Static Thoughts - More Great Goosebumps Covers

So, in 3 days the Goosebumps movie will hit theaters.  While not exactly a landmark event for cinema it’s still a notable moment of truth, especially for culture watchers like me.  If Goosebumps scores big at the box office it could mean a legitimate return to the forefront for Jack Black after his summer comedy show The Brink earned him some moderate praise.  More importantly, when coupled with the mass success of Jurassic World earlier this year Goosebumps financial success could bring about the long awaited coronation of ‘90s nostalgia as a cultural force.  ‘90s nostalgia has been quietly picking up steam for awhile now in the middle years of the 2010s and with upcoming revivals like X-Files, Independence Day, and Power Rangers waiting in the wings Goosebumps could cement the trend of leave it floundering and unsure. 

Given all that I’ve decided to use the opportunity to write a bunch more Goosebumps articles, starting with this sequel to one of my earliest posts.  The Goosebumps books really aren’t GOOD by any metric of the term but they were fun for what they were and a big part of that fun was the covers.  So, since I’m already an art dweeb who loves covers let’s look at some more great Goosebumps covers.

The Monster Blood cover is actually one of the more iconic Goosebumps covers out there, right up there with Don’t Go In The Basement, Night of the Living Dummy, and The Haunted Mask.  However, Monster Blood is easily my favorite of the bunch owed mainly to the unique color blending of that freaky reddish orange light with the oozing neon green of the monster blood.  I really love how exaggerated the color work always is on the Goosebumps covers, like how the steps shrouded in shadow aren’t just darkened but some kind of midnight blue that complements the harsh orange and green highlights perfectly.  

I also like the way the blood is oozing as it’s very subtly unnerving.  If you look the blood isn’t actually spilling down the stairs like a normal liquid as it seems to legitimately change direction on the middle landing to follow the path of the stairs, giving the implication the blood is somehow sentient.  There’s also SO much of it.  The massive amount of goop combined with the idea it might be alive is perfectly creepy crawly and the glasses lying in the biggest pool are the cherry on the spooky sundae. 

Something I’ve found going back over Goosebumps in preparation for these articles is what a strange mission statement it had.  Goosebumps’ whole goal was to blend creepy yet kid friendly stories with a plethora of horror iconography like dummies and vampires and scarecrows or alternatively they’d use moderately freaky everyday objects like Polaroid’s or clocks.  However, when Goosebumps did dive into the realm of original monsters it was amazing as seen in this great collection of covers.  I’m not even sure which one is my favorite though all are great.  

The Beast From The East looks like the hideous lovechild of sasquatch and koala if it had been fed a heavy diet of steroids and the fact that it’s been color blue and pink, the most uncommon colors in nature, just adds to the otherworldly atmosphere.  I also really wonder where in “the east” this thing is supposed to be as I’m fairly certain umbrella trees don’t exist, also there seems to be a big rock in the sky. 

The twin blobs of the Egg Monster and the actual Blob are just great and highlight the amazing differences in texture that these covers could evoke.  The Egg Monster looks a lot like the monster blood, a sort of coagulated ooze that’s slopping its way through life while the Blob is more reminiscent of some giant organ.  That huge tongue it has looks almost like limb to drag itself forward.  Both are disgusting but they’re so uniquely different kinds of disgusting.  

The creature teacher is the scariest to me though, her mouth just has SO many teeth and she’s got those freaky chameleon eyes.  Though the freaky, Quasimodo looking beast man from Jekyll and Heidi is ugly in a really great way.  The dragon from Be Afraid- Be Very Afraid! is actually kind of ironic in that the plot of that comic is the same as the plot of the upcoming Goosebumps movie; a Jumanji rip-off.  Still I really like the idea that its tongue is made of actual flame.

Behold; the reason I will never go camping ever.  Seriously, I was an avid collector of the Goosebumps covers as a kid and as soon as I saw this one it left me with an eternal fear of camping in a tent, and honestly; is that so hard to believe?  This is easily one of the freakiest and most nightmarish depictions of the “great outdoors” I’ve ever seen.  Even before you get to the actual spooky content there’s that AMAZING sky.  

I’m a huge fan of art that does weird and experimental things with sky color and this is absolutely top notch in that department.  I love the scarred, crimson tones punctuated by the eerie violet clouds drifting along the horizon.  Add to that the incredibly spooky bare skeletal trees that scrape against the entire sky and it sets a truly nightmarish mood.  The color work here reminds me a lot of the excellent artwork of Tim Doyle whose done a ton of late night fictional locale paintings. 

