ second coming: when the Cartoon Network began rerunning the show in October, Mr. Stine noticed an almost immediate uptick in the amount of fan e-mail he received.

Holding a copy of the first “HorrorLand” book, “Revenge of the Living Dummy,” Mr. Stine admired the flashy cover displaying a theme park entrance and a suspicious-looking ventriloquist’s dummy.

“They’re so shiny,” he said. “They’ve got to be shiny now.” Today’s young readers demand it.

As the setting sun cast shadows across his green couch, Mr. Stine said that, yes, “Goosebumps” would almost certainly be the series for which he is remembered.

“I’m just waiting to see if kids will pick them up again,” he said.