Back in Black Spines (ft. Craig White)

[00:00:00] Greetings Goosebumps fans, young and old, big and small, welcome back to the Goosebumps

[00:00:57] Crew Podcast.

[00:00:58] As always, I'm your host, Isaiah Vargas, also known as the Goosebumps Channel on YouTube,

[00:01:01] Twitter and Instagram, and I'm joined by the rest of my Goosebumps Crew, Goosebumps

[00:01:05] Salsa Fan, Bjorn Panlik and Shaoen Nick Shaw.

[00:01:08] Unfortunately Michael Lilikwes, the Ultimate Goosebumps Man was unable to join us this

[00:01:11] evening, but that's okay because either way we're still going to talk some Goosebumps.

[00:01:15] Of course we always do, why would it be otherwise?

[00:01:18] Now today we are revisiting the good old Give Yourself a Goosebumps series.

[00:01:23] We're going to talk about the later half of this series, the famous Black Spine Give

[00:01:28] Yourself Goosebumps.

[00:01:30] And of course we are not alone in this.

[00:01:32] We are very happy to introduce...

[00:01:34] I'm Craig White, an illustrator for some of the Give Yourself a Goosebumps covers.

[00:01:40] And Craig is here to join us to talk about the covers that he did for that

[00:01:44] series.

[00:01:45] So we're very excited for that.

[00:01:46] But first before we get into that, as always, if you are not following the

[00:01:51] Goosebumps Group podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and now Amazon Music and iHeart

[00:01:57] Radio, then what the heck are you doing?

[00:01:59] Because if you are a Goosebumps fan and you love Goosebumps just like we do, then

[00:02:03] you guys are certainly going to want to follow the podcast.

[00:02:07] Not only do we have new episodes every Wednesday on YouTube and Tuesday on all

[00:02:11] our audio platforms, but we get to talk to some amazing guests like Craig White

[00:02:15] today.

[00:02:16] So if you love Goosebumps, make sure you follow us on all our platforms.

[00:02:21] All right, let's get to the main event.

[00:02:23] So of course, as we said before, we have Craig White and he did the Give

[00:02:28] Yourself Goosebumps covers starting with number 25, Shot Till You Drop Dead,

[00:02:34] and he went for the entire rest of the run into the...

[00:02:38] I believe February 2000 was the last one that came out.

[00:02:41] So we're going to be talking about some of those covers in the works that he

[00:02:45] did. But before we do that, Craig, why don't you tell us a little bit about

[00:02:49] yourself and what got you to that point?

[00:02:53] Let's see. So I'm just an illustrator.

[00:02:56] I started out in art school.

[00:03:01] I've always been drawing. I have a twin brother as well.

[00:03:04] Always been drawing, always been doing artwork.

[00:03:08] So I decided to do that as a career.

[00:03:10] And then I was an art director for an ad agency for a while, but I've

[00:03:14] always drawn. And at one point I was doing...

[00:03:21] We were experimenting. This is way back before computers came out.

[00:03:24] So when computers came out, we were kind of on the forefront of digital

[00:03:28] illustration, doing everything you do on a piece of paper and pencil with

[00:03:34] doing it with a Wacom tablet on the computer.

[00:03:37] And somehow or another, I got involved with a friend of my brothers

[00:03:43] who was looking for digital artists to do comic book trading cards.

[00:03:46] They wanted digital art instead of airbrush because I could do airbrush

[00:03:49] and all that stuff, which I think Tim and Mark were both doing traditional

[00:03:54] artwork. So that's kind of how a friend of my friend

[00:04:01] of a friend had an agent who was looking for somebody to do digital art

[00:04:04] for these covers. And they came upon me.

[00:04:07] So, yeah.

[00:04:10] And we I mean, these, like we said, there really was a shift in that

[00:04:15] series because by the start of the twenty third book, they kind of took

[00:04:20] a completely different format on the cover.

[00:04:24] It went from the traditional ish goosebumps that you would probably see

[00:04:28] in the original to something that was more sleek and more like

[00:04:33] it was more neon. It kind of had a lot more flashy colors on it.

[00:04:38] For sure. It was very much in tune with the times.

[00:04:41] I mean, this was like the late 90s.

[00:04:42] So everything was like being turned up to an eleven and they had like

[00:04:46] series two thousand, which was also continuing that trend.

[00:04:51] But these covers always fascinated me.

[00:04:54] I just loved how they looked.

[00:04:55] I love what just the composition.

[00:04:58] I love the creatures that were on here.

[00:05:01] But before we get into specifics, I'm curious to know what are some of

[00:05:06] your favorites that you've done?

[00:05:10] Definitely. I think we talked about it.

[00:05:11] I thought I don't have all the books with me, but I do have most of them.

[00:05:16] This this one was one of my favorites.

[00:05:19] This is this was the eye.

[00:05:21] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:23] I don't know why it just came out well.

[00:05:25] I mean, it's kind of simplified when I look at it.

[00:05:27] But but I like I guess like I was telling you guys earlier, it's

[00:05:31] I like the simplicity of one kind of subject.

[00:05:34] And this one just kind of fits the bill for me.

[00:05:39] I really enjoyed that. Yeah.

[00:05:40] I really like that.

[00:05:42] I love that the skeleton is green and not your typical

[00:05:46] white skeleton.

[00:05:47] It's almost like very ghoulish looking like green color.

[00:05:51] I love that.

[00:05:53] Yeah. All Day Nightmare was all day.

[00:05:55] Nightmare is definitely my favorite one hundred percent.

[00:05:58] It was it was the last one I needed to get.

[00:06:01] And funny enough, it is the last one before the special editions.

[00:06:04] And yeah, I guess that was it was crazy because like at the time

[00:06:08] when I was collecting them, you know, you didn't really have Internet or anything.

[00:06:12] So I didn't know what a lot of the later ones looked like.

[00:06:15] So it was more just trying to find them in the wild.

[00:06:18] And I remember when I finally did, I was like, oh, my God,

[00:06:21] this is the last one I need.

[00:06:22] And that cover is amazing.

[00:06:24] I love it. You know, because like I love the wolves, man.

[00:06:27] So I think it's awesome.

[00:06:30] I just I love the abstract.

[00:06:31] And yeah, it's really creepy.

[00:06:33] And then you've got like, yeah, no, I love it so much.

[00:06:35] It's such a dark cover.

[00:06:37] You know, and it's pretty scary.

[00:06:39] Yeah. That's one thing that I have a friend.

[00:06:43] Yeah, it's fitting for this month, for sure.

[00:06:46] Yeah, there's been a ton of werewolf covers.

[00:06:50] Full moon fever, were a fever, swamp werewolf skin.

[00:06:53] Well, here's another werewolf one werewolf.

[00:06:56] I wish to be large.

[00:07:00] Steinlein's werewolves.

[00:07:01] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:02] It's something about werewolves and goosebumps.

[00:07:05] It's like I don't know what it is like my friend Logan.

[00:07:07] He's a big fan of goosebumps as well.

[00:07:10] And his favorite books were always the Black Spine, Choose Your Intervention.

[00:07:13] And his favorite book cover was actually it came from the Internet.

[00:07:17] I just had to tell you that because he's he'll be saying to me, hey,

[00:07:21] like, please tell him like my favorite book.

[00:07:23] It came from the Internet.

[00:07:24] So there it is.

[00:07:26] Yeah. No, this one is one of my favorites.

[00:07:29] I love this one.

[00:07:30] Shout out to Logan.

[00:07:31] Something like crawling out of the computer screen.

[00:07:35] I love how it's like just all gooey and slimy all over the place.

[00:07:41] Gives you an idea of how long ago this was because

[00:07:44] the computer is actually modeled after the computer I was using at the time,

[00:07:48] which is an old Mac.

[00:07:51] Probably it's probably like a clone or something like that.

[00:07:55] But yeah, that was that and I there's a big goosebumps

[00:07:59] poster in the books are in the background.

[00:08:01] Yeah, that was fun to do.

[00:08:02] This is one of my favorite ones to do.

[00:08:05] So yeah, I love that touch in the back.

[00:08:07] It's like it's coming out of like a goosebumps fans computer.

[00:08:14] They did that with the TV series, too, like in the actual goosebumps show.

[00:08:18] You'll notice in the background of most kids' bedrooms,

[00:08:20] there's like a stack of goosebumps books on the shelf.

[00:08:23] So I love that you kept the trend going even with the book covers.

[00:08:29] It was always like they were goosebumps fans within the goosebumps universe.

[00:08:33] It's a paradox.

[00:08:33] Like it was. Yeah, pretty much breaking the fourth wall.

[00:08:39] Yeah. Yeah, right.

[00:08:42] Now, it's great that we love it.

[00:08:44] I got to ask, what was like the process

[00:08:48] for doing all these arts for the cover arts?

[00:08:52] OK, the way I remember it, it was a long time ago.

[00:08:56] The way I remember it, this is way back when the Internet had just got

[00:09:00] unstarted.

[00:09:02] I think it was at nine.

[00:09:04] When was this first one done?

[00:09:05] Was it 96? No.

[00:09:07] Was it before that?

[00:09:08] The first one came out.

[00:09:11] The first one that you did was January 1998.

[00:09:14] Ninety eight. OK, so yeah.

[00:09:16] So I was living in.

[00:09:18] I was living up in San Francisco at the time.

[00:09:20] My wife and I moved to San Francisco

[00:09:23] in ninety five, I think the end of ninety five.

[00:09:27] And up until that point, I was doing like I was saying,

[00:09:30] I was doing trading cards for Fleer and Marvel.

[00:09:33] And so I think that's where a lot of this real

[00:09:36] extents foreshortening kind of came came out

[00:09:40] like this really kind of, you know, and in front of your face was

[00:09:44] a lot of a lot of these and I'm looking at them like, oh, I did that a lot.

[00:09:48] And I don't remember it wasn't conscious.

[00:09:49] I was just in that kind of mode then.

[00:09:53] But the process back then was I believe they would send me

[00:09:58] my agent, my agent handled all my work.

[00:10:01] So he would talk to the client.

[00:10:02] He would talk to the people at Scholastic.

[00:10:04] They were art directors usually.

[00:10:05] And they would say they would send him a little brief

[00:10:10] of the book cover what they wanted.

[00:10:12] It usually wasn't about what the book was about, but they would say

[00:10:16] like on this one, it was like

[00:10:18] a creature, a furry creature coming up an escalator in a department store at night.

[00:10:24] And that's basically all they gave me.

[00:10:26] And it was kind of like do whatever you want, which was kind of cool.

[00:10:29] Up to that point, it was I used to have all these rules,

[00:10:33] but they were kind of like just do whatever you want.

[00:10:35] Didn't the colors didn't matter.

[00:10:37] And and it was a blast.

