Painting a Picture (ft. Tim Jacobus, Mark Nagata, & Craig White)

[00:00:02] The most thrilling, spikingly series ever! From the pages of R.L. Stine's best-selling books, and the screens go on forever and ever! We now return to Goosebumps.

[00:01:06] Greetings Goosebumps fans, young and old, big and small, living dead and undead. Welcome back to the Goosebumps Crew Podcast. As always, I am your host Isaiah Vargas. I'm joined by my good buddies Bjorn Palenik and Nick Shaw. We are the Goosebumps Crew, and we're back to, as always, talk some Goosebumps. If this is your first time joining us here on the Goosebumps Crew Podcast, I want to sincerely welcome you all. If you have ever been a fan of the popular Goosebumps series of books or the monster franchise of those books spawned, I have a feeling this podcast is going to be right up your alley.

[00:01:33] As I always say, me, Bjorn, and Nick are some of the biggest Goosebumps nerds on the entire planet. We can talk about Goosebumps for hours on end, and that's exactly what we do here on this podcast. Every week we have a brand new episode talking about everything Goosebumps, whether it be the books, TV shows, movies, video games, merchandise, everything Goosebumps, whatever it is, we're going to talk about it so much. So with all that said, if you end up a like in today's episode, make sure you leave a like and comment. If you're watching us on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel, hit that bell notification to get updates when new episodes go up every Wednesday at noon central.

[00:02:03] If you want to get those episodes early or just dying to hear them, you can catch them on our audio platforms. We're available wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, among others. You can catch those a day early. And of course, you can follow the Goosebumps crew on social media. We're available on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. You can also follow Bjorn and Nick at Goosebom, Saucy Fan, and Sean, respectively. All those links are in the description below, so check them out. Join the Goosebumps crew today, become a crew member, and we thank you in advance, as always, for your support.

[00:02:30] Now, if there are two things that we talk about constantly on this podcast, it's Haunted Mask and Goosebumps cover art. So guess which one we're talking about today? We are revisiting the world of Goosebumps cover art, and we are very, very fortunate to have three guys who have very much experience in Goosebumps cover art. They have all appeared on the podcast before, but they're appearing all together, the three of them, for the very first time.

[00:02:59] So we're very, very happy to welcome back Mr. Tim Jacobus, Mark Nagata, and Craig White to the Goosebumps crew. How are you doing tonight, guys? Very good. Very good. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. We're very glad to have you guys. And again, all three of you guys together. For the very first time, this has really never been done before, and we're very, very excited to ask about your experiences while you're all here together and bounce that information off.

[00:03:28] So let's waste no time getting into it. No need to lay the groundwork. I mean, you guys, your art is iconic. We talk about this constantly. Whenever people think about Goosebumps, they think about all of your guys' artwork, because it's the first thing you see on the cover of a Goosebumps book is that incredible artwork, and it's the thing that hooks you into the story.

[00:03:52] So jumping right in, you know, talking about the things that make Goosebumps Goosebumps, the cover art has to work alongside that. And the very first question I have is, what do you three feel are sort of the key ingredients to making a piece feel like a Goosebumps cover? Like, is there any sort of style that you three follow? Tim, why don't we go ahead and start with you? That's a good question.

[00:04:21] But early on, it was really trying to convey R.L.'s imagery, laying some groundwork for R.L.'s imagery to produce on the book. And early on, he wasn't giving us much because he was writing the book at the same time we were working on the cover.

[00:04:48] So me and the art director that I worked with, you know, we were kind of just, you know, kind of just grabbing at whatever we could. There was no style when I started. So, you know, it was some of the things that I had done in the past, I kind of brought to the table and went, well, these are things that have been working for me for a little while. So let's bring these in.

[00:05:15] And then over, you know, Goosebumps was the only time where I got the opportunity to do a lot of images all for the same theme or the same thing. So inevitably what ends up happening is some sort of style starts to evolve.

[00:05:35] So really there was the base rule was don't make it too scary and don't show any kids getting hurt and you're not allowed to show any blood. So after that, it was kind of wide open. 100%. 100%. And as we have mentioned before, so Tim, you worked on the original covers and then Mark and Craig, you both worked on the Give Yourself Goosebumps series, the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

[00:06:05] Mark, what would you say are sort of like the key aspects that you would put into a Goosebumps piece? Well, first I want to say it's a super honor to actually meet for the first time Tim and or maybe the second time. Maybe I've forgotten. But I mean, he's the goat, right? So, I mean, he established the look, the feel.

[00:06:32] I mean, so really we would not be here if it wasn't for Tim's work. And I'm sure Craig agrees with me. Absolutely. So, you know, he's the template. And so by the time I got in there, it was, and I sort of talked about this before, it was a little difficult because they kept telling me, well, we want it to look like Tim, but don't make it look like Tim. And I was just like, well, what is that even supposed to mean?

[00:07:01] So it took me a good five or six covers to kind of get into the groove a little and slowly start incorporating kind of my point of view as, you know, things were rolling along. But, but I mean, you know, I mean, I think it's the bright colors. It's, it's the, it's the blown out, the wide angle looks, the checkerboard floors, which again is all Tim.

[00:07:27] And, you know, I think that's, that's really the hallmark of, of, of any Goosebump cover. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Yeah. And with, as far as I was concerned, by the time I came on, it was after both of you guys had been doing this for a while and it was already established. But I brought over from, I was doing some trading cards for Marvel for Fleer, I think.

[00:07:52] And that's sort of where, if you look at my covers, they're kind of like Mark was saying, it's that kind of wide angle in your face kind of stuff, bright colors. I loved working on those books. It was so much fun. And I, they kind of gave me kind of free reign to do pretty much whatever I wanted. Like I said, Tim said no blood. And I think there was in the shark one that I did, there's like a little bit of flowing blood. And I didn't even remember that being an issue. Nobody said anything.

[00:08:22] I don't, I don't, I almost, I almost feel like it was a request at the time, which I found very odd, but you know, it was fun. I really loved doing those covers. It was a blast. Mm-hmm. Well, that's the thing too, is like by the time you came on to give yourself goosebumps, that's when, you know, you're at the tail end of the 90s. And the 90s was all known for just like pushing the boundaries and being extreme.

[00:08:45] And in terms of goosebumps, and I certainly know we've talked about Series 2000 a lot with Tim. But like by the time those books came out, they were really kind of like going further into the body horror, the gore, like the attack of the graveyard ghouls. You know, those zombies are, they are gnarly looking. And then you had brain juice come right after.

[00:09:11] And that's just a straight, you know, brain with, you know, juice being poured on it. And it's, but yeah, and when it came to, you know, the give yourself covers, there were a few like, yeah, the, I think it was ship of ghouls was that one with the shark. There is blood like in the water by the shark's mouth. So it's a little more gnarly.

[00:09:32] And actually one thing I want to bring up really quick before I forget, but Craig, you actually had the, the task of bringing some of the characters drawn by Tim into give yourself goosebumps mostly for the special edition. So you had return to terror tower with the executioner, and then you had revenge of the body squeezers with the blue body squeezer. That's at the end of the original book.

[00:09:58] Like, yeah, yeah, they gave me the covers to kind of go by and they, they said kind of what they told Mark was look like it, but not too much like it. So it was like, I mean, and I wish I could have done a better job. I think you did such a great job, Tim. It was like, kind of looks like it, but not a hundred percent.

[00:10:22] So, but that's kind of what the, as far as I remember the, the, uh, the, uh, what they were saying, what they wanted, that's what ended up being. So, well, what's, what's cool is Craig, you touched on it. I hope it was the same for you. Mark is when we were doing it at the beginning. So I don't know if you guys knew the story. They didn't think goosebumps was going anywhere when we got started.

[00:10:47] So nobody was paying attention to us and we kind of got to do whatever we wanted there. It was a real free range. And, uh, Craig, you just touched on saying, yeah, they kind of let me do whatever I wanted. And that's the way it was for me as well. And that's nuts because that's not the way it is anywhere else at any other time.

[00:11:12] And, and I got so spoiled early on thinking, oh, well, you know, this is the way everybody works. And, oh, I'm a genius. And everybody's got everything I do. And then all of a sudden you find out, oh, I'm none of those things. And, uh, uh, yeah, but it was just, it was just such a great opportunity to, to, to, to throw your ideas out there and not have them stomped on so often.

[00:11:40] And, uh, uh, yeah, that's good. I'm glad that you guys got to experience a little of it because that really is what sets the goosebumps stuff apart from every other thing that I've ever done before or since. Yeah, I completely agree. That was exactly the way it was with me. It was like, I thought, oh, this is great. Everybody loves everything. You know, you find out later. It's like, what do you mean? I can't do what I want to do.

[00:12:10] I'm going to slightly contradict, uh, or, or go against sort of like, uh, my experience with it. I think I felt like, and maybe it's because I wasn't on the East coast. Um, and so I didn't have a direct, uh, connection to the art directors. Um, but I felt like they, they really, I don't know. How do I say this? Maybe it was an internal pressure.

[00:12:34] I put on myself just because Tim's work was so iconic, but I really felt like I had to go through extra sketches just to get to the painting. And I knew what I was going to do in the painting, but, uh, maybe just because I was not a known quantity to them. Um, uh, you know, I mean, it was, it was work.

[00:12:57] And, and I think by the, by the end of my run where they were transitioning to a digital look, um, I, I really felt like, you know, like I, I was, I had enough to be honest. And, and unfortunately, like my experience with them, um, yeah, I always felt like I had to keep like upping my game, if that makes any sense.

[00:13:22] But then when I was doing the graveyard school books, it was sort of like Tim's, um, experience in that they basically just let me do whatever. And I, and I feel like I did my best work, you know, under, under those conditions, which I think a lot of artists would feel that way. But, um, but anyways, that, that was just my, my experience during that time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, uh, if I could jump in on that, it's possible that, um, cause up to that point, give yourself goosebumps.

[00:13:51] I don't think was the first spinoff series, but it was, uh, one of the first, like really, really like well advertised ones. Um, and up to that point, uh, minus, you know, uh, one or two covers by like Jim Theeson, and Stanislaw Fernandez for the original series, Tim was the main guy, uh, for a while. So when give yourself came around, it was the first time that they went with another artist that wasn't Tim. Um, which is understandable at the rate these books were coming out.

