Jared Bland posted an excellent overview of Goosebumps Horroland event, so I feel like sharing it with you.
In a few words:
I can speak to the quality of the first book, and the good news for R.L. Stine fans is that it’s everything you would expect from a new Goosebumps. Classic kid topics, like cousin hatred, are covered with aplomb: “I like to make lists. And if I made a list of My Top 5,000 Favorite People in the World, my cousin Ethan wouldn’t be on it.” Injustice, too: “So now I had to sleep in Mom’s sewing room. And the sewing machine was still against the wall. So how much room did I have? Try not much.” And thanks to the surly living dummy, a cache of jokes that will be instantly added to the ten-year-old’s lexicon: “‘I like your long hair,’ Mr. Badboy said to me. ‘Too bad it’s all growing on your back!’” Indeed, Mr. Badboy. (Stine’s characters are, as always, lovely in their kidishness. I don’t know how good they are as representations of actual children, but they’re certainly perfect as articulations of what we think about when we think about kids.)
On Tuesday the New York Times ran a story announcing that young adult novelist R.L. Stine would be resuming his vaguely legendary series, Goosebumps, after an eight-year hiatus. Somewhere near you, a twelve-year-old rejoiced. (An eighteen-year-old did too, I’d wager, as they’ll be the ones with acute nostalgia once they see the new books on the shelves.)
The Times story is charming, the sort of piece about a gently strange man that, when stripped to soundbites, sounds profoundly bizarre: “Along the wall of Mr. Stine’s home office are testaments to the brand’s glory: a ‘Goosebumps’ chocolate Advent calendar”; “Under the name Jovial Bob Stine, he was the author of dozens of joke books in the 1970s and ’80s”; “‘They’re so shiny,’ he said. ‘They’ve got to be shiny now’”; and, best of all, “‘I was having a good time killing off teenagers,’ Mr. Stine said.”
Cut-and-paste fun aside, Stine offers insight into his return to the ‘Bumps: “‘I spent eight years trying to think of a title as good as ‘Goosebumps,’ he said. But he never did.” There’s something admirable about Stine’s honesty here. He has spent these eight years, after all, churning out a few different series, none of which has had nearly the success of Goosebumps. Right now, it seems to me, the man wants to get paid. And that’s an understandable thing.
And so Scholastic gives us HorrorLand:
Seems simple enough, right? But here’s where it gets complicated. When I quoted Stine talking about the idea of shininess above, he was referring to the cover of the first book in the new series, Revenge of the Living Dummy. But it’s not just the cover that’s shiny here, it’s the concept, too. I have tried really hard to understand exactly what the hell is going on in this series, but I’m still not entirely sure I get it. The Times explains it like this: “The children in the first book are invited to the park [HorrorLand], 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.”
To me, that sounds complicated, and basically like a bad idea. If you’ll recall the excellent summer of 1996 during which Stephen King’s The Green Mile was published in monthly installments, this would sort of be like tacking on an extra and completely unrelated hundred-or-so-page story to the beginning of books two through six. That just doesn’t make much sense.
But it turns out it’s even more complicated. I cannot even begin to think about knowing how to explain this myself, so I will quote the press release for Revenge of the Living Dummy: “In a Goosebumps first, HorrorLand will be a serialized adventure. The story won’t end on the final page of book one, Revenge of the Living Dummy, or in book two, Creep from the Deep. Instead, the terrifying adventures will continue at www.enterhorrorland.com and in books three to twelve. Readers will be compelled to unlock the sinister answer to all of this terror. By reading the books and interacting with the website they will find themselves also trapped in the theme park, which becomes more and more horrific with each book. Who—or WHAT—is behind the evil plot to assemble these kids? The answer will only be revealed in book twelve.”
Perhaps this is a brilliant, zany marketing scheme just out there enough to work. More likely, it’s a sign of where kids are right now. After all, Britney Crosby, the beleaguered protagonist of Revenge of the Living Dummy, has a cell phone despite being twelve. Maybe this is just what it takes to get kids involved these days. As I neither have one nor know one, I cannot really speak to this.
