![]() Reflecting on The Bumps, Ross once said, "It ended up as a quasi-official site for the series. Ross eventually became the co-founder for the Mozilla Firefox internet browser. Īn additional contributor to The Bumps was a young Blake Ross, who worked alongside Stelter on the site. Stine, as both a fictionalized version of Stine and the voice of Slappy, the creepy dummy. During this interview, Stine said that Stelter had been an "aggressive" kid, but he also joked that Stelter had been acting like a journalist. Jack Black starred in 2015’s Goosebumps, based on the children’s horror-book series’ by R.L. During this meeting, Stine described Stelter's site as "amazing." In 2015, the two reunited in preparation for the release of the film Goosebumps. Stine noticed Stelter's name appearing in bylines and remembered it from the 1990s the two eventually met up for an interview in 2009, honoring Stine's then new series, Goosebumps HorrorLand. Fittingly, Stelter became a journalist, and he is now largely known for his work with The New York Times and CNN. Stelter's continued research on the series was, by his admission, vaguely "journalistic" in nature. Fragments of Stelter's original site were archived, but some of the content has seemingly become lost. The domain "" was purchased by an unrelated party and now contains nothing related to Goosebumps. Stelter eventually lost interest in the franchise, and the site stopped being updated between 19. At one point, illustrator Tim Jacobus publicly stated Stelter's fan-site was "incredible" and praised its accuracy, but he admitted Stelter's persistent investigations drove "the people at Scholastic crazy". For these reasons, Stelter was actually able to obtain "exclusive" information. Stelter's site became a hub for information on the series, and he claimed to have "dozens" of sources Stelter stayed in contact with Stine, members of Scholastic, series illustrators, and other individuals related to the franchise. Text published in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on January 12, 1998, promoting The Bumps (written by Kelly Milner Halls). According to one report, the website saw "tens of thousands of visitors a month" at its peak. The site grew in popularity over the next couple of years. Stelter taught himself HTML, and he created the first page for his site in April 1996 at the age of 11. "I remember scouring bookstores each month when the next Goosebumps was supposed to come out," superfan Brian Stelter tells me.According to Stelter, The Bumps started after he received a computer from his grandfather. It inspired a kids TV show, merch and – to a certain type of superfan – the books themselves became collectables. It took a while for the "Goosebumps" hype train to take off, but when it did - it hit big. And then I can go pretty far with the scares," says Stine. "My one rule for writing for 7 to 11 year olds is they can't think it's going to be real. You want to have a little independence, a touch of agency, but also feel safe. You're on the precipice of not wanting to be a kid anymore - which is why "Goosebumps" protagonists tend to be 12 years old - just a little older than the target age range. It's an interesting age, before you've realized that growing up is kind of awful. It helped her focus on "what made me love middle grade horror." ![]() She'd actually returned to Welcome to Dead House when working on her first book, during a rough patch of writer's block. ![]() Desperate, she told Stine that he could write a horror novel for teenagers.īrown is the author of two horror books for kids - The Forgotten Girl and The Girl in the Lake. She was supposed to be working on a horror book for teens called Blind Date, but the author had just dropped out. ![]() One day in the '80s, he was having lunch with his friend Jean Feiwel, who was also an editor at Scholastic. He started out as a humorist, editing a kids magazine at Scholastic. He moved to New York with big dreams of becoming a writer – just not the type of writer he became. I get to scare a lot of generations, don't I?" That's a tough pill to swallow," he says. THE WEREWOLF OF FEVER SWAMP (14) The best werewolf Goosebumps story has all the trappings of a good lycanthropy tale: Some woods, some wolves, a creepy old hermit, disconcerting howling in the dead of night, and a boy who really wants a pet dog. In a way, Stine is in a sweet spot with his audience - his original fan base is now old enough to be sharing "Goosebumps" with their own kids. When we met, he was fresh from an appearance at New York City Comic Con, meeting and greeting a hoard of fans, and he was getting ready to appear at the Library of Congress to take questions from children. Stine is celebrating the anniversary with a couple of new books and a handful of appearances. Bookshelves are filled with Goosebumps books and horror-based knick knacks in Stine's home. ![]()
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