[00:14:21] You know, I can imagine the workload was, was busy enough as it is. Um, so maybe they were a little more like limiting. Uh, that's, this is an outsider looking in. Um, but maybe as the series went on, they were a little more, uh, open to just kind of be like, all right, whatever. They're popular. Everyone's going to read them anyway. Who cares? In that sort of sense. I don't know.

[00:14:49] Piggybacking off Mark's earlier comment about Tim being the goat. Stay tuned, people. We might actually have a roast of Tim Jacobus, uh, based on his previous comments on the podcast. So, you know, maybe we'll start talking. Maybe we'll see if Craig and Mark want to come back for that roast. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Maybe we can get to Mark in. Now that will be an innate roast. Is this for like the book that, the books that we, wait, the roast?

[00:15:18] Are we talking like the ones that. Yeah, we'll talk about the ones. What happened was the last time, the last time we were all together, you guys, we talked about favorite goosebumps books. And you guys blew a lot of smoke up my ass and it was very nice. And I really appreciated it. And I said, you got to have me come back and you guys have to tell me which one of my, my covers really suck. And tell me why you don't like them. So we can take this head and put it back into the size that it should be. Don't worry.

[00:15:47] We will do that. The top 10 worst. Let's do that. It doesn't have to be just from the original 62 though. It could be any. You can go through anything. Don't just scour the internet. There's lots of. Don't even have to be goosebumps. This is fish in a barrel. Fish in a barrel. I'd be sweating more with that. Does that mean chicken, chicken might be on someone's ears? No. That's on my podcast. It's weird. Chicken, chicken. That book is best.

[00:16:16] Somehow that book's become iconic now. Like because of like. I don't know. It's a classic. Cause it's just like this podcast. We mentioned it. Try to mention it. It's every episode. It's a running gag at this point. It's so, it's so funny. Like I don't want to dwell on that. It's just such a funny color because it's the chicken with the, with the screaming girl. It's so goofy. It's awesome. I love it. I love it. I love it too.

[00:16:46] It's so. I love it. And like I said, I still think to this day, that's one of the most terrifying things that they made a real life version of that. Like I just think about six to 10 foot chicken with that girl's face screaming at you. Women can be scary enough. And we all know this just as a giant chicken with talons. Now. I don't know. Like that just to me was terrifying. That should have been an episode. It really should have been an episode.

[00:17:15] It would have been absolutely terrifying. Actually going off of the talk about, you know, popularity. You know, you guys all had your hand on this series and it's become very, very popular. It's been around for, you know, multiple generations up to this point. What did you guys think just about when, what did you guys think about when this, this series became so popular all of a sudden and you know, the context of now, like how does that sort of gel with you now?

[00:17:45] Early on, because social media was basically non-existent, there was a lot going on, but from where I was sitting, I didn't really know. I knew the book series was popular. I knew it was successful. I knew that people at Scholastic were happy about it, but there wasn't that feedback where I could go look up and see numbers by the month or, you know, hear, see people conversing about it.

[00:18:14] You know, all that stuff wasn't there. So, you know, I knew it was doing okay, but I didn't really know what was going on. And then in the early 2000s, when it kind of died off for me and that, you know, I was no longer involved. It was just, it was a, you know, that was a footnote. Hey, I got a chance to do these back in the nineties. Very cool. Now, you know, at the time that's when my, my kid came along.

[00:18:43] So I was just Jack's dad. And, you know, I was just doing all the stuff that new dads do and, you know, nobody asked me about goosebumps. And then as we got to, you know, uh, 2015 and people started to talk about it nostalgically, it was like, where'd this come from? You know, I was more surprised than anybody that really, you're still talking about this. That's well, that's cool.

[00:19:09] And I got started to get more and more emails and what I didn't realize at that time, but I realized now all that was, were the 10 year old fans were now grownups and taking the time to reach out and talk to me, uh, about how, you know, the goosebumps series affected them. And that was mind blown, you know, because the conversations I had with you guys, when you

[00:19:35] were 10, weren't very interesting, but the conversations that we all have now are pretty cool. And, uh, no, I did it. It doesn't make any sense to, I mean, it's wonderful. It's cool. I, I appreciate it. I know these guys appreciate it as well, that just to have anybody still acknowledge stuff that you've done in the past, but to have people talk about it passionately and, you

[00:20:03] know, when they still appreciate what you do is it, it's, it's the coolest thing there is. 100%. 100%. 2015, that was, uh, at the time of the movies actually came out. Correct. That was when the nostalgia came back. Right. Just, you know, and again, that's when I started to get those emails, you know, once a week, Hey, I read goosebumps when I was a kid. Now I do this. I'm in a band and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

[00:20:32] And, you know, the goosebumps stuff helped spark my creativity. And, you know, uh, again, that it's, uh, to have people, that's what I think I like the most is especially when somebody says this was some sort of stepping stone to their creative passion, whatever it is now, whether it's music or writing, or if it's art that somehow that

[00:20:59] this stuff was a catalyst because I had stuff when I was 10 and 11 years old that made me go, who can do this stuff? Like this seems so unachievable. And then you get a chance and you get a little older and you start to hone your skills a little bit and then go, Oh, Oh, wow. I I'm not doing quite that, but I'm doing this.

[00:21:22] And, uh, yeah, no, it's the, the, it's the numbers that blow me away. You know, we're 30 plus years. That's that. It doesn't make any sense. I'm sure you two guys have art that you did 30 years ago. That's tucked away in an attic or under the bed or wherever you store your old art. And you don't, nobody knows about this. Nobody, you know, nobody cares about it. There's some pieces I love.

[00:21:49] I think there's some of the best stuff, but nobody cares. Yeah. Similar situation for me. I would, I, when I stopped doing it, I did one cover that never got published, um, for the give yourself goosebumps stuff. I'm not even sure why. Um, but it was just like, okay, they're done. They don't want you to do anymore. And I was like, okay. And at the time I think maybe with Tim, I mean, I knew they were popular, but I didn't think that much about it.

[00:22:17] Cause you're just, it's just not, I don't want to say it's just a job. Cause it was a great job. I loved doing it, but it, you know, the other, I started doing other things as well. And, um, after a while it kind of just disappeared. And then every once in a while I'd get an email from somebody, Hey, are you the Craig white, the daily illustrations for those books? And I was like, yeah. And every once in a while I'd get an email and somebody would, you know, uh, come back and ask for, uh, how did you do it or whatever? Do you have any of the sketches?

[00:22:47] And of course I don't, I didn't save anything like an idiot. Um, but, uh, that, that is like, I mean now, and then it's been, ever since the podcast with you guys, it's been great. I've gotten so many people that are just like coming out of the woodworks, uh, asking about it. And I, I just think it's awesome. It's really cool. And just like Tim said, it's been that long and it's, people are still interested in it and it's cause you guys that read the books and loved them.

[00:23:13] And if, you know, affected you as a young person and now you've grown up and, you know, you guys are all doing something creative, which is really cool. So, yeah, actually I echo everything that they just said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, at the time we're, I'm just in a bubble, right. And there's no internet. So I don't, I don't know what's going on. I'm just doing the job and, you know, people are going, Oh, you know, my, my daughter reads goosebumps. Like, okay. That's cool.

[00:23:44] You know, exactly. Next one story, bro. That's funny. Well, and one thing that you had mentioned, Craig, it's just like ever since, uh, you know, the podcast we do with you the first time, like just all these people coming out to really appreciate your guys' art. And I love that because, you know, we may, you know, blow smoke up on Tim over here, but

[00:24:09] it honestly, we mean it when all of the car, the art from goosebumps, the past, present and future have been great. Like I, I was looking at, um, you know, we shared it. There is a cover art that just got revealed for the newest book that will be coming out soon by Robert ball. He's the newest, uh, goosebumps cover artist. And it was incredible. Like just the use of pinks and purples and blues.

[00:24:35] And it was like just a really awesome, uh, you know, drawing of a ghost coming out of like a door or a closet. And it was creepy. It was, yeah, let me actually, uh, quick picture. So same thing. Oh, wow. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's totally great. But, uh, my, my point is that we want to give that attention to everyone who worked on this

[00:25:04] series because, um, it all had a lot of hard work put into it. Art is not easy. Ladies and gentlemen, newsflash of the day. Art is not an easy profession. Uh, and I envy people, you know, I'm a beginning art of the very beginning artist myself. Um, I envy, you know, people who have such immense talent, um, that, you know, they, they make such a great profession for themselves. They make wonderful pieces of artwork.

[00:25:33] Um, and goosebumps is no exception. I talk so highly about this series, especially, uh, if I had the money to just like get every single had the money and the room on my wall, I would display every single goosebumps cover art because they're all wonderful pieces in and of themselves. So in order too, you would have them in order, like lined up piles. You wouldn't, you wouldn't do it. There wouldn't be no wall. You can do it to say with this size, you could put them all.

[00:26:02] You would just see artwork and then maybe a window would be there. Awesome. But, um, I'm, I'm, I'm glad that we can generate that sort of, uh, attention to you guys because, you know, um, again, for a while with the internet, there was no, uh, sort of easy way to communicate that sort of appreciation. So, um, it's just a changing of the times where like you, you realize like, wow, a lot of people really paid attention to this stuff.

[00:26:32] Oh, that's yeah. That's it. That is the, the beauty of the internet is, you know, we did paintings. I'm sure these guys, same thing where you would do a piece of artwork. You'd submit it to the art director. They'd print it on the book. The book wouldn't do great. It's a nice piece of art. Now you have it. And then you just put it away. And so maybe in total, you know, 45 people saw your art and, you know, you spent a week

[00:27:00] of your life, you know, trying to produce this thing. And now every time you finish a piece, you can post it on the internet and literally thousands of people get a chance to see it and you get the, you know, that's all you want. I just want them to see it. I don't care if they can tell me they don't like it. That's cool too, because that's also good feedback, but any feedback, just, I want eyeballs, just look at it for me.

[00:27:26] You know, I spent all this time, just give me three seconds and, uh, I'll be happy. So that's the, you know, that's been, uh, uh, I think that's changed almost every, uh, a person who does art. I think it's changed all our lives. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. 100%. Actually, even the comment on that, it's been neat to see, like, uh, when we had Mark announced

[00:27:54] Mark was going to be on, and then I see a post actually that came up that Mark showed, uh, one of the original paintings that you did for give yourself goosebumps. And I can't remember the cover right now, which one, which book it was, because it was a while back. Um, but again, like you said, we, we wouldn't have seen those all those years ago, like that, you know, and seeing those original paintings. It's really, really cool because it's just history. It really is.