I can speak to the quality of the first book, and the good news for R.L. Stine fans is that it’s everything you would expect from a new Goosebumps. Classic kid topics, like cousin hatred, are covered with aplomb: “I like to make lists. And if I made a list of My Top 5,000 Favorite People in the World, my cousin Ethan wouldn’t be on it.” Injustice, too: “So now I had to sleep in Mom’s sewing room. And the sewing machine was still against the wall. So how much room did I have? Try not much.” And thanks to the surly living dummy, a cache of jokes that will be instantly added to the ten-year-old’s lexicon: “‘I like your long hair,’ Mr. Badboy said to me. ‘Too bad it’s all growing on your back!’” Indeed, Mr. Badboy. (Stine’s characters are, as always, lovely in their kidishness. I don’t know how good they are as representations of actual children, but they’re certainly perfect as articulations of what we think about when we think about kids.)
And, happily, Stine’s spooky instincts are intact. Consider his opening—“You may wonder why my best friend, Molly Molloy, and I were in the old graveyard late at night.”—which sets a creepy vibe from the start and is even further terrifying in that R.L. Stine is evidently able to conceive of a situation wherein one wouldn’t want to know what these girls were up to in the graveyard. The story itself centres around the re-emergence of and fight against Slappy, a possessed dummy whom you’ll recall from Night of the Living Dummy and its sequels II and III, Goosebumps 2000: Bride of the Living Dummy, and Goosbumps 2000: Slappy’s Nightmare. Slappy, as you can probably imagine, turns out to be a bad dude, as Britney discovers while doing research in a folder marked VENTRILOQUISM found in the attic workroom of Molly’s father, who, thank God, happens to be a professor of folklore. Choice cut: “‘It says the dummy’s real name is Slappy,’ I told Molly. ‘And—I was right! He’s totally evil!’”
(To learn more about Slappy, you should pickup the reissue of Night of the Living Dummy that is being published as part of a group of classic Goosebumps timed to accompany the new titles. It contains a handy ‘Fright Gallery’ in its appendix, which is sort of a Dungeons & Dragons-style assessment of Slappy’s origins, powers, and other particulars. I think everyone can agree that the books are better if you understand that “[s]ome people believe that Slappy has the power to control people’s minds and turn people into puppets,” that his Hobbies & Interests include “[d]aydreaming about what he’ll do when he becomes the Supreme Ruler of the Human Race,” that he rates ten out of ten for humour in the Splat Stats section (though a mere six splats for Attack Skills), and that he was made “a thousand times ruder” by the demise of Mr. Wood, his brother dummy who was carved from the same stolen coffin by “an ancient sorcerer” in the late 1800s.)
In the Times piece, Stine worried about whether the series would catch the imagination of kids in the same way today: “‘Maybe it’ll be hard to do a second time,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’ll happen again. Right now I don’t know.’” Based on Revenge of the Living Dummy, which really is a fun and fast-paced read, I think he’ll be just fine. And if they can figure out the bells and whistles, the kids will be alright, too
Showing posts with label Revenge of Living Dummy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revenge of Living Dummy. Show all posts
Saturday, May 3, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Goosebumps Horrorland #1: Revenge of Living Dummy
Goosebumps Horrorland #1: Revenge of Living Dummy
About the book:
Format:Trade Paperback
Published:April 1, 2008
Dimensions:144 Pages, 0 x 0 x 0 in
Published By:SCHOLASTIC INC
ISBN:0439918693
Fright-master R.L. Stine invites you on an all-new, all-terrifying adventure!
The thrill ride begins when 12-year-old Britney Crosby encounters an old ventriloquist's dummy with a lively secret--and a wicked plan.
Just when she thinks the nightmare is over, Britney receives an invitation to an amusement park where everything is not as it seems. Who--or what--is summoning ordinary kids to HorrorLand? Britney and her friends must find out fast--or remain trapped forever in the scariest place on Earth.
About the book:
Format:Trade Paperback
Published:April 1, 2008
Dimensions:144 Pages, 0 x 0 x 0 in
Published By:SCHOLASTIC INC
ISBN:0439918693
Fright-master R.L. Stine invites you on an all-new, all-terrifying adventure!
The thrill ride begins when 12-year-old Britney Crosby encounters an old ventriloquist's dummy with a lively secret--and a wicked plan.
Just when she thinks the nightmare is over, Britney receives an invitation to an amusement park where everything is not as it seems. Who--or what--is summoning ordinary kids to HorrorLand? Britney and her friends must find out fast--or remain trapped forever in the scariest place on Earth.
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