Goosebumps Collection

[emseasqrd]

Alright ladies and gents I stumbled on something that hadn’t been in my mind since elementary and it lead me on a collecting goose chase.

First off the triggering happened when a random reddit feed delivered this GEM below:

What a cool display right?

Sooo stage 1 was me researching and sorting out what and how I wanted to get my old-school goosebumps books back into my life before moving on to stage 2, which would be how to display them.

Stage 1 progress so far (Books 1-62):

Researching led me down a rabbit hole and I found out that Goosebumps were offered in slipcases that held 4 books. Each slipcase displayed one of the books artwork and it appears that like anything I collect, the rarity of the slipcase lured me into how I wanted to collect my set.

Books 1-4 (Complete):

Was able to find the slipcase version (although a lil beat up). Man these artworks hit me like Magic the Gathering art does.

#1 Welcome to Dead House
#2 Stay out of the Basement
#3 Monsters Blood
#4 Say Cheese and Die!

Books 5-8 (Complete):

#5 The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb
#6 Lets Get Invisible!
#7 Night of the Living Dummy
#8 The Girl Who Cried Monster

Books 9-12 (Complete):

#9 Welcome to Camp Nightmare
#10 The Ghost Next Door
#11 The Haunted Mask
#12 Be Careful What You Wish For…

Books 13-16:

#13 Piano Lessons Can Be Murder (Missing)
#14 The Werewolf of Fever Swamp
#15 You Can’t Scare Me!
#16 One Day at Horrorland

Books 17-20:

#17 Why I’m Afraid of Bees
#18 Monster Blood II
#19 Deep Trouble (Missing)
#20 The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Books 21-24 (Complete)

#21 Go Eat Worms!
#22 Ghost Beach
#23 Return of the Mummy
#24 Phantom of the Auditorium

Books 25-28:

#25 Attack of the Mutant (Missing)
#26 My Hairiest Adventure
#27 A Night in Terror Tower
#28 The Cuckoo Clock of Doom

Books 29-32 (Complete):

#29 Monster Blood III
#30 It Came From Beneath the Sink
#31 Night of the Living Dummy II
#32 The Barking Ghost

Books 33-36:

#33 The Horror at Camp JellyJam (Missing)
#34 Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes
#35 A Shocker on Shock Street
#36 The Haunted Mask II

Books 37-40 (Complete):

#37 The Headless Ghost
#38 The Abominal Snowman of Pasadena
#39 How I Got My Shrunken Head
#40 Night of the Living Dummy III

Books 41-44 (Complete):

#41 Bad Hare Day
#42 Egg Monsters From Mars
#43 The Beast From The East
#44 Say Cheese and Die-Again

Books 45-48 (Missing All):

Books 49-52 (Missing All):

Books 53-56 (Missing All):

Books 57-60 (Missing All):

Books 61-62 (Missing All):

This has been a fun hunt so far so I plan on keeping my eye out and snagging slipcases when I can find them at the right price point. I will update on the progress throughout the journey as well as brainstorming the Stage 2 display!

[DeekBoy]

When the new show came out I started buying some books for my kids. I should really get back to collecting them all. Cant wait to see the complete collection!

[emseasqrd]

Yea it’s a nostalgia trip for sure. I read the first book a couple nights ago and low key had to sleep with a night lite.

[SeasidePokemon]

Very cool. I loved Goosebumps as a kid. Magic Treehouse, Harry Potter, and Goosebumps were some of the only books I enjoyed reading in elementary school.

A few years ago R.L. Stine did a book signing and Q&A at my local library. I was able to get one of my favorite childhood books signed.

[jaws]

This is really strange, I was just talking with a friend about Goosebumps books two days ago. Prior to that, I think it has been over a decade since I’ve mentioned them in conversation. That display is awesome!

[emseasqrd]

Oh niiiiceee! I need to see if he is doing things like that in my area! I wish I still had my childhood books…but hey this collection is going to fill that void!

[emseasqrd]

Also Stay Out of the Basement came with this bookmark…so if this is your book please let me know the context.

[emseasqrd]

I need to sort out how I want to display the collection and utilize my 3D printer like that dude did! Love the ooze theme!

[DeekBoy]

how far do you plan to collect? I enjoyed the choose your own adventure collection growing up.

[emseasqrd]

For now I’m sticking with the OG series of 62 books. I may look into the sets like the “Give yourself Goosebumps” line or even the specialty books like the Monster editions. They even had small books that came in chip bags that I remember as a kid that I would like to hunt down.

[D3F14NC3]

Great collection. Pure nostalgia.

[DeekBoy]

Oh Damn! I forgot all about the chip bag ones!

[emseasqrd]

I remember going to Kroger as a kid digging through Doritos to grab these guys.

[UKLugia]

I have a full set of the UK versions which I collected years ago. Was quite shocked when I saw the current going rate for some of the last books (which probably sold far less copies and weren’t reprinted like the earlier ones which I have seen with multiple different RRPs on the back covers, proving they were printed multiple times).

I will upload some pictures later because the first 30-ish had unique cover art different to the US originals and they look awesome imo. I’ve never been able to find who the artist was though.

[khairis]

I used to have that #13-16 collection when I was little! Received it as a Christmas gift, but it’s long gone now. Have fun continuing to put together your set! I’ve started to do something similar but I’m collecting Animorphs through trying to find them in Goodwills.

[UKLugia]

Okay, here’s a picture dump of my complete UK collection. These are special to me for a few reasons:

1. I put this collection together over 20 years ago from buying them new as a kid (I was a bookworm nerd lol) and then hunting all the missing ones from charity shops and markets. Literally the ONLY one I had to buy on ebay later on was ‘I Live in Your Basement’ as I’d never seen a copy in person and gave up on ever finding it.

2. These are what really got me into reading and especially the horror genre. To this day I am surrounded by piles of books lol

Anyway, would be interested to hear opinions on the UK covers for the first 30 books. I have no idea who illustrated these versions but I personally love them and had a big nostalgia rush digging these out and photographing them. From 31 onwards, they just used cropped versions of the North American art which I do really adore but having it cropped in a bubble is a bit…eh…

Hopefully nobody minds…don’t mean to hijack the topic. It’s been literally years since I’ve been able to say anything about Goosebumps!

[emseasqrd]

Oh nice I never realized UK had different cover arts! Yea it looks like the last books come at a premium in comparison to the rest.

[emseasqrd]

Duuuddeee I remember Animorphs as well…also had iconic book artwork.

[emseasqrd]

Dude those are sick and unique for sure! I have never seen any of those covers before which is awesome. I wonder why they “got lazy” and just cropped the NA covers? Man first thing I did was thumb the book pages and took a big whiff…nothing like the smell of a book.

[emseasqrd]

I know some of the NA books came with perforated book mark pages and card pages, did the UK version have some of those as well?