[00:28:21] And when you see something like that, it's different than seeing just the book cover. Like you're seeing how this came to be like this conception and the brushstrokes that are in there compared to, you know, again, a polished book cover. So it's really cool. And we're, you know, internet's a blessing and a curse. So at least that part's a blessing. Well, you get that word of mouth, right? Like in the nineties, goosebumps became popular through word of mouth. It did the hard yards.

[00:28:50] Like today people could just put anything online and it can become a sensation overnight. Goosebumps had to do the hard thing. And, you know, and anything that got popular back in before the internet, you know, through word of mouth, like that was just pure, like love and passion for something that, and then people started telling other people because they were so excited about it, you know? So yeah, it's, it's really a testament to goosebumps and everything that goes with it. Yeah. Well, and I have to give immense shout out to the work that you guys do. That's not goosebumps.

[00:29:21] Cause for funny enough, you guys do work. That's not goosebumps. But all three of you, you know, I've done, you know, other works, other series or just, you know, other arts for other professions. And actually my next question just sort of has to do with the whole industry of commercial art. You know, nowadays everything's just about digital. Um, and it is very easy to, uh, to get a, to get a job. It was secret agent grandma.

[00:29:51] Mark's probably least favorite cover. As we talked about. So of course, you know, my question, are you roasting me? We can do one. But I thought you said, didn't you say last time you were on though? That was like one. Cause I was like secret agent grandma. I was like one of my favorites. I could have sworn you were like, that's not one of my favorites. You would be staying there, but that's fine.

[00:30:21] Yeah. But that I'm glad you, I'm glad actually a lot of people do like that cover. It just, uh, yeah, it just didn't resonate with me. I feel like that's like how, uh, goy worms is with Tim. There's like, I've met people who are like, Oh, I love that cover. And Tim's just kind of like, I don't. So now we know those two, Craig, did you have a cover that people love? You're just like, I don't understand it. Oh my gosh.

[00:30:49] That's the problem with, with picking one. Um, cause somebody may be going, that's my favorite. And you're like, Oh, sorry. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you on that one. But there were some that I was like, I don't know. Maybe. And I I'm hoping that it was a really tight deadline and I just didn't have a chance to finesse it. You know, I'm like, I'm, I don't remember, but you know, there, I'm, there were a couple that were like, man, well, I would do differently now.

[00:31:17] But that was usually it is. You'd, you'd do the sketches, you'd commit to the piece. You'd be halfway through the painting and then you go, Oh, I know what I should have done, but it's now. And it would have made this 10 times better. And, but we got to plow through this. And that's all you think about is, ah, I should have done it the other way. One more sketch, one more sketch. One thing that got brought up in our first interview with Mark was that Scholastic was

[00:31:47] cheeky and, uh, they, and actually something that also got up, brought up, uh, in our interview with, uh, another artist, Manny Gonzalez, who worked on the recent, uh, graphic novel for Haunted Mask. Um, that Scholastic really loves to just choose the worst sketch to make the final cover. You have all these different sketches and for whatever reason they choose the one that the artist probably does not like the, the, the least of the bunch. Oh, I do. I do remember one though.

[00:32:16] The elevator one was not my favorite. The, um, there was a, uh, the old man coming out of the elevator. I can't remember what it was called, but that was. It was like, um, it turned out to be like a doc from the back to the future. I don't even know how that happened. It was just like, what is this? So yeah, sometimes, and you know, sometimes when you do finish a piece and you're like, like Tim said, it's like, ah, I wish I would have just done something a little bit different.

[00:32:46] But I remember we went through a lot of sketches for that one. And I had, I had done the, the, the professor in several different ways. And the one they picked was not my favorite, which surprised me. Oh my God. There it is. He's got like sideburns. He's got sideburns. I'm like, I don't even, well, that's not your hair. I hope not. Like wild ear hair coming out of it. I'm just kidding. Yeah, it could be. It's not the roast of Craig White people. Okay. We're not doing that.

[00:33:17] Well, I just like the sort of like subtle cross side. Like that was always like the funniest part to me. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's not my lazy eye. That's funny. But going back to my initial question regarding just sort of the industry of commercial art from your guys' perspective, like, are you sort of optimistic in the future of the industry

[00:33:45] of doing commercial art, even though, you know, nowadays that with the internet art is so easily accessible and easy to put out there. How do you guys sort of feel about the industry now as opposed to, you know, 30 years ago or so? Mark, why don't you jump on this? I was going to have Tim go with that. Well, here we go.

[00:34:17] I'm probably the oldest of all of us. I don't know. You know, the fact that, you know, I still have the opportunity to sit at a desk and create art and I've been doing it for as long as I have just is super cool and a great blessing.

[00:34:43] Um, what I do like that there's a lot of opportunities for a lot of people. Now I've talked about this at nauseam, but I'll talk about it again. When, uh, first got in the book business, I lived, uh, 40 miles outside of New York city. And because art was not digital and it was a tangible thing, you had to carry your art around

[00:35:11] with you and go and bring it in and take it to see art directors. Now I was super lucky that my father decided to buy a house in a town called Denville. That was 40 miles from New York city. If I lived out in Western Pennsylvania, I wouldn't have had the access to the, the, the book business people who were there. And it was truly just because I physically lived close enough to get in there and show

[00:35:40] them my artwork. Now, the fact that those barriers have all disappeared and there's people everywhere who can get their work out there and get it seen. That's great. Uh, you know what I mean? That's, that's nothing but good. It's, it's exposed us all to a whole bunch of different people, a whole bunch of different styles and, uh, and cultures, people doing stuff that just isn't what we're used to seeing. And, uh, it's cool.

[00:36:09] I, I don't, I'm not, I don't get too bent out of shape over whether your art's digital or not digital. You still have to create it and, uh, you still have to come up with the ideas. Um, I still love to see people who can paint because it's, you were seeing less and less of them. Uh, you know, they're, they're kids are not exposed to it the way we were. There was no, there was no other option. You want to be an artist, you gotta learn to paint.

[00:36:38] And, uh, so it's cool to see people painting. Uh, uh, but, uh, I don't, I don't look at it as a negative or a positive. Um, the, the new threat that's out there that everybody's talking about is AI. I don't know. You know, I was there when digital art came along and they told us all we had to learn digital art. And those words were spoken back then.

[00:37:07] This is the death of art. And, you know, all this stuff is going to be garbage from here on in. And it wasn't true. It didn't happen. You know, we all had to learn it to use a new tool and our art changed somewhat. And we just did it a different way. And I don't, you know, I don't think that there, you know, AI is whatever it's going to be. It's going to affect a whole bunch of businesses and ways of life.

[00:37:34] And I'm sure it's going to affect even the way we do podcasts and everything else in just a few years. But, uh, uh, overall, uh, what goes on inside my head and how I create, it's going to just continue on. And maybe there'll be another interesting way that I'll be able to express myself using that as well. Definitely. Very good. Great answer. Yeah. Well, I don't think we need to say anything to that. Yeah. Well said. I agree.

[00:38:04] That's yeah. Well said. Yep. Yeah. Wow. And, uh, back to, uh, you know, goosebumps, uh, Oh, Mark, did you have something to say? Oh, no, I was just going to say, I think in my case, uh, I was not willing slash able to transition to digital. And so that's, that was one of the, one of the things that led to me getting out of sort of the illustration business.

[00:38:33] Um, not the primary reason, but I mean, I, you know, at that point I was so burnt out with taking every kind of assignment I could. But I mean, I, I would not say no, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I do gradations for a couple thousand dollars. I do splatters. I mean, you know, just ridiculous things. Um, and then once Photoshop came in, right. They could just do it in two seconds.

[00:38:58] So, um, but it's, it's all good because I mean, you know, as, as, as, as, as we're all looking back fondly on our careers, um, you know, at the time you might think, oh, this is, you know, this is like not a good thing. Um, but it, for me anyways, it led to other things that have brought me to the point I'm at now, if that makes any sense. So, um, yeah. And, you know, I may, I'm still do my art.

[00:39:25] I, I'm able to do it for my toy company and, um, without committees. Nothing better than that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. And, uh, actually, uh, sort of another general art question, but, uh, what would you guys say is like, uh, in the day, if you ever had like just a day where you had to work on an art

[00:39:51] piece, uh, what would like the, the best time to sit down and start working on a piece be? Like, what would you guys say would be the best time to do it? You mean like time of day? Yeah. Like, would you be, would you do it in the morning? Would you wait till the nighttime, the evening? Oh, I just jumped right in. It was like a job to me. Like I am a fun job, but I loved it. So I was, as soon as I got up in the morning, it was like a nine to five kind of nine to six thing for me. I loved it.

[00:40:20] And so I'd get started right away and, and, uh, do as much as I could. So that was my, I wasn't like a night owl, like somebody who, or, you know, somebody could stay up late and paint. And no, I was, I was more, yeah, I was, I still do it. It's still like a nine to five job to me in a way that at six o'clock or so, I kind of put everything aside and I go make dinner or whatever. And so it's been that way since the beginning for me anyway. How about you guys? Yeah.

[00:40:48] I mean, uh, for me it was, you know, pretty much 24 seven and that's, that's before my son was born. Right. And then I kept thinking, Oh, when my son's born, I'm just going to put the little play pen next to me and, you know, I'll still do my illustration to the side. It's like, Nope. It was like, it was like, daddy, daddy. It's like, Oh, well I, uh, you know, so that was fine.

[00:41:16] It, it, it sort of coincided with my, my illustration work kind of getting less and less. And then, you know, I was able to kind of raise and watch my son. So awesome. Yeah. When I had my kid, it made me shift my hours. I moved them. It was before my son came along. I kind of looked at it the same way Craig did where it was a, you know, it was a job that,

[00:41:43] you know, he got up and, uh, my ex-wife was had a job as well. So the day started in the morning, just in, I, I am less effective later in the, in the evening. But once my kid was born, I found that I wasn't, you know, I was, I wasn't spending enough time with them. Um, so I began to shift my hours where I would come home instead of sitting down and do an artwork, I'd hang out with him.