[00:10:39] I mean, it was fun to just be able to do something.

[00:10:41] And then very, very rarely did they make any alterations to anything.

[00:10:45] It was kind of like, oh, this is great. We'll run with it.

[00:10:48] So I was like, OK, that's cool.

[00:10:49] As an artist, that's your favorite thing in the world when they don't make

[00:10:52] changes on anything. Exactly.

[00:10:54] Yeah. So that it was basically if we I would get faxes, faxes

[00:10:59] or or package through FedEx in the mail.

[00:11:03] And it would just be a one page kind of description

[00:11:06] of what they wanted for the artwork.

[00:11:08] I wish I had better stories.

[00:11:10] I wish I could say, oh, yeah, they gave me the book and it was the snops.

[00:11:13] And I got to read it.

[00:11:14] And or, you know, it was basically literally just a page

[00:11:18] of paper that said this is what we want.

[00:11:20] So, yeah, no, it's actually the same thing that Tim Jacoba said, too.

[00:11:26] Even for him, he was like,

[00:11:27] I was given like two sentences to describe what I needed to make.

[00:11:31] He's like, and then I had like a ridiculous turnaround time

[00:11:34] that I had to get.

[00:11:35] And that was a he was painting everything and then had a ship.

[00:11:38] Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:40] So I think that and that was one of the reasons why I ended up

[00:11:45] getting the job was because I had been doing everything digitally.

[00:11:49] And I suppose I guess we were emailing stuff

[00:11:52] like low res files to the client and they could approve or whatever.

[00:11:56] And then they could make changes easily if they needed to.

[00:11:59] So they didn't have to repaint anything.

[00:12:02] That was a that was a big deal.

[00:12:03] And then we you guys don't remember, but there were these things

[00:12:06] called zip disks, which were like mini hard drives that you could remove.

[00:12:11] And I would ship those.

[00:12:13] We did FedEx all the time.

[00:12:14] I mean, I knew the FedEx guy.

[00:12:16] So that's kind of the way I work.

[00:12:17] Now we just email everything.

[00:12:19] It's just amazing how quick everything is now.

[00:12:21] But back then it was it was a lot of mail and a lot of FedEx.

[00:12:26] So and facts.

[00:12:28] You might know what a fact machine is.

[00:12:31] Yeah, no, I'm older than I look.

[00:12:34] I was born in 1985.

[00:12:35] So I remember all this.

[00:12:37] Nick, you don't even look you don't look your age, man.

[00:12:40] You don't look a day over 68.

[00:12:43] I appreciate that.

[00:12:46] Oh, man, I used to have a joke.

[00:12:48] My dad and I used to like we used to have this thing.

[00:12:50] Well, not just me, my siblings,

[00:12:52] like we'd be watching some like Elvis movie or something from like the 50s.

[00:12:55] And we go, oh, dad, you were probably about 40 there, right?

[00:12:58] Like,

[00:13:00] anybody like me?

[00:13:02] Oh, yeah.

[00:13:03] Now I totally get that name.

[00:13:06] Yeah.

[00:13:09] That's great.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:09] So when I'm older, yeah,

[00:13:11] that's it's amazing how quickly technology has changed since then,

[00:13:15] because when we talked about even the computer that's on the cover from

[00:13:20] it came from the Internet, it's like, yeah, I remember those in school.

[00:13:23] Yeah.

[00:13:24] So like, yeah, oh, 100 percent.

[00:13:27] Like one of my favorites was

[00:13:29] because I have always been a fan of shocks.

[00:13:32] I love shocks.

[00:13:33] Any movies to do with shock.

[00:13:34] So Ship the Ghouls was definitely one of my.

[00:13:37] Yeah, one of my favorites as a kid.

[00:13:39] Like I remember that was one that I used to just

[00:13:42] I had this notorious thing where I used to just stare at Goosebump book covers.

[00:13:45] I don't know why.

[00:13:46] And that was one of the few that I used to just stare at for a very long time.

[00:13:51] And yeah, I just I love shock.

[00:13:53] So I was always fascinated by the cover and I was like,

[00:13:55] maybe I should actually read it now.

[00:13:57] Well, the thing that got me was that there's like,

[00:14:00] I'm assuming that's blood like coming out of the sharks.

[00:14:03] Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:04] And that's like, wow, the water.

[00:14:06] I know they kind of they were pretty open about it.

[00:14:10] And I even when I looked at some of these later,

[00:14:12] I'm like, oh, that is kind of scary.

[00:14:14] They were pretty much kind of said, do whatever you want.

[00:14:17] So, oh, that's what I did.

[00:14:19] Well, this one,

[00:14:21] this one was modeled after my dog at the time.

[00:14:25] The one the pug

[00:14:27] flying through the air.

[00:14:29] And now I look at it and like, that's terrifying.

[00:14:34] A poor dog flipping in like what's going to happen to the dog?

[00:14:38] Oh, no, they were pretty man.

[00:14:41] And I hope no one had nightmares because of that.

[00:14:43] That's terrible.

[00:14:45] But yeah, say one of the like most hopefully somebody did.

[00:14:50] That's the that's the whole point of goosebump.

[00:14:53] That's true. The idea is like, yeah, you could say you did your job.

[00:14:56] But at what cost?

[00:14:59] This is what we love.

[00:15:00] We love we love hearing the story behind the book covers, you know, like,

[00:15:03] and that's why we love having guys on because it's like, like, for instance,

[00:15:06] we never would have known that that was modeled after your dog.

[00:15:08] You know what I mean?

[00:15:08] Like, it's it's just great hearing these stories.

[00:15:11] One of the most goofy yet honestly kind of terrifying covers for me

[00:15:17] is this one for your point.

[00:15:18] Yeah, yeah, that is the one.

[00:15:21] Yeah, that's the goofy, terrifying one for sure.

[00:15:23] That one. And I don't

[00:15:26] so back then, if you guys don't know it, but we as an illustrator,

[00:15:30] you always I was always looking for reference to draw from,

[00:15:33] not just pull it right out of my head.

[00:15:35] And there wasn't an Internet.

[00:15:37] So there wasn't a couldn't Google search for images like I do now.

[00:15:42] So I had like magazines and file folders full of like references.

[00:15:48] And some of this stuff, that's probably some kid somewhere

[00:15:51] that was on a magazine screaming for poor kid

[00:15:55] that I used as reference for that.

[00:15:59] And then some of them like this one is scary, too.

[00:16:03] I don't know where I came up with that face, but that's like,

[00:16:06] that scares the crap out of me.

[00:16:08] I'm like, but I guess they all I can think of is

[00:16:12] I remember them saying, just make it as scary as you want.

[00:16:15] And I was like, oh, OK, that's yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:16:18] That was that was kind of the trend towards the end,

[00:16:21] because, yeah, like even the series 2000 books,

[00:16:24] they went darker and edgier with the covers.

[00:16:26] And so that kind of transcended into the

[00:16:31] the later half of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books, too.

[00:16:33] So I think that's really cool.

[00:16:35] And I love I love that book cover.

[00:16:37] Like it's a great one.

[00:16:38] You know, because I don't know this is this is the second time

[00:16:42] in the series where there is a cover with an evil clock on it with a face.

[00:16:46] And honestly, yeah, this one is honestly creepier

[00:16:50] just because of the human eyes and like it.

[00:16:54] I don't know. There's just something about it.

[00:16:56] This one like an evil Cogworth from Beauty and the Beast.

[00:16:59] Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:01] It's about the big bushy eyebrows.

[00:17:07] One thing I just noticed looking at this was

[00:17:12] the cover for your plant food is right there on the little picture

[00:17:15] frame right there. Oh, yeah, there it is.

[00:17:18] I never, what? I never noticed that.

[00:17:20] Yes, I didn't even notice that.

[00:17:23] I was like, I was just like, wait a minute.

[00:17:28] That's wild.

[00:17:29] Goosebumps is just like a multi bus or something like, you know,

[00:17:32] like that's the way I'm looking at now.

[00:17:34] The multi bus.

[00:17:35] The multi bus.

[00:17:37] No, I really like the Easter egg.

[00:17:39] Like, I didn't even catch that.

[00:17:41] So I know. Yeah, no, I didn't either.

[00:17:45] Well, one that I did that and I don't have it with me

[00:17:47] and I thought I saved all of them.

[00:17:50] Of course, I don't know.

[00:17:51] I'm sure they're running or somewhere.

[00:17:52] But there was a one with the and you guys know the titles.

[00:17:55] So I don't remember the titles, but it was a woman with her.

[00:17:57] It was a lady turning into a cat and she was kind of had her mouth open

[00:18:01] and she had this kind of a nine of a thousand.

[00:18:05] Nine of a thousand.

[00:18:06] Yeah. Yeah, pretty sure.

[00:18:09] OK, that was actually my wife posing as that cat

[00:18:13] in our cat at the time was a calico.

[00:18:17] So it's the calico cat.

[00:18:19] And I think I took back in the day a Polaroid picture of my wife

[00:18:23] kind of like doing that pose.

[00:18:25] When I painted it, it was her.

[00:18:28] So with her and our cat combined.

[00:18:30] So that's where that oh, that's really cool.

[00:18:34] That's really cool.

[00:18:36] That's awesome. I love that.

[00:18:38] I love it. It's like I have that one for some reason or another.

[00:18:42] I love when you use like all the references to things, you know, like,

[00:18:45] yeah, I just I love hearing all these stories.

[00:18:46] That's so great.

[00:18:47] But yeah, no.

[00:18:48] So now we know that was your wife doing this. Yeah.

[00:18:53] Yeah. Back in the day.

[00:18:54] Now, I guess you have a dog in the wire.

[00:18:58] What's that? I'm sorry.

[00:19:00] Did she also pose for the werewolf?

[00:19:02] You know, I don't know.

[00:19:04] I don't know.

[00:19:05] I think my brother posed for the one where he's looking over his shoulder

[00:19:11] reading about the campfire.

[00:19:12] I think I think maybe maybe I'm not sure.

[00:19:15] I'd have to. Yeah, as I got right there.

[00:19:17] So this one at the one campfire.

[00:19:19] Oh, right.

[00:19:21] Maybe so. Yeah, probably.

[00:19:23] Yeah, that looks like my brother. We're twins.

[00:19:24] So he kind of sort of looks like me, but it was probably the beginnings of it.

[00:19:29] You know, yeah, just to get the purportions sort of right.

[00:19:32] So, yeah.

[00:19:33] Now, I got to say one that

[00:19:37] always looked the most realistic to me was this one.

[00:19:41] Snake by. Oh, yeah.

[00:19:43] Oh, yeah. Thanks.

[00:19:45] This one. I just that was about a thousand little scales.

[00:19:49] That's when I knew I was testing myself.

[00:19:51] I was like, oh, God, I got to do scales.