Then there’s the incredibly spooky core subject of the cover.  Those eyes are some of the most sinister I’ve ever seen and the inhuman proportions of that distended hand only heighten the sense of monstrousness afforded the creature in the woods.  It also doesn’t ease my mind that the tent the thing is trying to break into is glowing an unearthly green light for some reason.  The whole image just reinforces how incredibly unsafe and flimsy protection your tent is from the horrors that roam this Earth, like a great big nightmarish advertisement for staying at home. 

Hey, more legitimate nightmare fuel, especially that terrifying camp Jellyjam counselor.  Before I dive into that though I’d point out that these three color perfectly encapsulate the coloring palette used in the Goosebumps aesthetic.  There’s the soft, almost pastel purple, the harsh, reddish Orange, neon green, and a sort of steely cobalt blue.  This are the perfect colors of freakiness and implied menace mainly because you never see them anywhere other than Halloween iconography. 

That said…my God is The Horror at Camp Jellyjam terrifying.  Aside from the creepy background, which boasts its own amazingly colored sky coupled with that unnaturally green field, the monster staring us down is just perfectly inhuman.  What’s so great about the Jellyjam horror is that individually each part of him looks fine but when you add them up to a whole he’s just so off.  His smile is too big for a normal human and his teeth aren’t together for some reason, his torso is way to small, his head is hunched down onto his chest, and his arms are troublingly short.  He’s the epitome of “not quite right,” like he’s something that’s just wearing human skin but doesn’t grab the subtleties of ACTING human. 

The executioner of Terror Tower is pretty freaky as well, especially how hulking his physique is.  Like the Jellyjam counselor he’s actually pretty short which is what makes him seem less human but his bad posture and hunched back make his head look almost completely unattached.  Combine that with the very classically creepy executioner imagery and no wonder this is so terrifying, also it’s got that green and orange color mash-up we saw on Monster Blood. 

Finally there’s the Masked Mutant, a comic book super villain who somehow came to life.  The Masked Mutant is easily my favorite Goosebumps story for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was his AMAZING outfit and incredibly flamboyant headquarters.  I don’t know why the greatest villain of ‘90s comics decided to paint his dome home bright pink and green but I suspect he’d brutally murder us if we asked him.  Combine that with his weird pony tail/cape thing, his mask tusks, and what looks like a belt around his thigh and you’ve got the perfect embodiment of “trying too hard to be menacing.”

Other fun thing I learned going back over all the Goosebumps materials: they love to draw evil/freaky birds.  Seriously these needlessly freaky, red-eyed seagulls are like the 4^th evil bird to show up on a Goosebumps cover.  I chose this cover more to highlight the odd mash-ups that tend to pepper these covers than anything else.  

While most of the Goosebumps subject matters were properly horror oriented like aliens or ghosts there are some that seem to be chosen completely at random like this one.  I don’t know how flying and horror are meant to overlap but I do know this cover completely sold me on the idea that being able to fly might be the source of a truly terrifying and existentially surreal horror story.  I doubt that’s the actual story at hand but man does this cover ever sell it. 

Aside from the monster gulls that seem to have wings tipped in blood the background color gradient is eerily calm while still being grounded in the Halloween colors that define Goosebumps so well.  The upper atmosphere is the soft purple which blends into a much softer orange along the horizon, that pairing is actually pretty strange and goes a long way to putting you off your ground.  Then having the fluorescent orange bleed into the greenish blues of the landscape as the color sort of skitters to a halt, it’s all very calm yet unnatural.  Even the title coloring is off, a kind of rust colored brown with that icy purple.  The whole visual scheme of the book is just subtly whispering to you “this looks awesome, but you’re wrong.”  Seriously unnerving.

And now a celebration of Goosebumps very well realized range of ghost artwork.  Seriously, I love how much these four covers extend across a full range of styles and centers for what can be done with ghosts.  The Ghost Camp cover is decidedly silly but at the same time still kind of creepy, it’s one of those images that would be just completely goofy if you saw it in real life but realized in artwork like this it’s actually vaguely off-putting.  A big part of that is how freakily organized the ghosts are in this line, also the implication that these are ghost children, that’s pretty terrible. 

Then there’s the incredibly creepy looking Dead House, which is grounded thoroughly in the nightmares of every suburban small town ever.  Take it from someone whose lived on every coast; no matter what state you’re in, every cheap little town has a house like this one.  Even without the very evocative name of “Dead House” you’d just need to look at this place to get the sense something bad happened here.  The freaky orange glow and the lurking murderer in the window just add to that air of lingering death and tragedy.

Return to Ghost Camp’s cover is actually even better than Ghost Camp, though it’s a very different kind of cover.  The visual design of the ghost is superb and thoroughly reminiscent of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark illustrations only nowhere near as nightmarish and misanthropic.  That red splattering around the ghost’s very detailed teeth is downright chilling and the way it rises out of the camp fire smoke is a nice touch.  Where the first Ghost Camp seemed to just be stalked by ghostly apparitions of campers past the Return to Ghost Camp seems to have exactly summoned the freaky ghost creature by its very existence. 