[00:42:10] And then when he'd go to bed at seven 30, I'd go to bed, except I was getting up at three o'clock to then start my day. So I just backed everything up. And, uh, uh, I got into the habit of those early morning hours because nobody emails you, nobody calls you that, you know, it's just that time is really your own.

[00:42:34] And my son's 26 now, and I still get up at 4am to start my day. He doesn't, we kind of pass in the night. He's just going to bed when I'm getting up. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I, I kind of got addicted to those, those, those super quiet hours in the morning where you can get a lot done before the distractions start to come your way. Yeah. Routine. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:04] Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter. There are plenty of people. Yeah. There's plenty of people who can do the night hour thing. And that's great. Just you, all you've done is shifted it. And that's where you, you decided that's where you want to work. So, um, I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a right or wrong with that. It's whatever your, your internal, your internal combustion engine does.

[00:43:33] That's when Tim started losing his luscious mane. I don't know if you guys have seen. He had quite like the eighties rocker hair. Yeah. Yeah. I have a quick question for Craig. Uh, Craig, have you always been on the West coast? Um, no, I was, uh, actually born in Texas and we moved out to California. My wife and I did in, uh, 95.

[00:44:02] So kind of in the, right at the, in the middle of all that stuff that I was working on. That's what I was wondering. Cause like being on the West coast, you know, I'd always get the panic, um, 5. Um, 5. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. For the East coast guys. It's like eight or nine. Yeah. Right. They're like, Oh, we need another sketch right now. I'm like, I'm just getting up. Like what's right. Right. So, Oh yeah. Back then we had to, I had to FedEx, uh, discs.

[00:44:33] Um, uh, and I would have to make it sure. I guess if I went to the airport, I could get to the one that would, the last one that would FedEx out that night. So we'll get the next day, get to work in the morning. So crazy. And that was, I mean, it was email was just kind of starting back then. It was still, we still weren't able to send really big files. And I think that's the reason why I don't know why they switched to digital one at the time.

[00:45:02] I didn't really question it, but I was kind of assumed that a, we could send digital files and B they could make changes if they wanted to like, so you wouldn't have to paint the whole thing all over again. I could just kind of like work in layers and change colors of things pretty easily. Um, I mean, I started about airbrushing just like you guys did back in when I was in high school and, and, uh, and in college I airbrushed a lot and sort of made the transition

[00:45:30] to digital kind of just by accident. Cause my brother was really into it and, and, uh, I have a twin brother as well. He's an artist as well. And we kind of just sort of fell into it. And then I was able to kind of replicate the airbrush style with the digital painting style. And that's kind of where my style sort of came from. Um, so were you self-taught or did you take? Uh, no, yeah.

[00:45:56] Well, my brother and I were always in, in art, into art from as far as back as I can remember, we were always doing something. He was really good. And I was like, I was really jealous cause it, I always seemed easy for him. And I was like, ah, you know, he could paint, you know, painting oil paintings and all that stuff. And Maya looked terrible. And, um, and then we, I, we both went to art school, went to the artists, art Institute of Houston and 90 and eighties.

[00:46:24] So yeah, my limited, uh, associates degree. And that's after that, you know, it was just like, I didn't even think I can make it as an illustrator back then. There weren't that many illustration jobs. You know, you did, if you did, if you worked in advertising, you could do some stuff and then there were spot illustrations for magazines. I mean, you guys probably did some of those and then there wasn't much, I, I, the book

[00:46:50] covers kind of just, I kind of fell into it in a weird way, but yeah, I was an art director for a long time. You, you were repped by Peter and George lot, right? Yep. Yep. Still am still Peter. Still my rep. Yeah. Oh, wow. Awesome. Yeah. Which I, if I remember correctly also is repping Brandon Dorman, right? I think so. I think so. Yeah. I never talked to Brandon. Well, he was at the time that like I had reached out to you, Craig, and you gave me his

[00:47:20] info to try to get in touch with Brandon. And, uh, at the time it seemed like it was going well and then it was like radio silence. So I was like, okay, well, yeah. So I was like, okay, well, who knows? That's a drag. Maybe in the future. Yeah. That's a drag. Um, but I mean, it seemed like a nice guy and yeah, I mean, obviously representing, uh, two goosebumps artists, which was really interesting when you told me that I did not expect to be under the same rep, you know, small world, I suppose, uh, in terms of repping artists.

[00:47:49] Um, to my knowledge, I don't really know, uh, anybody else have a rep when you guys were artists at the time, or did you have to get your own like stuff out there? Um, after goosebumps. Uh, when I first started, I got my first couple of jobs on my own. Um, and then one of the art directors that I worked with said, listen, if you, you know, to make a living, you gotta be staying at home painting and someone else has to be doing

[00:48:17] this nonsense running around on the streets. So yeah, he turned me on to a guy named Sal Baraka. And, uh, Sal had a, you know, he had a pretty good thriving business, handful of artists. Uh, I fit in because I didn't, you know, I was the odd man to whatever, uh, group of people that he had. So, uh, yeah, no, it's, it, it was a game changer. Uh, he had all the connections.

[00:48:44] Um, he negotiated better contracts than I did and, uh, I got to stay at home and, and, and paint. And then that was the whole, that was the name of the game. Tim, did you end up doing any, uh, uh, covers for Goosebumps that were done in digital art or was it basically, uh, you know, hand painted up until, uh, the two thousands? I did one piece for them and it was late in the game. Yeah.

[00:49:13] I think it was for that, uh, that the very first Goosebumps live show, uh, it was one of the early pieces. It was, it wasn't the main pieces that we did for it, but there was a, another, uh, it was Slappy and he was in a, you know, like a ticket booth you would see at a carnival. And, uh, yeah, I think that was the, that was the first piece that I did. I think they might've used that in some of the promotional stuff though. Cause I've seen that exact image of Slappy at a ticket booth and he's like got his

[00:49:43] hand out like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. They put it on a t-shirt. One of the shirts they had to show. Yeah. I think that might've been the only digital piece I did. Um, I'm, I may think of another one once we get off the, uh, off the call, but that one I kind of remember is, you know, cause at the beginning it, it was way harder for me to do and it took longer, uh, for me to get it the way I wanted to get it.

[00:50:10] And my first computer was a piece of crap. That's a cool picture. Um, uh, goosebumps guru shout out to him. He actually had that shirt and he sold it for a lot of money. Uh, and it was that exact image of Slappy with the ticket booth. And I remember saying to Nick, I'm like, I can't afford that shirt. It's too much. I wanted it, but couldn't afford it. I'm telling you, everything goosebumps nowadays is pretty much out of the price range of the normal folk anymore. It's crazy.

[00:50:41] Uh, even books, uh, standard books, um, that were so common back in the day. Uh, it, it's just exploded. Well, many of, many of your, I don't know if it's because of the Disney plus show or what, but yeah, I mean like, uh, a lot of the, a lot of the books from obviously Tim's era, um, especially if they were first print, I mean, they go for a pretty good money. Uh, I think most of the stuff that both Mark and Craig did ended up being just first prints.

[00:51:08] Uh, there might be some seconds and thirds out there, but I think that was during the declining years of goosebumps. So there probably weren't as many prints going out at the time. Uh, I could be wrong about that, but even those books, uh, to this day are just, are just climbing. So yeah, really interesting to see. Uh, I have another question regarding to that, but I'm going to get back to that. Um, going back to, uh, the, uh, the topic of time and this is a transition to my next

[00:51:38] question. Uh, Tim, if I remember correctly, you told us once a story about, I believe it was when you were, uh, sketching up a night in terror tower, how that one was so last minute that it was basically like a frenzy to get that done. Like how long was that like a day or two? Like you had to finish it. Yeah, usually. So, uh, back to what we were saying earlier, I tried to keep normal work hours and you're,

[00:52:04] you know, depending how busy you were, your work day was eight or 10 hours long. And what ended up happening is, uh, my rep and I talked about the work that was coming in that month. And we said, Hey, there's an extra job. If we take it, what do you think? Can we squeeze it in? And it all seems like a good idea at the beginning of the month. And then when you get to the end of the month and you've chewed up all your time. So my paintings would take me about 30 hours.

[00:52:33] So instead of spreading that 30 hours over a bunch of days, it just had to be done all in, in succession, all in basically in one sitting. And then when I finished, I had to get in the car back to what Craig said about federal express. If you miss that window, then I had to get in the car and physically drive it into the city and hand it over, uh, hand it over the desk.

[00:52:59] So, yeah, that was, uh, the, you know, that was the only one where it was a calculated mistake. If that makes any sense, you know, we knew we were playing with fire and, you know, uh, uh, uh, the thing that I'm happy about is that it didn't come out terrible. Uh, you know, it still looks okay. And, you know, there, there are parts of it where I would have loved to have done had one

[00:53:25] more day and, uh, just eight more hours just to, to tighten some stuff up. But, uh, it worked out. It still became one of the most iconic goosebumps covers. Absolutely. And, and, and maybe I'm saying, oh, the extra time would have made it better. Maybe not. Maybe it's better because, you know, you had to cut down on some of that frilly stuff that you would have put in there that may have distracted. Yeah. You never know. Great. I love that cover. That's one of my favorites.

[00:53:54] But that leads into my next question, uh, regarding what were some of like the most challenging parts of working on this series? Um, like, were there ever any instances where things got way too hectic or like the, the sort of time crunch was, uh, too, you know, you know, too crazy. Uh, Craig, let's start with you for this one. Oh man, that's going back. Um, I don't remember there being anything that was really out of hand.

[00:54:23] Um, but I do remember going to, uh, the airport FedEx to drop a disc in, uh, that had to absolutely be there. And, um, I managed my time pretty well for these. Um, but I, I think with being the digital thing, they could, they could email me and say, can you change this or that or the other or whatever, but the files were big back then and you couldn't email them. They would take way too long.

[00:54:51] Um, when I, if I recall, um, so yeah, not, nothing really comes out or jumps out at me. Sorry about that. All good. Mark, what about you? Uh, this is not good. We're editing that whole bit out. Yes. Yes. Oh, that's really bad. Sorry. You can think of a new answer and then, uh, cut it. I'll come up with something. Wait.

[00:55:19] Um, no, I, I think the only thing I can think of offhand is not really cover related, but I did this desk calendar with like a daily, um, you know, all the days of the year and are the month. And, um, so I had to do like 400 little cartoon drawings for this thing and they wanted it in like a couple of weeks. And I'm not a, I'm not a cartoonist.