[00:19:53] And you know, I have that one, too.

[00:19:56] Yeah. All the scale.

[00:19:58] That's back in the day when I did mind doing tedious things now,

[00:20:01] like I avoid it, like the plague.

[00:20:04] Funny as an artist, you get lazier when you get older.

[00:20:08] Mm hmm. Absolutely cool.

[00:20:10] Nothing wrong with that, you know, putting the time.

[00:20:16] One of my other favorites, just because I just

[00:20:19] I love like movie theater sort of thing.

[00:20:22] So I really love Invaders on the big screen with the key.

[00:20:27] What is it about that movie that I mean, about that?

[00:20:30] Like, I find that book most commonly for some reason,

[00:20:35] like from the Give Yourself Black Spines, like every time,

[00:20:38] like I find a stack of Goosebumps books somewhere in the wild,

[00:20:43] there's always like and if there's the Give Yourself Goosebumps,

[00:20:45] I always find that one.

[00:20:46] I don't know what it is.

[00:20:47] Like even just recently, I picked up another copy

[00:20:49] and I'm like something about like Australia and animals.

[00:20:53] Like I'm always finding like the Australian.

[00:20:56] It took me only like 14 years to find this book.

[00:20:59] You could just find them in a big pile anywhere.

[00:21:02] Oh, my God.

[00:21:03] We got all the dangerous animals and things.

[00:21:05] And Nick and I always have this funny thing

[00:21:07] because like there's a lot of merchandise with cuddles, the hamster in Australia.

[00:21:10] And I'm like, because it looks like the Tasmanian devil's something

[00:21:13] like weird rodent creature.

[00:21:15] And we got so much of that in Australia.

[00:21:17] So they probably thought, oh, put that

[00:21:19] creepy looking Tasmanian devil hamster on everything because

[00:21:27] it's our Australian lifestyle.

[00:21:30] Yeah, I'll have to look that up.

[00:21:31] I don't think I've ever seen that. That's interesting.

[00:21:34] Really quick.

[00:21:35] I want to ask because we were talking earlier about like, you know, the process

[00:21:40] since these books were coming out, like every month, was there ever

[00:21:43] like time crunch when it came to like making them?

[00:21:46] It always seemed like there was.

[00:21:50] And I can't imagine, but I guess they I probably did them

[00:21:54] within a week turnaround and that sounds like

[00:22:00] now it sounds like too much time, because when I was researching this

[00:22:04] after you guys asked me about coming on here, I had the I called my agent

[00:22:09] who I'm still working with today.

[00:22:11] And I said, how did this all come about?

[00:22:13] And he said he kind of reminded me of what happened.

[00:22:16] And they were looking for somebody, like I said, to do digital art.

[00:22:20] And he was a friend of a friend of mine.

[00:22:23] And she said, well, I know this guy who's been doing some

[00:22:25] Marvel cards for us.

[00:22:27] He'd be great for this.

[00:22:29] And my agent said that I he called me on a Friday.

[00:22:33] No, a Thursday.

[00:22:34] And he said, this is something you're interested in.

[00:22:37] And I said, yeah, that sounds good.

[00:22:39] And he said, well, I kind of need a sample.

[00:22:41] And I said, sure, no problem.

[00:22:44] And he said that on Monday, I gave him two complete samples

[00:22:47] and books that I don't even know what they were.

[00:22:50] But he took them into the art director and they loved them.

[00:22:54] And that's how I got the job.

[00:22:55] So I used to work really fast back then.

[00:22:58] So I would imagine it probably.

[00:23:02] Maybe three or four days, I think, because I remember doing sketches.

[00:23:06] I would do pencil sketches and then I would either fax them.

[00:23:09] I don't think it was email.

[00:23:10] It's probably fax back in the day.

[00:23:13] And then I'd get approval from whatever they wanted.

[00:23:15] And then once the pencil sketch was done, I'd start working on the color.

[00:23:18] So it probably took about a week.

[00:23:19] But yeah, I seem to remember them taking like, oh, we need this

[00:23:23] in four days, you know, kind of a thing.

[00:23:25] So there were times where there was crunching like that.

[00:23:28] For sure. Because now you end up keeping the sketches after you did that or?

[00:23:34] I don't have I have none of that.

[00:23:36] And I'm kicking myself because I wish because we've moved,

[00:23:40] let's see, from San Francisco to L.A., from L.A.

[00:23:43] to Redondo from Redondo here.

[00:23:45] So like three times and I've been hauling these boxes of my old work around.

[00:23:50] And I have a feeling that at one point it just all that stuff

[00:23:53] just disappeared and got thrown away, which is a drag,

[00:23:56] because it would be really cool to see all that stuff again.

[00:24:00] Yeah. But I was in the.

[00:24:04] Yeah, I was in the garage the other day and I found a box of some CDs.

[00:24:09] You guys know what CD's are?

[00:24:10] I'm just kidding.

[00:24:14] Long as they ate track.

[00:24:16] Then you might lose these two.

[00:24:19] For sure.

[00:24:20] So I found a box of some CDs and some of them said,

[00:24:23] give yourself goosebumps on them.

[00:24:24] So what I'm going to do is I'll go through them and if I can even

[00:24:28] like, I'm assuming I can open some of the files

[00:24:30] and if I find any of the sketches or whatever, I'll send them over to you guys.

[00:24:33] You can see what they look like in sketch form before they went into

[00:24:38] into, you know, final form.

[00:24:40] That'd be awesome.

[00:24:41] No, that'd be really awesome.

[00:24:43] I'll I'll go back there and see if I can find any information

[00:24:47] I can give you guys. I'll I'll send over to you for sure.

[00:24:49] Oh, thank you.

[00:24:51] That's really cool. I really appreciate that.

[00:24:53] That's awesome.

[00:24:53] Did Scholastic at least send you the books as they were coming out?

[00:24:58] No, I didn't buy them.

[00:25:02] Man, they were stealing the actual...

[00:25:05] I have a receipt in here.

[00:25:06] One of these books has a receipt in it and

[00:25:10] I don't know. Yeah, no, I had to buy them, unfortunately.

[00:25:13] And some of the some of the publishers used to send.

[00:25:18] They were

[00:25:19] they were like the cover flat and they call I think they called them flat.

[00:25:24] And I used to get them from a lot of different publishers, but never from

[00:25:28] Scholastic.

[00:25:29] Like I was telling you, what did I do?

[00:25:31] Replica and some of the other books like that.

[00:25:34] They would send me flats and then they'd send me like 30 of them.

[00:25:37] I'm like, what am I going to do with all this stuff?

[00:25:39] Because it just backs up after a while.

[00:25:41] But I had no idea at the time.

[00:25:44] I mean, I knew Goosebumps was big back then.

[00:25:46] But the other stuff, I had no idea how big it was going to be

[00:25:49] or how it would have a fan following like you guys loved them so much.

[00:25:53] And at the time, it was just kind of like a job, you know?

[00:25:57] But I did.

[00:25:58] I did love the Goosebumps.

[00:25:59] And it was like I knew exactly what it was when I was

[00:26:03] offered the job.

[00:26:04] I was like, hey, I want to do that.

[00:26:05] So that's cool.

[00:26:07] Oh, yeah, because 98 by the thing that we do like to ask our guests,

[00:26:10] like if they knew what Goosebumps was before

[00:26:13] they ended up getting the job, whether they're actors or whatever.

[00:26:17] Because it's interesting, because most of them didn't.

[00:26:19] So, yeah, I remember even when the show was big.

[00:26:23] Yeah, right. Wow.

[00:26:25] Yeah, I remember I knew I knew the line.

[00:26:27] I didn't know give yourself Goosebumps.

[00:26:29] I'd never heard of that.

[00:26:30] He was like I remember talking to my agent, Peter, and I said,

[00:26:34] so is this is this the Goosebumps?

[00:26:35] And he's like, they're called give yourself Goosebumps.

[00:26:37] I'm like, what is that?

[00:26:38] And I never understood the choose your own ending thing.

[00:26:42] That's what a cool idea that was.

[00:26:43] I was like, wow, that is really ripping.

[00:26:45] I like, wow, really cool to be able to read and then

[00:26:49] choose your own adventure. That was really neat.

[00:26:51] And so I didn't know that line at the time,

[00:26:55] but I had heard of Goosebumps stuff.

[00:26:58] And I was like I said, I was probably in my 30s when I was doing this.

[00:27:02] Funny thing is that now whenever I like sometimes

[00:27:06] when I talk to someone about like Goosebumps, they'll be like,

[00:27:09] oh, I remember those, but they won't really remember like any specific titles.

[00:27:13] But some I swear most of them have been like, I really remember.

[00:27:17] I really like those choose your own adventure ones.

[00:27:20] It's like for some reason, those were more like, I don't know.

[00:27:23] I guess those just got into the hands of more people back then.

[00:27:27] They're more collectible.

[00:27:29] That's that's one thing that you should know, actually, is that

[00:27:32] these have become some of these black spine books,

[00:27:35] particularly some of the special editions have become some of the most

[00:27:37] desirable, collectible, most expensive Goosebumps books to collect now.

[00:27:43] Even Isaiah still doesn't have a full set and

[00:27:46] Nick still missed it before.

[00:27:47] Like so close to a full set.

[00:27:50] This is one of my favorite covers is Trick or Trapped,

[00:27:53] but this one is roughly like somewhere in the hundred hundred and twenty dollar range.

[00:27:59] Holy smokes.

[00:28:00] Depending on condition, it could be a little less, I guess.

[00:28:03] But that's about the average.

[00:28:05] My story with my copy was that I found it in a Facebook

[00:28:09] listing with like three other random books for five bucks.

[00:28:13] And it was like I drove 40 minutes from my house

[00:28:16] just so I could get this and say I had it bought for five bucks.

[00:28:21] So proud of myself.

[00:28:22] You got lucky, man.

[00:28:23] That's like, yeah, like that's just pure luck, like honestly.

[00:28:27] But sometimes like people will be just selling a bulk of Goosebumps books

[00:28:31] and they're all just one price and they just they don't look up

[00:28:34] what some of them are individually valued at.

[00:28:36] And yes, some of them are worth just a fortune.

[00:28:38] Now it's crazy.

[00:28:39] And particularly the.

[00:28:41] Especially the later ones like return to terror tower and stuff.

[00:28:44] Oh, yeah.

[00:28:45] It's expensive, man.

[00:28:46] Now I got to ask, what is that supposed to?

[00:28:50] Is that like a orangutan man?

[00:28:55] You know, I don't know, man.

[00:28:57] It's like a skull.

[00:29:00] Skull monkey.

[00:29:00] I don't even know what monkey.

[00:29:03] I guess so.

[00:29:04] Maybe it was like, I don't know.

[00:29:06] I can't remember.