Finally The Headless Ghost is super gothic horror visualization in a great way.  The very dilapidated look of the mansion the ghost is haunting is a nice touch but I really wonder who lit that candle.  Once again this cover sums up that great, exaggerated Goosebumps color style with the orangey-yellow glow of the candle blended with that super dark blue shadowy background is classic Goosebumps though the color is actually less Halloween-ish than usual.  That actually makes sense given the more congenial look of the ghost.  This is definitely a cover that embraces the more fun aspects of horror. 

Okay I don’t actually have a good reason why this is on the list other than that that I love the title.  I don’t even know want to know what’s actually meant to be happening on this cover like why the Earth geeks need to go or why this grinning alien dweeb is the one who’ll make them go, knowing would just ruin it.  I also really love that the turbines on this spaceship seem to be point inwards, towards the ship itself for some reason.  

Seriously, there’s no part of this cover that isn’t amazing in that unique, Goosebumps manner of completely committing to seemingly dopey and random ideas like that incredibly silly looking space suit.  I also absolutely love the tagline for this cover “Warning: Alien on Board” if only because I like to imagine this pilot referring to himself as an alien for some reason. 

I mentioned earlier that Goosebumps two main sources of inspiration were classic horror iconography and randomly chosen, allegedly creepy objects you might encounter, these covers are chalk full of that last one.  While some of these visuals like the scarecrow or the ventriloquist dummies are fairly well grounded in the realm of horror iconography most of theme are just weird and random.  The disembodied piano playing hands are decidedly creepy but also incredibly odd as an aesthetic choice though I can’t say I’ll forget it anytime soon.  That particular story is all about robots and ghosts for the record by the way, even though it’s visually reminiscent of The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. 

The scarecrow is honestly one of the creepiest scarecrow designs I’ve ever seen, owing mostly to the visual look of its sack head.  Scarecrow heads are naturally creepy but this one is such a creepy, formless sack it reminds me of Friday The 13^th part 2 or The Town That Dreaded Sundown, also the red lighting on the corn is very creepy. 

As far as the little creatures go I think my favorite here are the lawn gnomes.  The idea in the book is that the gnomes are actually aliens that turn to stone in the light, yes really, so I don’t know why they’re drawn like little Big Foot monsters on this cover but they’re decidedly freaky in their own way.  They look like weird fairy folk crossed with the Mogwai from Gremlins.  I like the Night of the Living Dummy III cover but it’s more creepily evocative as part of the living dummy series than as a stand-alone.  If you’ve never read them Slappy, the Living Dummy, is actually one of the more monstrous Goosebumps creatures so the idea he has some kind of army of fellow dummies is legitimately creepy.  However, the straight up scariest is easily Bad Hare Day with that hideous, big toothed mutant rabbit on the cover.  Seriously, those teeth are terrifying, they’re just so deformed and unnatural. 

Finally I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t talk about One Day at Horrorland, the progenitor of one of Goosebumps longest running sub-imprints, even if the actual plot of the book never mattered.  I like the visual design of this cover but mainly for the eerie foreground rather than the dopey looking giant monster.  I’m not sure if that monster is supposed to be an actual creature or just part of the sign but he’s a little too cheesy and dopey looking to actually be threatening.  The creepy part of the visual comes from the broken down and abandoned looking fairground against the fading pink horizon.

Here’s something a little weird for, chances are you actually know the standard cover for Stay Out of The Basement as it’s one of the most recognized Goosebumps covers there is.  The original cover featured a creepy, plant-man hand reaching out of a basement door.  It’s a decent cover but I’m not a big fan, this alternate cover I found while researching this article however I absolutely love.  This is easily the creepiest use of purple and orange colors to evoke a freaky atmosphere on the cover, mainly owed to how harsh and almost neon the orange coloring is on this cover.  My favorite part though is the freaky body horror of the tree-man scientist at the core of this cover. 

There’s something inherently creepy about this kind of corruption of the human form, especially since you can still kind of make out a screaming face on the upper trunk of the tree.  I do note that the visual design of this guy would suggest a static creature, like I don’t think this is a monster living in the basement so much as the fate of all who might dare enter the creepy subbasement of the local mad scientist.  However, that’s a minor knit pick in an otherwise great cover. 

Finally I wanted to highlight the autobiography of Tim Jacobus, the artist behind the entire Goosebumps brand.  It’s a thoroughly interesting read and I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you’re a fan of artists.  I’d also recommend looking into some of his non-Goosebumps work as he’s a legitimately great artist even when he’s not illustrating creepy covers for children’s books.  Also he’s a fellow New Jersey native.  


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