[00:55:47] So this is like, again, it's, it's sort of like what, uh, what Tim was saying, kind of like my rep was like, well, you know, it's a pretty good money. You might want to squeeze it in, you know, but I'm not a cartoonist. They're like, well, it's all right. You know, they don't care what's going inside this thing. You know, they're just wanting to turn out this product and I'm like, okay, I guess I could do it. And that was just a nightmare. I mean, yeah, they, they are directed every single day of the year.

[00:56:17] Well, and you know, relay the story about how, uh, you know, you once got to work with curly and I don't know if that was the one that you were referring to, but there was a sort of a calendar thing or a magazine thing where you were working with curly. On the beach. And they were constantly having you change up the sketch only to ultimately just say, Oh, we're not doing it anymore. Sorry. That was a different one.

[00:56:47] You had that one. You showed us though of curly that you did. Yeah. That was supposed to be for like a magazine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I think, uh, when we talked about the scares zines or, um, the screen magazine that goosebumps was doing at the time. Um, but yeah, I mean, it just, that story cracked me up too. That was just fantastic. Cause making the skeletons look. I can't even, I can't even describe.

[00:57:14] This is a, let's see if I can, uh, of course it has beautiful artwork from Tim. Oh, that's cool. But the inside is, oops, there we go here. So every day has like, wow. Oh my God. Thing. Right. And it was just like, and so Holy smokes. 365 days, but of course they want 400, right? So they can pick and choose, uh, whatever.

[00:57:42] And, uh, yeah, I don't like showing it cause it's really awful. Might work, but, but the pay was good. So, you know, they're all yours. I didn't even know that. So when I look at the calendar now, that's, that's all your stuff inside. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's unbelievable. Never again. That's like one of those projects. Even for good pay.

[00:58:12] No, I, I, uh, yeah, I've learned my lesson. Cause I, after my illustration career, I ended up with a, with a nice ulcer. So I, I, I mean like literally I did not turn any jobs down. I mean, it was just like, you know, I was so scared that the next month it'd just dry up. But then, you know, before you know it, you're like 11 or 12 years into it and you're just like, why do I not feel good?

[00:58:40] You know, like what's, like what's going on here? It's like, I, I, I think I need a change here. It's funny too. Cause the, I mean, you would think we've all been doing it for as long as we've been doing it and that, that thing would go away. And it never does. It never does. As soon as there's not jobs lined up, you're like, Oh shit, this ain't good. This ain't good.

[00:59:08] I thought you were talking about ulcers for a minute. I didn't end up with the ulcers. I ended up with mental illness. It's all got to give somewhere. It's just where, to be fair, that's preexisting, Tim. I've, I've talked to you. You might be onto something there. Mental ulcers. No.

[00:59:40] This is probably an easier question. Um, and we probably already know the answers. If you could revisit a previous cover that you did do for goosebumps, uh, what one would you choose? And what, I guess, bonus to that, what would you change about it? Oh God. Not me. I want to be last. I'll start with you then. Go eat worms. We talked about it earlier.

[01:00:07] It's, there's nothing that what would have changed that piece is if I took one of the worms, turned it into a little bit more of a creature and brought it into the foreground so that there was a dominant image in there instead of just kind of nothing happening everywhere. So yeah, that was just one of those ones where, yeah, just, that's all it needed. It needed to have the, what every other goose bumps has is that main element in your face.

[01:00:37] Mm-hmm. 100%. Mark, what about you? I feel like I know the answer. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to stay on, on theme here and I'll go with the secret agent grandma. Uh, I don't know. I, I think it just, you know, I, there, there are other sketches that I wish they went with. And of course they picked the one that I was least, uh, happy with. And, um, and I think it's similar to what Tim just said.

[01:01:03] It's just sort of like, I feel like it's, you're looking at the scene from across the street. Right. So it's not pulled in enough. There's not enough, you know, kind of wow going on. And, um, so while I was painting it, I was just kind of like, I'm so bored. You know, I just feel like this is a person standing right dead in the center, but, but they wanted it that way. And they wanted the bleed and they wanted this and that, and you know, in the end they zoom in on it and then they put all these stupid blurbs over it.

[01:01:32] And I'm thinking, you know, you guys zoomed in on it. So it's like, I could have, I've could have done something more dynamic. It's like, what the heck? Well, I'm going to go off topic and not, I don't think I could ever fix the elevator one. That's just, it's such a bad, I don't think I could fix that. And I, but I would skip to, I think the body snatchers one. And I really would like to redo that one. I mean, it was like the, that's the one with the, uh, the catapult thing that he's got in his hands.

[01:02:02] And I just kind of wanted to redo, I'd redo that one. I'd make it much better. I think. So it was interesting. And, uh, another thing I wanted to, uh, ask really quick, you know, uh, this is the first time we're bringing you three together for the first time. Um, obviously I feel like Craig, Mark, you obviously knew about Tim, uh, going into this, but, uh, I guess the three of you, did you have any sort of impression on each other before meeting up today?

[01:02:30] Uh, and follow-up question, uh, any favorite pieces, uh, from the others? Oh, well, I knew, I knew both. I knew of both of these guys. And of course, everybody knows who Tim is. And I, I knew some of, uh, Mark's work from when, in the beginning, when I started, they were showing me his work. So I kind of had a little bit of an idea. Um, but favorite pieces. There's a lot for both of them.

[01:02:58] Um, definitely the, the one, the, um, I'm going to get the names all messed up, but the tower tower of terror, the, that one, I think that's iconic. It's funny that you kind of just rushed that one out because it can, it's such an iconic piece. And the chicken chicken one is really funny too. I think that's one of my favorites. Let's see. Um, uh, the haunted mask obviously is an absolute classic.

[01:03:23] And, uh, those are in, I think the books that are my favorites are always like a single character in, you know, where we're really focused on that character and not like a bunch of stuff going on. And those are my work. That's usually the ones that I liked the most are the ones that have one thing with a background, you know, and, you know, iconic in that regard and Mark, the werewolf one with the wolves. Oh yeah. Great.

[01:03:53] That's super iconic too. I love that one. That's really fun piece. Really neat. And that's a lot. You got a lot of wolves and that's tough to draw wolves, man. Um, and the carnival of tears return of the car. What was the, what was the return of carnival? Yeah. It was at the roller coaster. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. That's one of my favorites too. Very cool. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Very cool. What about you?

[01:04:20] Uh, well, you know, leading off, I was going to say for, for Craig, I love the werewolf one he did where they're like leaping up. Oh, thanks. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a sucker for, for anything. That's my favorite too. Craig. Oh, thanks. Yeah. And actually, and I don't mind your elevator one. Oh my God. You got, you got one fan. Oh, thanks Mark.

[01:04:49] That's so cool. But yeah, the, you know, the funny, and of course with, with, uh, uh, you know, with Tim, I mean, it's, it's everything, right? Yeah. His whole, his whole body of work. Yeah. Hard to tease, right? I love say cheese and die. Any, anything with skeletons. Yeah. Then, uh, Tim, what about you? Oh, they've already been stepped on, but both of these guys, they both did awesome werewolf pieces.

[01:05:17] And I, my, my, my werewolves are like my wolves. I struggle with them. So that's why I like when I see somebody do them go, oh yeah, these guys, they got it. They, they got this is working. So, uh, yeah, those for sure. Uh, and also just, uh, you know, uh, I was more familiar with Mark stuff because you were doing it kind of at the same time that I was doing it.

[01:05:46] And, uh, I thought those give yourself goosebumps or I'm sorry, they choose your own adventure, uh, books were just, were crazy good. And, uh, uh, you know, just the whole structure of them. And, and, uh, uh, and so, uh, yeah, uh, I, I was envious that, uh, uh, you know, there was a whole nother thing going on off to the side there. And you, they were, they were working you pretty hard too.

[01:06:14] And they were coming out pretty often. So, uh, I knew, I knew there was somebody else in the trenches at the same time putting up with the stuff. So. I mean, imagine how Stein felt. Exactly. I, I, I, I can't even figure that out. All of that makes no sense to me. And, you know, he's still doing that nonsense. He's 78 and he's not showing any signs of putting his foot on the brake. Wow. That's worse than that. He'll be 82 this year.

[01:06:45] Is it 82? Oh, wow. 82. Yeah. Wow. And he's still doing it. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, when you talk to him, you're going, oh yeah, you're not, this isn't, there's no sign of, okay. Oh, I've had enough or, you know, I'm thinking of slowing down a little. It's, it's, I think it's that thing where it just, that's what he does that, you know, it's been so long. This is just it.

[01:07:12] And he has, he has that work thing too. Gets up and does the same structure, the same motions every day. So I'm sure that's part of why he stays young. One thing I have to bring up is that the greatest thing ever is happening. RL Stein is returning to acting because the trailer for the new Fear Street movie dropped today at the time of this recording.

[01:07:40] Uh, and it has him essentially being like a horror host and like, that is hilarious. I'm so happy when I saw that. Oh, that's cool. Narrating that. Cause he's just like, you know, people usually don't like when teenagers get murdered and yet here we are. There's a lot of. Here you are. Like there's even a goosebumps. Oh, did we miss it? The, with the goosebumps soccer Jersey that they brought out.

[01:08:07] There is a, there is a, there is a soccer kit that just got, uh, it's tied in with the Columbus crew out of Ohio. And actually their, their season game just kicked off with a goosebumps themed night. Um, but they also did some promotional video with RL Stein, uh, you know, just sort of rummaging around in his, uh, his collection of books. And it's just so funny.

[01:08:31] It, it, we always tease the poor guy for, uh, his acting in the nineties show because he was just, he was always just kind of stiff. Oh, I'm RL Stein. He was himself. He was just himself. That's it. Just himself. Mark and Craig. Well, it's funny you say that. Cause like, I, I kind of leads me into my next question. You know, we're talking about what motivates Stein to do that.

[01:08:55] Um, after all this time, I mean, I know, um, Mark, you went on to do a toy company and everything. And, uh, but you still did art with that. So, I mean, what motivates you guys after all these years to still do art? Cause there has to be some motivation there to do it. I mean, it's not a mundane job, you know, where you're flipping burgers every day. Oh my God, this job, you know, to do it this long, you got to have a love and passion for it.