[00:29:07] But that's bizarre.

[00:29:08] This one, I have this one.

[00:29:09] This is one of the original ones that I have.

[00:29:11] So this one you guys were talking about returning to the church.

[00:29:13] Yep. Yep.

[00:29:14] Yeah. Personal favorite. Personal favorite.

[00:29:17] This is another one.

[00:29:18] This. Oh, go ahead.

[00:29:20] No, this is another one that's actually pretty hard to find.

[00:29:23] In fact, actually my copy I had to buy for 60 bucks.

[00:29:26] Oh, wow.

[00:29:27] But this is one of my favorite covers just because I love

[00:29:30] the original terror tower that Tim did.

[00:29:33] And I love just like the executioner coming down the stairs.

[00:29:37] And I mean, this is pretty close to like Tim's design for that.

[00:29:42] I think the hood is just a little more black,

[00:29:44] but I always just love this one in the moon in the background.

[00:29:47] Oh, no, that's not the moon.

[00:29:48] That's the axe.

[00:29:50] Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:51] It kind of looks like things.

[00:29:53] Thanks. Thanks.

[00:29:55] Yeah, that's definitely the you can see the

[00:29:59] comic books coming through in that one, for sure.

[00:30:03] But this one had a very menacing look to it.

[00:30:06] Which was really great for for the executioner.

[00:30:09] And he's both. Thanks.

[00:30:13] Yeah, there's an interesting story behind this.

[00:30:16] And I and I I wish I could find the mag someone.

[00:30:20] There's a magazine that did an article on me about doing these covers.

[00:30:25] And you probably guys are kind of kill me because I can't remember

[00:30:28] what it's called, but I'm going to look for it.

[00:30:30] And this was in one of their magazines that they did.

[00:30:34] And it was like a how to.

[00:30:35] So it was the sketch and she had the

[00:30:39] the editor of the magazine at the time interviewed me.

[00:30:42] And then she had me send her progress in progress kind of files.

[00:30:48] And I cannot find it, but I'm going to look.

[00:30:50] That's another thing I'm going to look for.

[00:30:51] And if I find it for you guys, I'll send it to you for sure.

[00:30:53] But it was a breakdown of the steps of how I was painting these at the time.

[00:30:58] So I will look for that.

[00:31:00] But it was it was this this actual cover was in the was in that book.

[00:31:04] No, that's one magazine.

[00:31:06] Now, it's it's great.

[00:31:08] I love when you got to do like you got to do a lot of.

[00:31:12] Yeah, what's that?

[00:31:13] Definitely. You got to do like a lot of the like

[00:31:18] you got to bring back a lot of the original books, like as sequels almost.

[00:31:22] So like the body.

[00:31:24] Yeah, there it is.

[00:31:25] I didn't even have to say it.

[00:31:27] You know, I read my mind.

[00:31:29] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[00:31:30] That's another bizarre one.

[00:31:32] I was like crap.

[00:31:33] And that one, I would assume they sent me

[00:31:37] the originals they must have.

[00:31:39] I don't know what the original looks like, but

[00:31:42] it must have been something that it's similar.

[00:31:44] Yeah. So this is the original.

[00:31:46] Sure, Isaiah has it within reach.

[00:31:48] This is the original series 2000.

[00:31:50] So basically, oh, that's cool.

[00:31:52] It's pretty similar overall.

[00:31:54] The this one looks a little more.

[00:31:56] You can kind of see it's a little more like muscular.

[00:32:00] It looks a little more like space man ish.

[00:32:02] But this one just looks like we are like alien creature.

[00:32:06] Oh, I like that.

[00:32:07] But the face of the thing, the face is pretty close to the Tim Jacobis.

[00:32:11] What's the saying? Yeah, they must have.

[00:32:14] They must have shown them to me.

[00:32:15] I wish I could remember.

[00:32:17] I feel bad that I can't remember everything about it.

[00:32:19] But this was how the this book,

[00:32:22] the second one ended, is that there's the discovery of a blue

[00:32:26] body squeezer, and then that's what appears on the cover of this one.

[00:32:30] So it's very much like a sequel.

[00:32:32] Cool. It's just pretty.

[00:32:33] It turned blue. It's like Monster.

[00:32:34] It's like Monster Blood.

[00:32:35] It went from green to blue.

[00:32:37] Like what?

[00:32:40] Even the body squeezers went from green to blue.

[00:32:43] I don't know what was with Stein and doing that.

[00:32:45] But now this was my most recent addition to the collection.

[00:32:48] And this was always just one I just loved.

[00:32:51] And it's elevator to nowhere.

[00:32:53] Oh, my gosh.

[00:32:57] That's actually very iconic.

[00:32:58] It's very iconic that one.

[00:32:59] It's so like you don't know, like what is he like trying to escape

[00:33:04] the elevator? Is he trying to get in?

[00:33:06] Like it's like it's really odd and eerie for some reason.

[00:33:10] But I love it.

[00:33:11] I just I think for that one, they actually said

[00:33:15] he's trying to get out of the elevator.

[00:33:17] And for some reason or other, that looks a lot like a dock

[00:33:20] from back to the future.

[00:33:22] I don't know why.

[00:33:23] I don't know if that was in my mind at the time.

[00:33:26] And I was kind of trying to make his eyes bug out of his head.

[00:33:29] And then he's got these four red hands that are just it's just like

[00:33:33] that's crazy down.

[00:33:34] Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:35] I don't know where that is.

[00:33:37] I think he's supposed to be getting out like he's stuck in the elevator,

[00:33:39] like the doors can crash.

[00:33:41] You know?

[00:33:41] Mm hmm. Yeah, it's scary.

[00:33:43] It's like that's what I got from it,

[00:33:45] because it looks like above his head is the outside of the.

[00:33:48] Oh, yeah. The floor levels.

[00:33:50] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:51] And this was one of my stories.

[00:33:52] That was the first one I found actually when I was a kid.

[00:33:56] Because like I grew up in the early 2000s,

[00:33:58] like Nick got to grow up during the hype of all the goosebumps.

[00:34:02] I kind of caught the tail end.

[00:34:03] And I remember that was the first black spine

[00:34:07] choose your own adventure that actually found and funny story.

[00:34:09] I remember like it was that it was at the book fest.

[00:34:12] And I remember I went to buy it and the lady at the counter was like,

[00:34:15] you look too young, you shouldn't be reading this.

[00:34:17] But she was really like, you shouldn't be reading this.

[00:34:20] You're too young for that.

[00:34:21] And I was like, it's my money.

[00:34:23] I will spend on it what I want.

[00:34:25] And she was like trying to tell me, like, no, you shouldn't be reading this.

[00:34:28] Like, all right, whatever, lady.

[00:34:30] Do you want to meet and maybe especially that cover, because it was kind of like,

[00:34:33] you know, it looks like he's getting squished and eyes popping out.

[00:34:36] So she probably looked at it as like it's evil.

[00:34:39] You shouldn't be

[00:34:40] am I going to screw your mind?

[00:34:44] Yeah.

[00:34:47] I remember that

[00:34:48] you said

[00:34:52] Dashing the holy water on you.

[00:34:54] Be gone, be gone.

[00:34:55] It's like it felt like that, you know, at the time, you know, and I was only

[00:35:00] I would have only been because this would have been 2001.

[00:35:02] So at that point with Goosebumps, it was very much like

[00:35:06] the most recent books that were available at the Scholastic Book Fairs

[00:35:10] were the Choose Your Own Adventures series 2000s.

[00:35:13] Like that was what you know, I grew up at a time when I could get these

[00:35:16] books like cheap and no, you know, the craze was kind of dying.

[00:35:20] And I think that's how I got lucky to get so many of them.

[00:35:24] And everyone's like, how did you get them all?

[00:35:25] I'm like, well, I was buying them when not many people really wanted them,

[00:35:29] I guess, you know, so.

[00:35:32] Well, it's just incredible.

[00:35:33] Probably in the last five years, maybe.

[00:35:36] Well, like just how things like and I think it's just because it's

[00:35:40] really reached that nostalgic point for people.

[00:35:43] You know, we had the 30th anniversary of the book

[00:35:46] starting not too long ago, and next year is the 30th anniversary

[00:35:50] for the show. Then Disney Plus started doing their show.

[00:35:52] So I mean, there's just been kind of a resurgence, you know,

[00:35:55] because they're still making books.

[00:35:56] They're still doing board games and products and merch and and everything.

[00:36:01] And it's quite incredible that's stood the,

[00:36:05] you know, test of time given the fact that Harry Potter almost killed it.

[00:36:09] So yeah, right.

[00:36:11] Yeah, that's good.

[00:36:12] Yeah, Harry Potter, man.

[00:36:13] So here we have the there was a book that I think they had you do

[00:36:18] the art for, but it wasn't released.

[00:36:21] Yep. Yeah.

[00:36:22] Oh, yeah.

[00:36:22] I get questions about that a lot.

[00:36:26] Yeah, that was it was the Penguin one, I think.

[00:36:29] Wasn't that the one?

[00:36:30] Yeah. And you guys, I guess you can find out.

[00:36:35] I'm sorry. Yeah, the photo of the Penguin art's out there.

[00:36:39] So it's kind of like, you know, was this

[00:36:42] well, you know, I don't know what happened.

[00:36:45] I don't know. I was asking my agent, he was like, how did this all land?

[00:36:48] And he he he couldn't really remember, but they did send me the

[00:36:54] the art request for it and I did it.

[00:36:57] And oh, yeah, that's it.

[00:37:00] Yeah, yeah. Yep.

[00:37:02] And it was like these angry Emperor penguins.

[00:37:05] I do remember that.

[00:37:05] And I was like, wow, that seems really kind of bizarre, even, you know,

[00:37:08] for what we've been doing up to that point.

[00:37:10] And so so, yeah, so that was that's

[00:37:16] I wish I knew.

[00:37:17] I wish I knew what the reason was.

[00:37:19] And I like I said, I'm going to look for that CD.

[00:37:21] And if I can find it, I'll get you guys some of the the artwork.

[00:37:25] And maybe there's some sort of

[00:37:27] in that file, I can find some sort of reason

[00:37:31] what they why they didn't finish it. But I don't.

[00:37:33] Well, the most the biggest theory of them all is that it was just

[00:37:38] that series was just a casualty of

[00:37:41] some of the legal troubles that were going on at the time.

[00:37:44] There's a we won't get into a whole discussion about it,

[00:37:47] but there was essentially in the late 90s, like just before the 2000s hit,

[00:37:52] there was a legal dispute between Parachute Press, Scholastic and R.L.

[00:37:56] Stein. Basically, the result came that every series

[00:38:02] just kind of halted because Stein didn't renew his contract.

[00:38:06] So it just kind of stopped everything.