[01:09:25] So what motivates you guys to do that? Yeah. I mean, for me, it's just, I have to do it. So no matter what career path I would have chosen, um, even if say I wasn't doing something art related, I would definitely still want to make my own art if that makes any sense. So, um, it's just something I, I've always had.

[01:09:49] It's like, I'm sort of driven that if I go a couple of days and I haven't doodled something or I haven't started a new project, um, art wise, um, it just, something feels off if that makes any sense. So yeah, I have to create, I guess that maybe that's what it is. Same exact thing here. I have to create. It's a, it's a weird kind of compulsion and it's, uh, I, I, even when we go on vacation after about a week, I'm like, okay, I gotta, I gotta do something.

[01:10:17] My wife's like, oh, for God's sake, please. You know, I'm like, I gotta, I have to create something whether it's, I mean, I, I got a lot of hobbies I've done like woodworking and lots of different things that have to do with creating art. And, uh, and I still, I'm still active, uh, illustrator today. I mean, I still work on, I do mostly like photo, um, composition type stuff.

[01:10:42] That's the majority of my work, but I do stuff like a graphic kind of stuff for an illustrator, which is not the goosebumps stuff, but it's a little bit more technical type illustration. So I still do a lot of that. So yeah, this is my job. I can't do anything else. I gotta make this work. It's like, I don't have any other skills. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I backed myself into a corner. This is it. I don't know how to do anything else. Too old to learn anything.

[01:11:10] I'm too grumpy to learn anything else. So you gotta get up and make the donuts. It's that simple. That's awesome. We gotta get, I don't know. Tim might've just shown his age there. If anybody knows that reference, he just did. Oh, I know it. I know it. Um, do you guys have any like favorite color, like combinations that you would use in just any, any of your art pieces?

[01:11:35] Like ever any like favorite colors that you personally like putting together or was it just kind of like whatever worked for the moment? For me, it was the cool in the warm, like the orange and the blue kind of thing. And back in the day, there were the Hildebrand brothers. I don't know if you guys remember. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other colors were always amazing. And I was like, wow, you know, I just love that look. And yeah, that's, so that's one of my, I used to love to get to do that.

[01:12:04] And mostly the art dictated what you were going to do, but sometimes you can get crazy with it and do something really fun. Yeah. I used to, once they told me that that was a big, you know, a big draw, everybody got excited. Oh, those are wild colors. Keep doing that. Yeah. I went back to every source I could find, whether it was an old art school color theory class and broke out the wheel and said, all right, we're doing split triads this month.

[01:12:34] What crazy one can we do? But the Hildebrand brothers, I had a J.R. Tolkien calendar that they had put out. And it was back when Tim and Greg were painting together simultaneously. And their art was just, again, it was so, to me, it was so far ahead of its time. And same thing.

[01:13:01] That's where I learned, oh, when you get to the shadows, don't just go dark and go black. Bring in some other colors. And that's where the blues and the purples should go. And, you know, I owe it all to just staring at that stupid calendar. I had that thing for years. Just kept going back for reference. What did he do? I remember there's another good one in here. So, yeah. Yeah. Another quick thing, just before I forget about that.

[01:13:30] Back then, we'd have no internet. So, if you wanted to look at someone else's art, you had these things called workbook. Or they were books that came out every year with a bunch of illustrators. And it was, you know, the art shelves. And they're still kind of sad at the bookstore. But the art shelves, I lived there. I would go through and I would go to the bookstore. And I just looked through all the books. And they were all expensive. You know, they were big, colorful books, right?

[01:13:55] And we didn't have, you know, any even reference, like, to reference what some of this stuff looked like. You had to rip through magazines. And I'm sure you guys had, I don't know, I had file folders filled with, like, references of qualifications. White files. Heck, yeah. Cut up every magazine I ever owned. Exactly, right? Yeah, National Geographic. It was like, okay, rip them out, you know, and file it all.

[01:14:22] Because, you know, we didn't, you can't, now you can just type in baboon. And, you know, that's what a baboon looks like. And you have to look it up. East African baboon. There you go. Yeah. There you go. It's funny you say that, because, like, I swear, like, I remember watching a behind the scenes of The Lion King. And they had the artists in a room. But they were in a room with a real lion or a real, you know, chimpanzee. Like, that was the crazy thing. I was like, you really just can't get a picture.

[01:14:51] You got to have the real thing in front of you, potentially, to maul you while you're drawing it. Yeah. That was the craziest thing to me. Just dangerous. Deep trouble, too, with the giant mutant goldfish. You know, I was working on that for a while, and I couldn't get it right. And my ex came home with a plastic bag with the goldfish in it, set it on the table. And I went, all right, this is going to work. This is going to work.

[01:15:20] And then, you know, so then you spend a couple hours staring at it, and it's like, he can't live in that plastic bag. Okay. Get the better bowl. Okay. Get the better tank. Okay. That thing ended up living for, like, four years and had the biggest tank in the world. And it cost me a fortune. I lost all the money I made off the cover on all the supplies I had to keep the stupid goldfish alive. That's awesome.

[01:15:50] Oh, my God. Mark, do you have something to add? No, I was just going to echo. I think we're all sort of in the same age range and freelancing sort of at the same time. And, you know, we all have our, you know, they call them morgues, right? Or flat files of just reference materials. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And Sunday papers, like, they used to give you coupons and stuff.

[01:16:16] And anytime I'd see, like, a Chrome lettering example, I would tear it out. And, you know, my now wife, girlfriend at the time would say, like, why are you saving, you know, like, it says, like, ice. And it's, like, airbrushed like ice, right? I'm like, because I might be called one day, you know, and they might say, we want you to make, you know, this logo and make it look like ice. And I said, this is perfect. You know, like, you know, I can kind of see how the guy did it kind of thing. And, yeah. And, yeah.

[01:16:45] And then I would buy showcase. Yeah, that's right. Showcase. Yeah. And then eventually you'd have to take out ads in those damn things. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, again, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the Hildebrand brothers, all those guys, Thomas Blackshear, Todd Shaw. Yeah. I mean, there's all these old airbrush guys. Just amazing stuff. Yep. Mm-hmm. And going to the reference stuff, and we always bring this up because it's always so fascinating,

[01:17:15] but many of the ways that Tim would do sort of referencing for people is either getting reference actors. And, Mark, you also did this, too. We talked about this. You know, getting people to reference, whether it be, you know, actors or in the case of Tim, sometimes himself, which was always funny to see the sort of reference image. In fact, I think our buddy Jared, 90s Kids Library on Instagram, even posted, like, just a post of, like,

[01:17:44] the photos that inspired the Goosebumps covers, and it was just, like, whatever was available. Yeah. So you had the one for the Haunted Mask with the mask. You had, you know, Tim doing a buddy from Camp Jelly Jam, like, those kinds of ones. And then, yeah. And then, Mark, you were telling us about how when you started out, you would have actors that were hired to come in to be, like, the reference. Yeah.

[01:18:13] I mean, they would have to... You know, a kid from a talent agency, not just a random kid. And a photographer. And, yeah, we'd go to a studio, and they'd take the reference based on my sketches and stuff.

[01:18:38] But, you know, later on, I think they were a little bit more open to just letting me kind of render things that weren't necessarily photographed, if that makes sense. So it didn't have to be so photorealistic. So it became a little bit easier later. Yep. Well, I'm glad they gave you a budget for that. You know, it'd be really weird having you go around in a van asking kids if you could take photos of them. You know. You want to be on a Goosebumps cover?

[01:19:08] It was frowned upon back then. It was frowned upon now, too. Hey, Kate, you want to be on a Goosebumps cover? That's how, you know, because it was so popular back then. That's how it would have gone, right? Yeah. Mark Craig, I know Tim definitely got to work closely with Stein, but did you guys ever get to meet or work with him? Never. Not me, anyway. Really? Nope. I know. No.

[01:19:38] Well, I mean, also being on the West Coast didn't help either. He was always asleep whenever we were up, so. I would love to meet him, though. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's the next thing we got to get. We got to get arranged. Cool. Convention. We will meet. We will all meet. Yeah. So when it comes to.

[01:20:01] So as we've been told, the basic process for making a cover for Goosebumps was that you guys would get a blurb sent to you that just sort of had like an excerpt from the story or sort of just the general plot. But did you guys ever get to go back and read the books once they were finished? And if so, did they ever, you know, really meet match with the art that you had made for it? I could jump in real quick.

[01:20:31] My quick answer is no. No. I was already 30 years old. And, you know, again, it was it was a job. And, you know, I was aware of the demographics, demographics that, you know, the kids really like the books. But I was more concerned with just meeting the deadlines. And, you know, by the time the thing actually was in the bookstore was almost like a year later. So or nine, you know, nine or 10 months later.

[01:21:00] So I was already like way on the next stuff going on. So it was just. Yeah. It was like there's no time if that makes any sense. Yeah. Yeah. I actually I had all of the books that I did. And I thought my daughter would be really into them, you know, and I think they were just too scary for her. And we had them in her closet for the longest time. And one day she was old enough. She was probably about 12 or 13.

[01:21:29] I said, are you going to read any of these books? And she's like, no, I don't think so. Because she's a good she's a really good reader. She loved reading books. And so I signed them all, all 25 of them or whatever. I signed the inside and I took them to our local library or her school. I can't remember which library and donated them like I should. I should have hung on to. But I thought I didn't think at the time I didn't think anybody was going to be that interested in it later. Like now that you guys never dawned on me that you guys would grow up and think it's cool.

[01:21:59] And I would have kept them. But I had I had all of them and I gave them all away. Like where they are now. I'll give you the address of the library situation with his autobiography. Uh, so he told us a story one time, uh, that he bought them on Amazon. I think it's what it was for like a quarter or something. He said it was more to ship. And then they were 25 and 50 cents. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:22:26] And then I would go to like, I would go to, I spoke at the local, uh, elementary schools from time to time. And I would just give them out. Yeah. Yeah. They're probably in your library. You know? Yeah. They can, you know, and now, and now thinking, Hey, keep a couple people. Keep a couple. Nah. Nah. I can drop pretty good. I'm a terrible person. It goes. Yeah. Now each one typically goes for around $200 in good condition. Oh my God.

[01:22:54] And if he signs it, it goes for more. Craig, yours are expensive, man. I'm telling you. Are they? Wow. Some of those. Yeah. Like return to terror tower, body squeezers. Those ones. Like you're probably going to be paying at least 50 bucks for. Oh my gosh. Good condition. One of those. More for me here. Oh, it's more for me now. Yeah. Wow. I need to go back to the library and check them out and just pay. I'm going to need those. Just pull a, just pull a Bjorn.

[01:23:23] Bjorn's done that before. I know. I lost it. When I was a kid, I used to go to the library when there was certain goosebump books. I just simply couldn't find. And I would just check them out. And then I just would wait for the little bill to come in the mail and just pay it. And that was bad. Hey, at least I paid the bill. It's not like I didn't pay it. It took the book. I paid the bill and I got to keep the book.

[01:23:52] And it was like a copy that had the little, little slip of paper inside the 20 names that have signed it out. Oh, cool. Yeah. Back when you had to do that. And yours was the last name to check it out. So I got the last name. That's the key there. Specifically, I remember it was Ghost in the Mirror was one of them. I remember one of them was one of Craig's. It was the Special Edition 1, which was of Special Edition 1. That's the dinosaur one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:24:19] And yeah, there was a couple like that. I just couldn't find anywhere. So I was just like, but they're at the library. So I was like, well, if I can borrow these and then don't return them, I'll just have to pay it. Right. Like, what is it? $10? Well, again, another thing that's like so weird when you think back on it is like these books were commonplace, you know, back in the day. You didn't think anything about them. And then all of a sudden they just become like the next hot thing and everybody wants them. Like when the movie came out, especially like everybody was suddenly like, wait a minute.

[01:24:49] I loved Goosebumps. And then they're like going and finding all the books and suddenly they're, they're becoming more valuable. So it's, it's another funny thing of the times where like something just suddenly even have price books has caught on. Like they're starting to put some of the higher end books in higher pricing. Now they didn't used to be, it used to be two bucks. No matter what the book was this yesterday, but I found this one and it was over eight bucks. Wow.

[01:25:17] So one of the tales, eight bucks, that's not too bad, but that definitely ain't half price, half price books. All right. I mean, even to the point of like, I can't find any around me anymore. I used to go to my half price books quite often, even though it's about 40 minutes away from me, but now I go once a month because they just don't have any. The last time I apparently just missed out on some books there because some lady they said came in and bought every single one they had. Yeah. Wow. Crazy.

[01:25:47] So that's just where the market's at. I mean, it's the Goosebumps has really exploded in the past probably five, six years, I'd say, um, the movie started it and then the Disney plus show kind of pushed it forward. And now it's over 30 years old. So now it's kind of in that nostalgia phase. Every, you're going to have these properties that come back and like a big nostalgic way companies are going to be like, wait a minute, you know, these, these franchises are really popular and then they capitalize on them.

[01:26:14] So that's just something that happens with everything for a while. So it was like 80 stuff, like eighties toys and shows and movies. And now I feel we're in the, in the middle of the nineties era. And honestly, it's scary as it is pretty soon. There'll be the nostalgia for the two thousands and all that stuff. I'm not ready for that. Some people are already starting that phase. I literally just saw something today about that. Like, Oh, we had it so good in the early two thousands.

[01:26:44] I'm like, two thousands. I'm 23. We're in the two thousands. I'm too young to be nostalgic. Wait to your R.A. There's a nineties museum in Denver. Somebody shared a reel on and it has like compact disc players and, uh, you know, NSYNC and back. I'm just like, why is there a museum about the nineties already? When you're our age, you become vintage and that's really bad.

[01:27:14] You're like, I'm vintage now. That's scary. It's going to come. It'll come. Sorry to tell you. My next question is outside of goosebumps. Did you guys ever have a project that was like super demanding, uh, to work on? Like one that kind of really, really, uh, was challenging to do. Uh, uh, Mark, let's start with you for this one.

[01:27:41] Um, so yeah, outside of goosebumps, um, I used to do these technical cutaway, um, illustrations of Schlage locks, door locks. And this is before, again, before Photoshop and all that kind of stuff. And, um, they would give me their, um, you know, their schematics, like in kind of, um, like an, you know, an architect kind of like, you know, a blown out drawing of just like,

[01:28:10] you know, here's a little parts and, you know, the tumblers do this. And, and, you know, sometimes they'd actually give me the actual parts. Like, this is what the spring looks like. And they would want, um, using airbrush, they would want like a cutaway view of like, you know, here's a key going inside the lock and here's all the tumblers falling down into it. Um, so that was super challenging in that I was doing it all by hand, right?

[01:28:37] With the, you know, paintbrush and, uh, airbrush and whatnot. And, um, and, you know, now of course they can do it and it's much easier because you could, you know, if you needed to finesse something or fix it with the computer, it's a lot easier. But, um, but back in those days, uh, I, for me, that was, I was doing those concurrent with the Goosebumps books. So it was almost like using two different sides of my brain.

[01:29:03] You know, it's like the, the Goosebumps stuff was like all crazy fantasy wild colors. And then I'd have to just kind of like slow it down and get very technical with these drawings and, and talk to engineers about, you know, different lock components and stuff. Um, so yeah, it's funny, you know, again, it was a job and, you know, I had fun doing it. And now when I look back on the tear sheets that I got from those jobs, I can't believe

[01:29:31] that I actually like rendered some of those things, you know, it's like, I would never do that now. It would just drive me. It would drive me insane. Exactly. I had some, I'm glad you never got your wires crossed and, you know, put one of those bikinis from the skeleton to the picture you showed us in that beach thing onto the, one of the tumblers or something, you know? What is this? Yeah. There's a, there's probably hidden skulls in there somewhere that Easter egg.

[01:30:02] A skull key. Well, that makes sense. Perfect. I was going to say, I did some, uh, illustrations for feel and stream magazine that were like, well, they looked like woodcuts, but they were done with scratch board. I don't know if you guys ever remember any of that, but you scratched it off and when you scratched off the white and left with black. And I had to, they had very specific references for all these animals and there, there was a

[01:30:32] bunch of them. But then I was thinking that I did some animorphs covers. Do you remember the animorphs books? Do you guys know animorphs? Yeah. I did some of those covers. Mark actually worked on the first book. I was going to say, we found out last time Mark did some. Oh, did you? Man, that, those were hard. That, that was something that I was like, I kind of, that's one job I would go, no, I'm not going to do that again. That was too much work.

[01:30:59] So yeah, those were, those are the ones that I was come to mind. It was just like a little bit, I wouldn't do that again. So, and Tim, what about you? In, in New Jersey, there's a lot of medical advertising. So got a chance to do some medical illustrations and yeah, that's, it's just very, there's not a lot of good reference shots and then they're very specific about what they are.

[01:31:27] So there was lots of back and forth of, okay, like this. And then you'd go, no, it's got to be a little, you know, so they were all very reasonable and the budgets were good, but you were really going into it kind of blind. And you, you, you went around it until you, you know, until everybody was happy. I've always joked about this though, but there's not a whole lot of difference between medical

[01:31:55] illustrations and horror illustrations in the long run. If you can make something look wet and ooze and drippy, you're going to do fine in the medical illustration business. God, there's things like brain juice, which is basically, right? Yeah. It's detailed enough to be a medical illustration. It's just got some alien goo all over it. So my next question, you know, we're kind of getting into the wrap up here.

[01:32:26] I got two more questions to ask. And my first one is, do you have any sort of general advice that you would give to anybody who's maybe wanting to start or maybe is an up and coming artist? Tim, let's go ahead and start with you for this one. Take your meds. Take your meds. I've talked about this before.

[01:32:51] Like early on, I used to have all kinds of information of, okay, this is how I did it. These were the steps that I took. And so much time has passed that the things that were relevant or are good ideas or whatever have long since changed. And most of the information I give now is it's weird that art gets this thing.

[01:33:17] And I don't know where we all learned it from, but, oh, you hear it all the time. Oh, I'm not feeling very inspired. And I'm, you know, I'm waiting for the muse or whatever that, you know, whatever cliches that you've heard. You know, that's, it's all nonsense. And this is, you know, treat your art like you would if you were an athlete and, you know, carve out time to do it every day. You know, do what you need to do.

[01:33:47] Do your sit-ups and your push-ups. And that means do your sketches and do what you need to do. And it's most important to do it when you don't feel like doing it, because that's where you make the real progress and you lay down the real muscle memory and all those things that you hear people talking about with athletics. It applies to art. So, you know, treat it, treat it more respectfully and carve out time to do it every day.

[01:34:15] And that your whole, your whole art career, know whether it's drawing, painting, writing or acting, you do it every day, you get better. It's that simple. It's all a numbers game. Mm-hmm. 100%. I agree. Mark? I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that's it. That's the episode. Thanks, Tim.

[01:34:39] No, I would add, you know, my son is an artist. And what I tell him is it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. So, you know, the internet is very, it can be daunting for a young person because you're hit with worldwide top artists, you know, Thailand, Africa, wherever, Japan, France.

[01:35:09] And it's just like, if I saw that when I was first starting, I probably would have thought like, oh, forget it. I can't, you know, I can't compete. But I just tell him, look, you just got to keep plugging along. Not everything is going to work out. And so you pick yourself up and you move on to the next project or you submit your stuff to this, you know, some other publisher.

[01:35:34] And for sure, I, you know, some of it's personality too, because like, for me, I just, I don't take no for an answer. So if that's not going to work out, if some direction is not going to work out for me, then I find maybe a B or C way to get to wherever I need to get to. If it's something I really want to do. Or what I do now is I just create my own toy or my own thing, right?

[01:36:03] I don't wait for somebody to call and hire me to do it. So, so again, I think this, you know, I agree with Tim. There's, there's many different ways of getting there and, but you have to do the work. I mean, there's no, you know, none of these guys we've talked about the Hildebrands or whoever, they weren't lazy. I mean, these guys always worked and they always worked hard. So that's, you know, that's great advice. So, yeah, I think so too. Yeah. That's great.

[01:36:33] Yeah. It is very intimidating out there. My daughter's also, she's going to be a graphic designer, but she can draw really well. And she's been interested in it forever. And it's very intimidating for us. For me, I look at the, some of the stuff and I'm inspired, but I'm also like, I could never do that. You know, there's no way, you know, I guess it's like saying somebody play guitar. Who's really good at it. And you're like, I can play guitar, but I can't play like that.