[00:38:08] And but there was yeah, there was all those

[00:38:11] planned books that were unreleased, and that's one that gets talked about.

[00:38:15] A lot was the forty third.

[00:38:17] Give yourself goosebumps with the penguins. Yeah.

[00:38:21] Which stings. We don't even know what the name of it may be.

[00:38:24] Maybe for the 30th anniversary of the Chooser and Adventure books,

[00:38:29] which for when you started doing them in 98, they will release it.

[00:38:34] Oh, that would be cool, wouldn't it?

[00:38:35] Mm hmm. Yeah, they just did.

[00:38:37] I know. I'm pretty sure I got paid for it.

[00:38:40] So, you know, they own it.

[00:38:42] So they can do whatever they want to.

[00:38:44] Yeah. I promise you guys, I'll look for any information I can find about that.

[00:38:50] But I don't remember what it was called either.

[00:38:53] I wish I did.

[00:38:54] Maybe I can find something if I can.

[00:38:55] I'll let you know for somebody called it angry feet.

[00:39:00] Angry feet. Yeah.

[00:39:05] Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

[00:39:07] Oh, God. What?

[00:39:08] Everyone think of a title, Nick. What would you call it?

[00:39:11] Oh, man on the spot.

[00:39:12] I don't know. Angry Feet's pretty good.

[00:39:14] I mean, it's pretty good.

[00:39:16] Yeah, it was so it was so revolutionary.

[00:39:20] It predicted the movie six years prior.

[00:39:27] Oh, my God.

[00:39:27] Oh, and here we have another agree to Monster House.

[00:39:31] This is what I call this.

[00:39:32] You know, it's one. Yeah, I love this.

[00:39:34] I love that. Yeah, I like that.

[00:39:35] That's a great cover.

[00:39:37] That's one of my favorites of yours, actually.

[00:39:39] Yeah, Craig, that's a great one.

[00:39:41] Yeah. I used to always think about that, actually, when I looked at that book.

[00:39:44] Is that did that predict Monster House by any chance like the movie?

[00:39:47] But I was. Yeah.

[00:39:50] Well, I don't I don't remember where this stuff came from.

[00:39:54] I just was drawing stuff that scared me.

[00:39:57] So I guess but yeah, this does kind of look like the Monster

[00:40:01] House movie does in a kind of thing.

[00:40:02] Yeah, like with the boards for teeth and the mouth.

[00:40:06] Yeah, eyes are like the windows.

[00:40:08] It's it's very much like the movie.

[00:40:12] I was reading a lot of Stephen King back then.

[00:40:15] There was a was it the Dark Tower series?

[00:40:19] There's one if you guys know Stephen King, but there was one scene

[00:40:23] where the house actually comes alive and tries to eat the kid or something like that.

[00:40:27] And maybe that's what was sticking in my mind at the time.

[00:40:31] Like boards for teeth and things like that.

[00:40:34] Mm hmm. It's a really cool design.

[00:40:36] I mean, just the idea of a living house is like

[00:40:39] I mean, that's why the movie worked is it's a great concept for a movie.

[00:40:44] And yeah, but that's a really good piece.

[00:40:47] I have nightmares still about houses.

[00:40:50] I don't know why it's one of these things.

[00:40:51] It's like they're always big nightmares, but I'll have dreams where

[00:40:55] I'm in a haunted house of some kind, and I'm not really big into ghosts or anything.

[00:40:58] But for some reason, it always comes up into my dreams somehow or another.

[00:41:04] Yeah, they can. Maybe that's where that came from.

[00:41:06] Put in the right context, ghosts can be scary.

[00:41:10] It's just especially when it gets to like zombie territory

[00:41:13] where it's done all the time, then it starts to be right.

[00:41:16] Yeah. You know, that's how it was when those paranormal

[00:41:19] activity movies were coming out was like, you on like,

[00:41:23] we got to like the sixth and seventh one is like, OK, it's more of the same.

[00:41:26] Good. Got it.

[00:41:29] Yeah. Cashing and cashing.

[00:41:32] I love this one.

[00:41:34] It's only a nightmare.

[00:41:36] Oh, yeah. Wow.

[00:41:37] It was checkerboard.

[00:41:39] Frankly enough, as that book comes up, as we're talking about Craig, my mares.

[00:41:45] That's what he woke up to.

[00:41:52] No, it's just something about these covers, because like

[00:41:54] I remember seeing these ones a lot more than like the original 62 at the time,

[00:42:00] especially because it was like that early 2000s.

[00:42:03] And these were just so recently, even if I went to like an Angus and Robeson,

[00:42:06] which was like our major bookstore here, you know,

[00:42:10] you go to the Goosebumps section and they would have pretty much just

[00:42:14] series 2000 and the Choose Your Own Adventure.

[00:42:17] They might have like two or three of the original 62.

[00:42:19] But already at that point, you had to go to like second hand

[00:42:22] bookstores and like markets and things to find

[00:42:28] the original 62 books, because we were already into the series 2000s.

[00:42:31] We were well and truly into the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

[00:42:34] And yeah, these ones just stick out to me so much because

[00:42:39] that was the most recent thing out

[00:42:42] while I was, you know, reading Goosebumps, buying the books like this was

[00:42:46] they were everywhere at this point, you know?

[00:42:47] And I just think, man, if I knew what I knew back then,

[00:42:50] like I would have just bought them all.

[00:42:52] Like, I just bought like multiple, I do buy multiple copies,

[00:42:55] but I would have bought multiple copies back then because, man,

[00:42:58] like they are so collectible some of them now.

[00:43:01] And half the time when people message me, they go like,

[00:43:03] Do you have book number 37?

[00:43:04] Do you have book number 40?

[00:43:05] Like a spare copy?

[00:43:06] And I'm just like, yeah, I'm sorry, I don't.

[00:43:08] And even if I did, it would go to my Goosebumps Krewbros first.

[00:43:13] Now, this is a great one.

[00:43:14] I love this green fur. Oh, yeah.

[00:43:17] I like that the fur is not on every single part of his body.

[00:43:20] It's like very spotty.

[00:43:23] Yeah, it's like he's got mange or something.

[00:43:26] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:27] It's really biting the magic stick in.

[00:43:30] Oh, that's so funny.

[00:43:31] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:33] You know, I see these now and I'm like, what in the world was I thinking of?

[00:43:36] And I hope that it was somebody that said gave me some sort of direction.

[00:43:40] But who knows, man?

[00:43:42] I don't know. This one is awesome.

[00:43:45] That was a good one.

[00:43:46] Oh, the cake.

[00:43:47] That was very gross.

[00:43:49] Like all the bugs and the rat and the whole like instead of like the candles,

[00:43:54] the candles are just a blaze.

[00:43:58] Fire.

[00:43:58] It's like fire.

[00:44:00] I love that one.

[00:44:01] The little spiders and it's got like a little rodent on it too.

[00:44:04] What even is that?

[00:44:05] It's a mouse, right?

[00:44:06] A rat.

[00:44:07] A rat or rat mouse thing.

[00:44:09] Yeah, like see that.

[00:44:12] I mean, this puts the cover.

[00:44:13] That would be another one that was probably commonly found in Florida.

[00:44:16] There's like little flies in there too.

[00:44:18] It's yeah, it's pretty nasty.

[00:44:22] Oh, man.

[00:44:22] You know what?

[00:44:23] Like that was one of the books that OK, this is pretty naughty,

[00:44:27] but that was one of the books that I borrowed from the library

[00:44:30] and I just I failed to return.

[00:44:32] So when they sent that little fine in the mail, I was like,

[00:44:36] yeah, I'll just pay for that.

[00:44:38] How many books did you take from the library and never returned?

[00:44:42] This is not going to close that information at this time.

[00:44:45] It was I feel like they're going to knock on my door,

[00:44:47] but there was there was Ghost in the Mirror was one of them.

[00:44:51] And and yeah, scary.

[00:44:53] Yeah, that one as well with the birthday cake.

[00:44:56] I think I'm pretty sure those were the only two, but I remember

[00:44:59] I was like young and I remember, right?

[00:45:01] You know, I remember borrowing them and I couldn't find

[00:45:04] like these were certain ones I just couldn't find.

[00:45:06] And I remember like, I'll just borrow it.

[00:45:08] Eventually, they're going to ask me to pay for it.

[00:45:10] I was just like, yeah, it is bad.

[00:45:12] That was a good guy was a little kid, man.

[00:45:14] I was like seven. Leave me alone.

[00:45:17] Well, how about seven years in the slammer? Boom.

[00:45:21] What if they did come knocking on my door and being like

[00:45:26] always later?

[00:45:27] Your local library is watching this now.

[00:45:31] There'll be like that.

[00:45:32] Go back to all the footage of when I like borrowed the books out.

[00:45:36] Oh, my God.

[00:45:37] It makes me think like, I don't know if anybody here

[00:45:39] watched Married with Children like I watch it almost on the regular,

[00:45:42] but there was an episode Al didn't return

[00:45:46] the little engine that could to the library and you know, the two thousand dollars

[00:45:50] in the library and still working there.

[00:45:54] Oh, geez.

[00:45:56] By now.

[00:46:00] That's going to be you, Bjorn.

[00:46:01] You're going to go back to that library.

[00:46:02] It's the same library.

[00:46:03] The fines we pay.

[00:46:05] Well, my dad paid the fine. He was like, what's this?

[00:46:07] I remember the day we got it in the mail and he was like,

[00:46:10] what's this book that you owe money for?

[00:46:12] Like, and I'm just like, oh, yeah, I borrowed it.

[00:46:15] I don't know what happened. I lost it.

[00:46:17] I couldn't find it. I think I left it somewhere at school

[00:46:18] and he's like, I have to pay fifteen dollars now.

[00:46:21] Like, oh, man, I still remember that.

[00:46:24] Yeah, you know, I do.

[00:46:27] And I'll get a dollar.

[00:46:28] He knows. And I was kind of just like,

[00:46:31] I'm sorry, Dad.

[00:46:32] And then I kind of went back to my room was like, hey, hey, hey.

[00:46:38] That was the day you grew your little devil hordes like in the curtain.

[00:46:42] I was the Tasmanian devil.

[00:46:45] I was another goofy one.

[00:46:47] Juggling clowns, juggling skulls.

[00:46:51] Juggling the skulls.

[00:46:52] Oh, my God. I love that.

[00:46:54] I know that.

[00:46:55] That's a good special edition one, too.

[00:46:59] Yeah.

[00:47:00] Yeah, the special edition ones.

[00:47:02] I really they tell you to do anything different with those

[00:47:04] compared to the other ones you'd already done.

[00:47:07] Not that I recall.

[00:47:10] I don't even think they call them special editions back then or maybe

[00:47:14] maybe I guess I think they would have just told me the name.

[00:47:18] And I probably didn't say anything about doing something special, but

[00:47:23] not that I recall.

[00:47:24] No, many of these weren't that different.

[00:47:27] Some of them were like just about the same.

[00:47:30] I know one of them had like

[00:47:33] there was like twice as many endings, I think.

[00:47:35] So you'd have like, well, like instead of one prompt,

[00:47:38] you'd have like two on each page.

[00:47:41] I don't remember which one it is.

[00:47:42] I got to find it now.

[00:47:44] But it was like that was at least where I saw

[00:47:48] I was kind of where like the special stuff ended

[00:47:52] because it was just kind of the same.

[00:47:54] I'm wondering.

[00:47:54] I have this.

[00:47:55] This is one of my favorite ones.

[00:47:57] Oh, yeah, the dinosaur.

[00:47:59] I love that dinosaur.

[00:48:00] Yeah, that was one.

[00:48:02] That was.

[00:48:02] Yeah, I really enjoyed that one.

[00:48:04] That was that was kind of fun to be able to do the bones.

[00:48:08] And like I said, these these days I would go,

[00:48:10] oh, can I do this somehow or another without using bones?

[00:48:12] But back then it was it was a lot of fun.

[00:48:15] I really got a kick out of it.

[00:48:18] Oh, this one.

[00:48:18] Yeah, I remember that book actually one at the school

[00:48:22] a school thing.

[00:48:23] There was a I can't remember what it was,

[00:48:26] but there was a competition at the Scholastic Book Fair at my school.

[00:48:29] And it was I'm trying to remember.

[00:48:32] I think it was like a I think it might have been an Easter egg hunt

[00:48:36] or something.

[00:48:37] And I remember they hit all the eggs and they said if you find

[00:48:40] it was one specific one.

[00:48:42] God, I can't remember exactly what it was,

[00:48:45] but I think it was an Easter egg hunt.

[00:48:47] And yeah, they ended up giving us all like prizes.

[00:48:50] And we got to pick kind of like what book we wanted.

[00:48:53] And I was like, oh, that's so they gave me that book, that exact book.

[00:48:56] And I remember like, yeah, getting it from like it felt great

[00:48:59] because I like I want it, you know, so I was like, it was a good call.

[00:49:02] So you didn't have to steal that one.

[00:49:05] This one was.

[00:49:06] No, I didn't have to.

[00:49:08] Hey, I borrowed it.

[00:49:09] They were to return it and paid the fine.

[00:49:14] This one is interesting, actually, because not only is it

[00:49:17] the one that has like twice as many like choices on a book.

[00:49:21] So this one has like four instead of normal two.

[00:49:25] But it actually says there's only one good ending.

[00:49:28] All the other endings are bad.

[00:49:30] There's only one good ending.

[00:49:32] So it's like you got to really pick the good decisions

[00:49:35] if you want the good ending.

[00:49:37] So now you just do what every other kid did.

[00:49:39] And you're like, oh, I didn't mean to choose that ending.

[00:49:41] And you go back.

[00:49:43] Can I give it another try?

[00:49:47] Was there any was there any books that kind of like

[00:49:51] so like obviously, you know, you having that you want crunch time.

[00:49:53] Was there any that you kind of just sat there, looked at the

[00:49:56] the synopsis or the two sentences that gave you just went,

[00:50:00] how am I meant to do this?

[00:50:01] Like what was there any that kind of, you know, I think the

[00:50:06] the actually the werewolf one was I remember trying to figure out

[00:50:10] how in the world am I going to show because they wanted three werewolves,

[00:50:13] the one that's in your on your screen right now.

[00:50:16] And they wanted to show.

[00:50:18] And I'm like, and they wanted somebody up a tree.

[00:50:21] And I'm like, how in the world am I going to do that?

[00:50:23] That was one that I thought that was kind of like,

[00:50:25] I'm not sure how to do the perspective on this.

[00:50:28] So it's kind of weird because he's jumping up

[00:50:30] and there's two other ones behind him.

[00:50:33] And it's there's a lot in there and it's kind of dark.

[00:50:35] So that one, I remember, was being like,

[00:50:38] I'm not sure how to do this one.

[00:50:40] And then the boy with the you guys, and I'm sorry,

[00:50:43] I don't know the titles, but the one that the kids turning into the tree,

[00:50:47] that one was a weird one, too, because I was like, I don't know how

[00:50:52] how in the world I'm going to do that.

[00:50:53] But those kind of stand out to me as being.

[00:50:57] Yeah, that one that stand out to me is being like

[00:51:01] a little bit hard, hard or not harder, but just a little bit

[00:51:05] more interesting to think about.

[00:51:06] This one also was the guy with the

[00:51:09] my gosh, invaders from the big screen.

[00:51:14] That one was they said they wanted a crowd.

[00:51:17] And when you're an illustrator and if you are in a crunch

[00:51:19] and they say a crowd, you kind of go, oh, God, no.

[00:51:23] So I had to put people in and I tried to make them as

[00:51:28] as loose as possible.

[00:51:29] Now that I'm looking at it, they're pretty loose

[00:51:33] and not be distracting from the main thing that you want people to see.

[00:51:37] So that one was I remember going, oh, no, I got to put people in there

[00:51:41] and lots of people.

[00:51:42] So yeah, those are the things that stood out to me as being

[00:51:47] more difficult, I think, than than the others.

[00:51:50] Yeah.

[00:51:51] Are there any that you would like that you wish you could redo?

[00:51:55] Like, are there any that you maybe weren't as proud of?

[00:51:59] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:03] The one with the guy coming out of the elevator was kind of weird.

[00:52:07] I kind of wish I could do a better job of that.

[00:52:09] And then let's see.

[00:52:15] The I don't know.

[00:52:19] I really enjoyed all of them, actually, to be honest with you.

[00:52:23] We're trying to think about the ones that were

[00:52:25] that I would like to take a better stab at.

[00:52:29] No, I think that that one was the one that was a little bit

[00:52:32] a little bit odd.

[00:52:33] I remember thinking at the time he was almost too creepy.

[00:52:36] And then I wish I would have had more time to do a better job on that.

[00:52:40] Mm hmm. Oh, yeah.

[00:52:42] Yeah. It's a dark brown.

[00:52:44] Dark brown. Exactly.

[00:52:47] Make it a little less dark brown.

[00:52:49] Yeah, exactly.

[00:52:51] That was definitely one that I wouldn't mind taking another step.

[00:52:54] I would actually love it if they asked me to do more of these

[00:52:57] at some point in time.

[00:52:58] Oh, absolutely.

[00:52:59] That's kind of like you talked about before.

[00:53:02] Like, I really wish that they would go back to the artists

[00:53:04] who did the books before, because they're doing like

[00:53:07] re-releases of some books right now from days past.

[00:53:12] And the I think it's a missed opportunity to not reach out to ours.

[00:53:17] Hey, you know, we want you to do this book cover again,

[00:53:21] but just do it differently.

[00:53:22] Like, you know. Yeah.

[00:53:24] Yeah, it'd be fun to do just one or two.

[00:53:26] Those new unique covers for those books.

[00:53:30] Yeah. And my style has changed a lot.

[00:53:32] But I don't I mean, I'm sure I could do it in the same kind of genre,

[00:53:36] but hopefully they'd be drawing better now because a little bit better

[00:53:39] as an artist than I was back then.

[00:53:42] But yeah, so it would be I'd love it actually.

[00:53:46] I'd really, really get a kick out of it.

[00:53:48] This was another one of the first of these black spine ones

[00:53:51] that I got was Zombie School.

[00:53:54] Oh, yeah. OK.

[00:53:56] That's one that you guys asked me if I could redo that.

[00:53:59] I thought that's kind of one that I wasn't super crazy about how it came out.

[00:54:03] It's a little bit dead.

[00:54:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:10] Just like I would think I would do it differently.

[00:54:12] I remember struggling with trying to remember what because at the time

[00:54:15] I didn't have reference for a cafeteria at school.

[00:54:18] And I'm like, I don't remember what it looks like.

[00:54:20] So I remember just really trying to because there were no

[00:54:24] I couldn't go to a high school I should have and or grade school.

[00:54:28] And kind of go to their cafeteria.

[00:54:30] But that's what I remember from when I was in grade school

[00:54:33] of the metal kind of track where you put your tray down

[00:54:37] and they always serve you horrible food.

[00:54:39] So yeah, that one that wouldn't be funded.

[00:54:42] We do to do a better job.

[00:54:45] A little bit, a little bit more debt.

[00:54:47] Add some more detail, I guess. Yeah.

[00:54:49] Well, it's like, yeah, especially when you do zombies.

[00:54:52] Like they definitely did for like.

[00:54:55] I feel like every zombie book in the Goosebumps series

[00:54:58] like really went for the gore.

[00:55:00] I don't know if you ever saw Tim's Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls.

[00:55:04] Let me pull that out really quick.

[00:55:06] But this one is probably one of the most intense Goosebumps covers ever.

[00:55:13] Oh, wow. Oh, that's great.

[00:55:15] Yeah, that's wow. That's cool, though.

[00:55:17] I like it. Flesh coming off like the bones there.

[00:55:20] And then this guy's got his eye hanging out.

[00:55:23] It's like, oh, my gosh.

[00:55:24] It is. Wow.

[00:55:26] Yeah, I think at that time, he said that when they started

[00:55:31] 2000, they told him they wanted to do a little more dark and edgy.

[00:55:34] So they gave him a little more leeway.

[00:55:36] And I think that blood over into the give yourself because you even said

[00:55:40] like they told you pretty much just go nuts.

[00:55:43] Yeah, which is awesome.

[00:55:45] And I think that really showed in a lot of those later covers.

[00:55:48] I mean, the original ones that were done before are iconic for obvious reasons.

[00:55:52] But it's those later ones that really got that dark, edgy

[00:55:58] like color to the extreme.

[00:56:03] Exactly.

[00:56:04] It's a dream.

[00:56:04] The kids were getting kids were getting older, like, you know,

[00:56:07] the Goosebumps fan base.

[00:56:08] So they were trying to I think, you know, with the books as well,

[00:56:12] like even some of the series 2000 books, I remember like being very dark,

[00:56:17] you know, just reading them.

[00:56:19] And yeah, I think Tim mentioned about how,

[00:56:24] yeah, like as the kids were getting older and growing up,

[00:56:27] he was kind of trying to contrast that with the books,

[00:56:30] you know, for the kids getting older.

[00:56:31] But I think by that point, Harry Potter was already taking over.

[00:56:35] And it was like, yeah, it was all about a boy wizard at that point.

[00:56:39] But not for us.

[00:56:41] Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:44] We technically grew up in the era of Harry Potter.

[00:56:47] But, you know, coming, you know, I had older brothers and sisters

[00:56:51] and cousins and they all showed me Goosebumps.