[01:36:59] But you have to kind of like force yourself to kind of pick what you want to focus on. And I, I'm kind of a little bit of a different perspective. I say, if you're going to, if you want to be an artist, like a draw or paint, learn how to draw. That's like main. I think that's major. Even if you want to be a landscape painter, if you can learn how to draw anything that will serve you for the rest of your career, you know, and learning how to draw is.

[01:37:28] I think Saul Bass, I just saw something recently and he was a big graphic designer back in the sixties and seventies. And he was like, learn how to draw. That's, that's a, that's a big deal. So that's what would be my advice. Whoever's learning and wants to be an artist and, and learn how to sketch with paper and pencil, you know, not necessarily just digital. So I love doing paper and pencil stuff and I never get to do it as much as I, as I'd like to, but I, I've been doing sketches for, for goosebumps fans and it's been a blast.

[01:37:58] I really get a kick out of it. So yeah, I've seen the, the, the sketches you've been doing for, you know, the goosebumps community and they've been amazing. I love the terror tower one that you did with the horse, which was amazing. And of course the one, uh, your version of slappy, the very first time you got to draw slappy, uh, was incredible. Fully colored too. I tell you, slappy has got to be, so he's going to be one of the hardest on a, like a template.

[01:38:27] Like I'm pretty sure there's like some sort of template you can slap that on and just make a mock goosebumps cover. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. Slappy is one of the hardest things I've ever had to draw. Tim, I don't know how you guys did it, man. He is like, I can't get that right. It takes a lot of work to get that right. All about that long jaw. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That was always one thing I loved about how Tim drew slappy. It was just the, the, the hanging jaw.

[01:38:56] Like it was just like, and it wasn't like just a little bit, it was just kind of like all the way down here. Awesome. It was always something I personally loved about it. I want to elaborate on Tim slappy art, but I got to save that for the roast of Tim Jacobus. Why? Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. You, you know the one, because I told you guys, I was like, we really do this. I got, I got some stuff. Okay. Bring it up.

[01:39:26] Bring it up. I have a very good question for Tim. Out of all the night of the living dummy books you did, which was your favorite, which was your favorite version of slappy to do? Oh, I liked the one where they're all in the attic. The dummy three. Oh, three. Dummy three. Yeah. Yeah. Just because I got a chance to do a whole bunch of different versions of slap. You know, they really are just different versions of slappy. And no, I thought that one, I thought that one worked out real nice. Cool.

[01:39:54] And then my, my very last question to you guys, before we end off the night, you know, just the fact again, that we had all three of you here tonight to talk with each other. I mean, these are you three did all the art for the nineties goosebumps era. And of course there's other people who have gone on to do not just the cover arts, but like graphic novels and comics and things like that. Lots of people have gotten attached to this franchise, but what do you guys think just

[01:40:23] personally that, you know, there are others amongst you who have shared in those experiences of working on this very popular series. Uh, Craig, let's start with you first. What do you think? I think it's amazing. It's very cool. And, and I still think Scholastic should call me cause I'm, I'm ready to do some more. Yeah. Certainly we've seen lately that you got what it takes to keep going. So true.

[01:40:51] I was going to say, uh, we're, we're vintage now. It came from the internet and slappy mashup. Oh, that's a really good sketch. But that like if they did some. The executioner on the horse with the shield and stuff was awesome. It gave me like very medieval vibes, which it should cause it's the executioner. But, uh, I think you even added a background piece to that too. Didn't you? It wasn't just the horse and the executioner. I feel like there was a castle or something in the back. Yeah.

[01:41:20] I was trying to really like back there. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a really simple added background piece, but that's one thing Tim, uh, does very well too. And, and said he liked to do was a lot of background piece. Uh, you know, like one day at horror land with the carnival in the background and, and things of that nature. So I think those little touches. Yeah. Those little touches add something even with the creature in the foreground as a little something to it.

[01:41:46] Even if like scholastic did a reprint of a couple of the books, like specifically maybe just a couple of each and you guys got to go back and revisit those and do a different interpretation of that cover. That would be cool. I'd totally do that. I'd totally do that. That'd be so much fun. Yeah, absolutely. Well, they've been reusing Tim's artwork for the new reprinted versions lately. They just been, they were just like, I guess we'll just go back to the wheel. Just keep reusing. Exactly. It doesn't cost anything. Definitely. Yeah, exactly.

[01:42:15] They don't got to pay anything. They're just like, oh, we've got this authority. That's the one thing I said to Tim last time. I was like, where are your royalties, man? Stuff's everywhere. Yeah. With my hair. They're royalties with my hair. They don't exist. Mark, what is your input? You know, I'd love to do the grandma one over. But, you know, maybe I was thinking, you know, like, okay, so we've got,

[01:42:43] Craig and Tim, it's, you know, we're kind of like the three tenors here or something. It'd be very cool if you guys, you know, do pull off the secret thing that I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention. Like, the three of us should somehow do a jam piece or something. Oh, that'd be awesome. That'd be cool, right? That'd be awesome. I would love to. You could do that now. Yeah. Why would you do it now? We could. Oh, man. I'd love to see that.

[01:43:13] It would be so cool to just see that collaborative process and the clashing of the different styles. I personally feel. Or maybe they would be similar. I don't know. So, Craig, that means you're going to have to do it traditional, right? I still have my airbrush, man. I can pull it out. No problem. There you go. I got it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, Tim, let's end it off with you. I forgot the question.

[01:43:42] What is just your basic impression that other people have? Again, we touched on it earlier. So, you guys will appreciate this all as you get older. I'm going to talk like an old man now. But the fact that, you know, we still get to do what we started out to do. You know, when I told my dad I was going to be an illustrator, he was far from thrilled.

[01:44:11] And, you know, he couldn't appreciate what, you know, he had grown up. My dad grew up very poor. He was in World War II. He got out and he worked for a pharmaceutical company and he made a good life for us. And that's how he saw life was supposed to be. And when his knucklehead son decided he was going to, you know, become a book illustrator, he just couldn't get his head wrapped around it. And it all worked out.

[01:44:40] And so many steps along the way, and I'm sure you guys ran into this, this could have easily have blown up and gone off the tracks and we wouldn't be having these conversations. So the fact that, you know, a couple of things fell into place and that, you know, at certain opportunities presented themselves and that we were able to keep going forward and we're still moving forward now.

[01:45:05] It's, you know, we're, the numbers are very tiny of the people who get to do what we get to do. So it's not lost on me. I wake up every day and go, all right, still in it. One more day. One more day. Me too. Me too. Same thing. Yes. I love it. Well, see, here's the thing. Like Tim, back in the day, I totally see just because of photos looking at his dad with his long hair and his ripped jeans. Yeah. Totally.

[01:45:35] I'm going to be an artist. Hey, man. Hey, man. No, you do like the, I think it'll like the Peter Parker, like hair, hair tough from Spider-Man three, where he's just like, you don't understand. You're not with it. You don't get it, dad. You're not far off. All this is very close. All very close. I'm kidding. Tim, I poke at Tim, but he knows I love him. Yeah.

[01:46:04] Well, and just to put a nice little bow on the whole thing, it's just like, you know, we've praised you guys to high heaven and all that, but we're so thrilled to get to talk to every single person who's done art on this series. Again, like not just the books, but the comics and all that stuff. And people who have either grown up with these books or taken massive inspiration. It's a great sort of passing of the torch sort of thing where like, you know, everybody talks about Tim.

[01:46:31] You know, we talk about Tim a lot, but lots of people have followed in his footsteps and are, they're the ones that are continuing the tradition and continuing to keep the series alive. And, you know, Brandon Dorman, who carried that whole revival era and currently now Robert Ball, who's handling the current series. They're doing amazing work too. And, you know, hopefully one day we can bring them on to talk about their experiences.

[01:46:59] So, but until then, you know, but that is going to do it for tonight's episode of the Goosebumps Crew Podcast. I want to sincerely thank our three guests, Tim Jacobus, Mark Nagata and Craig White, all for joining us here in the same episode. This was an absolute treat to not only talk with you guys again, but talk with you guys at the same time. So thank you guys so incredibly much. It was an awesome pleasure. Oh, our pleasure. My pleasure for sure. Yeah. It was fun. Yeah.

[01:47:29] It was great. Awesome. Yeah. Between the three of us, we had enough smoke for all three of you. Usually Isaiah has enough himself, but tonight was a special occasion. I'm going to go cry now. And of course, before we go, I do, Tim, do you have any convention appearances that'll be coming up soon?

[01:47:54] Yeah, I'll be in Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle next weekend. All righty. Well, anybody in Emerald City Comic Con, make sure you go check them out. It's always a pleasure to go see Tim in person. So don't miss it. And of course, I'll vouch for that. Yeah. Awesome. And you can follow all three of these guys on their social medias. They're all available on Instagram.

[01:48:19] I do know that Mark at Max Toy Company is also on Twitter and Facebook. So you can go check them out. I'll leave links to all their social medias down below. You can also go check out their websites, especially Tim's. As always, we like to shout out. He does sell Goosebumps prints with some of the proceeds going towards feeding the hungry, the homeless. Great things that he does for people who are in need.

[01:48:47] And you get a sweet Goosebumps print in return. I do believe, Craig, you mentioned earlier that you are doing some as well. Is that done through your website or do they just message you directly? You can do Instagram. It's probably the easiest way to do it. There is some stuff on my website, but it's probably easier if you want to just contact me through Instagram, instant message or whatever, if you want to cover sketch or something like that. Yeah, no, he's been doing a lot of awesome Goosebumps sketches lately.

[01:49:16] So that's another avenue you don't want to miss out on if you want some awesome Goosebumps art. I love doing it too. It's a lot of fun. I think, Mark, are you selling some of your paintings as well? Or I think I remember seeing some before. Slow. Are you doing sketches and stuff too? Slowly. I'm not taking sketches right now. Just unfortunately don't have the time, but I still have almost all my paintings. So stay tuned.

[01:49:46] That's great. Another thing to reconsider. Yeah, I'll leave links to all of them down below. You can check them out and maybe get some cool art from them. You won't regret it. And of course, as always, make sure you follow Bjorn and Nick and Goosebumpsox fans, Sean, respectively. If you like today's episode, make sure you have a like and comment. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow us on our audio platforms and social medias. All those links are in the description below. We'll have another episode for you next week. But until then, this has been the Goosebumps Crew Podcast.

[01:50:15] And from all of us here, we want to wish you, as always, to take care, stay safe, and have a very scary day. Bye. Bye.