[00:56:53] And I was like, yeah, but, you know, at the same time,

[00:56:56] you know, you couldn't really avoid it because it was all on the big screen.

[00:56:59] It was so big. But Isaiah is like, no,

[00:57:03] I don't know. I found a way to avoid it.

[00:57:09] There's only two covers in your mom's basement, you nerd.

[00:57:13] Yeah.

[00:57:14] There's only two covers left in my collection.

[00:57:17] There's before I get to those ones, there is one

[00:57:20] other special edition called Weekend at Poison Lake.

[00:57:24] And it has like the big like frog, dart frog like man coming out.

[00:57:29] Like it's like a big blue creature.

[00:57:31] Let me pull up the art really quick.

[00:57:34] I got the book in the room.

[00:57:37] It's one of the one of the rarer books to the final of the.

[00:57:42] Yeah, I've been lucky to find that three in the wild.

[00:57:45] But.

[00:57:47] Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that now.

[00:57:49] Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a little alien kind of thing

[00:57:53] going on there from the Xenomorph from Alien somehow or another

[00:57:56] made its way into that.

[00:57:58] The wet hands like and all that stuff.

[00:58:01] And it's coming out of that nasty poison lake.

[00:58:05] Yeah, yeah.

[00:58:09] I have nasty water there.

[00:58:10] They better get the clean in that.

[00:58:15] So at the time and as we talked about some Easter eggs

[00:58:20] with some of your art, was there ever anything that like you

[00:58:24] always try to put into your art kind of like a hidden detail for anybody?

[00:58:28] Or was it just.

[00:58:30] See, kind of on a whim when you did.

[00:58:33] Did not not really.

[00:58:35] I think I think what you're saying is probably more like it.

[00:58:39] It was just like, oh, I'll put something on the back wall.

[00:58:41] And I remember with the end of the twister of terror,

[00:58:47] putting stuff in the in the background flying around.

[00:58:50] And I'm trying to see if there's anything in there that that at the time

[00:58:54] I would have thought was pretty funny to put in there.

[00:58:56] But I'm looking there's a basketball ball.

[00:58:59] Oh, yeah, there are some things that are.

[00:59:02] There's a heart necklace

[00:59:04] from some reason or another in.

[00:59:07] In this, in the background, there's you can look,

[00:59:10] there's little stuff flying around in there.

[00:59:12] There are specific things at the time for some reason or another.

[00:59:15] Yeah, like the dog house that has like it says like Fido on it or something.

[00:59:19] Oh, yeah. And then there's a red slipper flying around in there, too.

[00:59:23] Somewhere is really small.

[00:59:24] A lot of Wizard of Oz's things in there is a broom.

[00:59:28] Yeah. Oh, yeah, there's a Kansas thing.

[00:59:31] Yeah. So that was that was the extent I now I mean, now if I was to do these again,

[00:59:35] I would just load them up with little bitty things that that you guys could find

[00:59:39] or that people would look for.

[00:59:42] But yeah, that's one of the great things about some of these covers

[00:59:46] and you look at them and it's things like that that you find.

[00:59:49] It's like, OK, well, what why was that put in there?

[00:59:52] Was there a specific reason?

[00:59:54] It's hard to put that in there.

[00:59:56] You know, it's it's one of the fun things

[01:00:00] to do with some of the art and the cover that we get.

[01:00:03] Yeah, that's I was trying to hide my my signature in there.

[01:00:08] Some weird place usually.

[01:00:10] Well, at the beginning, I was doing it like that.

[01:00:12] I was like putting it on on the sides of like in this one,

[01:00:17] which I think this was the first one that I did shop to drop dead.

[01:00:20] Yeah. Right.

[01:00:22] My signature is like kind of on the side.

[01:00:24] Yeah, it's down on the side, like way kind of buried back there.

[01:00:28] Almost like it's etched into the metal.

[01:00:31] Yeah, exactly.

[01:00:32] And then this one is in the in the bell of a checkout at the hotel.

[01:00:37] Just like, oh, yeah, yeah.

[01:00:40] Stuck down in there.

[01:00:41] And then it looks like I just started going straight right now.

[01:00:45] But this one has the most little things in there.

[01:00:47] I think we were talking about this got the stack of the books back here

[01:00:51] and then the poster and stuff like that.

[01:00:56] First winning contest.

[01:00:57] No, that was a great one.

[01:00:58] One of my one of my good friends.

[01:01:00] Yeah, one of my good friends favorite book covers of all time is literally that one.

[01:01:04] And yeah, he has about I think six or so.

[01:01:07] Oh, I remember what he said now.

[01:01:09] He has a few copies of it.

[01:01:11] Yeah, no, it's it's one of his absolute favorite ones.

[01:01:14] And I said to him, you should get it blown up

[01:01:16] and put it on you in a frame on the wall or something.

[01:01:19] He was like, oh, that sounds like a good idea.

[01:01:23] But yeah, it's a good one.

[01:01:26] Do you sell prints or anything of your artwork?

[01:01:29] I mean, I remember looking a long time ago, but doesn't mean it hasn't changed.

[01:01:34] I used to sell I did

[01:01:37] some Clive Cussler books a while back and

[01:01:41] enough you guys know who he is.

[01:01:43] But yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:01:45] I probably did about 10, maybe 10 of those

[01:01:50] covers and I was selling prints at the time.

[01:01:53] But I, you know, that's back when printers were relatively good.

[01:01:57] And now it seems like printer printers, these days are just terrible.

[01:02:00] And I and I'd have to look for like I said,

[01:02:03] I'm going to have to look for those original files

[01:02:05] because I don't have anything on any hard drives.

[01:02:07] I have to pull up the good old CDs

[01:02:10] and see if I can get pull up some of that stuff.

[01:02:13] But if I can find anything, I'll send you guys a high res

[01:02:17] price or high res images of everything.

[01:02:19] So I'd be so grateful.

[01:02:21] That'd be amazing.

[01:02:22] Another one I really like is

[01:02:25] character, the cave creatures.

[01:02:26] I love this bear coming out of the bear, like a ghost bear almost.

[01:02:32] Yeah, I think that I think I remember that was like

[01:02:37] like cave paintings and they wanted the cave painting kind of coming alive to bear.

[01:02:41] And this one, your signature is right down there.

[01:02:44] It's almost like it's etched into the like

[01:02:47] it's almost like it's drawn with the cave drawings.

[01:02:49] I like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[01:02:52] Yeah, yeah. I remember that one being weird because at the time

[01:02:56] I didn't have very much references of a bear's arms right there.

[01:03:00] They don't stick out like they're kind of short and stubby.

[01:03:03] And I remember drawing it going, it looks a little odd,

[01:03:06] but it's like, I guess that's the way they look.

[01:03:09] So I did the best I could.

[01:03:12] You do what you can.

[01:03:14] Yeah, it's one of my favorites personally.

[01:03:17] And then I got this one one night in Pane House, another dog.

[01:03:20] Oh, the Pomeranian.

[01:03:24] You know, we've all forgotten about that.

[01:03:28] Looks like the cat from Basil, the great mouse detective

[01:03:31] that eats the little mouse in the movie.

[01:03:34] It looks just like a cat.

[01:03:36] Oh, it's so yeah,

[01:03:39] it's very controversial scene in a kid's movie.

[01:03:42] So we know that the other dog was based on a dog that you had at the time.

[01:03:47] Is this one also based on a dog you had?

[01:03:49] No, that one.

[01:03:51] That was definitely they said it had to be a Pomeranian.

[01:03:53] And I'm like, OK, that's fine.

[01:03:55] So yeah, that was definitely Pomeranian.

[01:03:57] Yeah. Oh, man.

[01:04:00] Very I love the eyes on it because it's not like they're just

[01:04:03] just like they're just really, really big eyes.

[01:04:07] It's got like 600 teeth to it's like

[01:04:10] you put in that little mouth.

[01:04:12] I don't know.

[01:04:14] Nobody was counting teeth back then.

[01:04:16] When you like they you guys draw the creatures with like drool

[01:04:20] and all that, it's like just is like really like gross,

[01:04:24] like drool come out of their mouths.

[01:04:27] Because Tim did that to.

[01:04:28] I remember always made me think of like Blade Trinity

[01:04:31] because there was a Pomeranian in that film

[01:04:34] that they turned into like a vampire dog.

[01:04:37] So yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:04:39] Yeah, yeah, that connection.

[01:04:41] I was like, yeah, I was like, I've seen that dog before.

[01:04:45] I do remember that now. Oh, wow.

[01:04:47] And no, so we had

[01:04:51] I was going to say we've had several pugs.

[01:04:54] We're on our third pug.

[01:04:55] He's in this one's name, Zeus, and he's in my office.

[01:04:58] And every time I get I'm out walking with him, I kid you not.

[01:05:01] Somebody go for men in black, the dog men in black.

[01:05:04] I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:05:07] Same kind of thing.

[01:05:09] I will know.

[01:05:11] And I mean, like I said, these cover arts are just awesome.

[01:05:15] I can't even really put in the words like why I love these.

[01:05:19] I guess I just love because every single one is almost like a POV.

[01:05:23] It's like you're in the reader's perspective

[01:05:26] when you're looking at this or most goosebumps.

[01:05:29] So like covers sometimes didn't do that.

[01:05:32] Most of them did

[01:05:34] because sometimes putting yourself in the situation

[01:05:37] is like pretty interesting.

[01:05:39] It looks more threatening, like especially like, you know,

[01:05:41] going back to all day nightmare.

[01:05:44] I got like you're up in a tree with werewolves down there.

[01:05:48] I think that's creepy.

[01:05:49] Or, you know, I just that will always be my favorite one.

[01:05:53] Like a nasty and I think, yeah,

[01:05:56] like it was just trying to find the book like at the time, not knowing what,

[01:06:00] you know, because not having internet at the time,

[01:06:01] not knowing what it would even look like when I found number 42.

[01:06:05] All I knew was that there was 42.

[01:06:07] And I was like, OK.

[01:06:08] And I remember when I finally saw it, I was like, man,

[01:06:11] that is a sick cover and everything.

[01:06:13] I think it was just it all just was like that package deal of like finding it.

[01:06:16] And then when I did, I was like, well, that's automatically my favorite.

[01:06:19] Oh, that's cool.

[01:06:21] Well here, I could be the night of a thousand claws.

[01:06:24] That's it. That's my wife.

[01:06:27] And yeah, I do notice now it is like a calico like cat.

[01:06:32] Yeah, I really like the white calico markings.

[01:06:36] Yeah, definitely the cat at the time.

[01:06:39] And and yeah, I remember taking that.

[01:06:42] I wish I had that Polaroid that would be hilarious to see.

[01:06:46] Yeah, this is all back before digital cameras and anything like that.

[01:06:50] Phones and all that stuff.

[01:06:52] None of that was around.

[01:06:53] So I mean, just before.

[01:06:56] Yeah, right. Right before the right before the new millennium.

[01:06:59] I'm quite, you know, like it was a very interesting time

[01:07:03] from what I've been told, like that ninety nine ninety eight,

[01:07:05] ninety nine was like a very, you know, I mean, I was only like three, four.

[01:07:10] But from what I've been told, yeah, it was a very, very interesting time

[01:07:13] because it was right before technology just kind of went crazy.

[01:07:18] Yeah. Yeah, it was.

[01:07:21] The Internet was it was mostly was just dial ups.

[01:07:24] It was like incredibly slow.

[01:07:26] And then there was a thing called DSL.

[01:07:30] Right. Yeah, DSL.

[01:07:32] DSL came out and that was like, oh, you were you were living high on the hog

[01:07:37] if you had DSL.

[01:07:38] And then I think cable modems sort of kind of made their way in after that.

[01:07:42] And once the cable modems came around, it was like, OK, we could we could.

[01:07:45] This is something that will, you know, that's not too slow to use.

[01:07:49] So yeah, yeah.

[01:07:51] But you know what Netflix you got?

[01:07:53] I mean, not Netflix, what was it?

[01:07:54] Netscape. And there was a bunch of this stuff.

[01:07:57] And just kind of going through that, we lived in San Francisco at the time

[01:08:02] because of all the tech companies were were going nuts out there.

[01:08:06] And my wife was working for an ad agency.

[01:08:08] And so they were hiring people right and left to come in

[01:08:12] and take care of all these companies that were coming at,

[01:08:15] you know, just being invented, you know. And yeah,

[01:08:19] it was it was an interesting time to kind of see that whole transition

[01:08:22] of how communication changed in that little that little span of a few years.

[01:08:27] Wild crazy. Yeah, definitely.

[01:08:30] The same thing that change your artwork, because I mean, it's

[01:08:35] like we talked about, like you came in on the age of digital

[01:08:38] and that's why they picked you up.

[01:08:39] But now it's a I.

[01:08:41] Yeah. You know, a lot of artists don't really like a I because now,

[01:08:46] you know, companies are using a I and not actual people to do artwork anymore.

[01:08:51] Yeah. Well, if you were interested in any of the stuff

[01:08:54] or if you kind of stuck with no, I haven't.

[01:08:57] And what I was just talking to somebody the other day

[01:09:00] and I had heard from my agent again that one of the publishers was testing

[01:09:07] a cover that they had done.

[01:09:09] And they'll do this every once in a while.

[01:09:10] They'll, you know, have you commission something

[01:09:13] and then I'll test it with an audience to see how it does.

[01:09:15] And somebody in the audience, apparently who was testing said

[01:09:19] that looks like an AI generated image.

[01:09:21] And they found out that somebody in the company, they did it in house.

[01:09:26] The artwork was done in house that they had used an AI

[01:09:29] generated house of some some sort of a house, like a haunted house or something like that.

[01:09:34] And everybody freaked out.

[01:09:36] And so they're really against it.

[01:09:38] The publishers are really they're trying to avoid using it at all costs.

[01:09:42] So that made me feel good because when this all started

[01:09:44] coming out a couple of years ago or a year ago, I was like, oh no, here we go.

[01:09:49] You know, because it's hard enough getting to work these days anyway.

[01:09:52] But yeah, so so far I haven't.

[01:09:56] It hasn't been a problem with what we're doing with what I do.

[01:10:01] But yeah, I mean, I can see it coming along being being an issue.

[01:10:05] And just in general, as a creative person, you know,

[01:10:08] it's kind of cool to know that somebody made that a person made whatever,

[01:10:12] whether it's a song you're listening to or a book you're reading or art you're looking at.

[01:10:17] You know, I kind of it takes the soul out of it,

[01:10:20] literally when you don't have a person that's created it in my mind.

[01:10:24] My mind. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[01:10:28] Yeah. And you guys, you know, being a writer and stuff like that,

[01:10:33] my daughter is really good writer.

[01:10:34] And, you know, it's just it's nice to know that she's doing all of her college

[01:10:40] applications earlier this year and they have to write essays.

[01:10:44] And she's a really good writer.

[01:10:45] And it's kind of sad when I think about some of the essays to get into college

[01:10:49] or a lot of these kids are using AI and to write their their stuff.

[01:10:53] And it's like you got to compete with the computer now.

[01:10:56] So but hopefully it won't catch on.

[01:11:00] And I'm hoping anyway, you know, never, you know,

[01:11:03] it'll never replicate what, you know, a real person can do even digitally

[01:11:10] because everybody always talks about how I just can never seem to look right.

[01:11:14] There's a lot of people who can who can look at AI

[01:11:18] and or look at a piece are and say, like, that looks AI generated.

[01:11:23] So fortunately, people haven't quite lost your minds yet.

[01:11:28] Yeah, right. Exactly.

[01:11:30] But maybe maybe we'll get there at some point.

[01:11:33] Who knows? Hopefully not.

[01:11:34] Yeah, probably.

[01:11:36] I could see it getting better and better and better.

[01:11:38] But it's I still love the idea of like we were just talking about

[01:11:42] how somebody person created whatever you're enjoying.

[01:11:45] That's pretty cool. Mm hmm.

[01:11:48] And yeah, absolutely.

[01:11:50] It's like that's one of the reasons many of us got into Goosebumps

[01:11:53] in the first place was the cover art. You know, I mean, I

[01:11:58] I may have not read every single book that's been out there

[01:12:01] from all to give yourselves and and everything.

[01:12:04] I've read most of them so far, but I still collect them mostly for the covers.

[01:12:08] Like I collect the art.

[01:12:09] Most of my house is all art display.

[01:12:12] So it's for that display.

[01:12:16] Yeah, it's literally just how we most of us got started

[01:12:20] awesome. So without it conveying that

[01:12:24] emotion to us that we connected with, feeling what the artist did at the time.

[01:12:29] I mean, that's the whole point. Yeah.

[01:12:32] Yeah. And I mean, we talked a lot about it today, but I'm curious, like

[01:12:38] because you you worked with the give yourself Goosebumps

[01:12:40] and then once those ended, you unfortunately didn't do anything else

[01:12:44] with the series.

[01:12:46] But all these years later,

[01:12:48] I mean, like we talked about this already even before we started.

[01:12:52] It's just like this franchise has such a big fan base now.

[01:12:57] It's got such a cult following and you have kids who,

[01:13:02] you know, grew up with those books and are now adults

[01:13:05] and they're passing it on to their kids.

[01:13:08] I can imagine, you know, being a part of that is

[01:13:11] knowing that you had a part in all that was probably

[01:13:14] a pretty surreal experience.

[01:13:17] It is. And it's and it's an extreme honor to be able to have worked on something like that.

[01:13:22] And at the time, I mean, at the time it was I knew it was

[01:13:25] it was cool because it was fun to work on, but I didn't really know

[01:13:29] that it was going to be.

[01:13:30] And I just don't think about it.

[01:13:32] You guys who read them as young people or grow up

[01:13:35] and there's you still dig it, you know, and that's cool.

[01:13:38] Now, it's it's so humbling as an artist to have people

[01:13:43] that like your work and then that people that like collect your work.

[01:13:46] Even that's really, really cool.

[01:13:48] It's very it makes my heart warm, you know, just knowing that you guys think it's cool.

[01:13:52] So absolutely.

[01:13:53] And it was really neat to be a part of that.

[01:13:56] Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:13:58] You have no idea.

[01:14:02] Oh, my idea.

[01:14:07] Dedicated our lives, literally some of us like this franchise.

[01:14:11] And it's it's it's love, it's life.

[01:14:14] It's Goosebumps.

[01:14:15] That's cool, man. I love it.

[01:14:17] Absolutely. Absolutely.

[01:14:19] Well, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Goosebumps Group podcast.

[01:14:23] Craig, thank you so much for joining us today and talking with us about Goosebumps.

[01:14:28] It was a complete honor.

[01:14:30] My pleasure. No, it was an honor is mine.

[01:14:32] Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

[01:14:33] It was a lot of fun talking to you guys.

[01:14:35] Absolutely. Like I said, I'll look for all that stuff.

[01:14:38] And if I can find anything, I promise I'll send it to you and you can share it away.

[01:14:42] And is there any place that our audience can can find you website, social media, anything?

[01:14:48] Craig, Craig White Illustration is where most of my work is.

[01:14:52] And it doesn't look anything like the Goosebumps stuff.

[01:14:55] So if you go there, you're probably going to go, what is this?

[01:14:57] It's most of the stuff I do now is photography based

[01:15:03] photo illustration.

[01:15:05] So it's I do a lot of romance.

[01:15:07] I'm still doing book covers.

[01:15:08] I've probably done literally thousands of book covers in my time doing this.

[01:15:14] So I've been doing it since all this started and I haven't stopped.

[01:15:17] So, yeah, most of this stuff is photography based.

[01:15:20] So it doesn't really look like this cool stuff.

[01:15:23] I wish I could do this cool stuff again, hopefully maybe someday.

[01:15:28] But yeah, Craig, Craig White, oh, no, Craig, Craig White Illustration dot com.

[01:15:32] Sorry, that's my website address.

[01:15:34] All righty. And I will we'll make sure to include a link

[01:15:37] to that website in the description below so you guys at home can go check that out.

[01:15:42] Please support Craig White if you can.

[01:15:44] He's an amazing artist.

[01:15:45] And again, thank you so much for coming on and,

[01:15:48] you know, just talking about Goosebumps with us.

[01:15:51] Thank you. Great. Absolutely.

[01:15:54] And of course, as always, make sure you follow the rest of the Goosebumps crew.

[01:15:59] Goosebumps, Oscar Fan Bureau panel, Shao and Nick Shaw

[01:16:01] and Michael Lilliklis, the ultimate Goosebumps man on all their social media

[01:16:05] is on their YouTube because they really, really do deserve it.

[01:16:07] And as always, give us a sub over here at the Goosebumps channel

[01:16:10] and the Goosebumps crew YouTube channel.

[01:16:12] We've just crossed at the time of recording this 400 subscribers on YouTube.

[01:16:16] That is awesome, guys. Let's get it way above that.

[01:16:19] We want to get way more up there.

[01:16:22] So make sure you like, comment, subscribe and share

[01:16:25] the Goosebumps group podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon,

[01:16:29] Music and I Heart Radio, wherever you can find podcasts.

[01:16:33] And until next time, everybody, this has been the Goosebumps crew podcast.

[01:16:38] And from all of us here at the Goosebumps group podcast,

[01:16:39] we want to make sure to wish you all to take care,

[01:16:43] stay safe and have a very scary day.