If you are a horror fan as an adult you were likely exposed to (and requisitely terrified by) the genre thanks to author RL Stine. The prolific writer has a long list of children and young adult series such as Goosebumps and Fear Street filled with jump scares, wild characters, creepy moments, and age-appropriate frights to get your pre-teen blood pumping.
As a lifelong horror fan, I was more than excited to interview Stine at New York Comic Con 2024.
DEANNA DESTITO: How has signing been at NYCC?
RL STINE: It’s my ’90s kids who are here. What a lucky thing. We just captured all the ’90s kids. It’s very gratifying for me because they come up saying, “You were my childhood, or, thank you for getting me through a difficult childhood. Or, I wouldn’t be a librarian today if it wasn’t for your books.” That’s very gratifying.
RL Stine at NYCC ’24DESTITO: I grew up on Goosebumps.
STINE: And you turned out okay! You turned out all right despite those books.
DESTITO: I have two children and I’m passing my books to them. Do you get that a lot? The generational passing of the books?
STINE: Yeah, I’m old. I’m scaring a lot of generations. This is what I’m dreading. They come up and say, “My grandmother loves your books.” I’m waiting for that. So far, that hasn’t happened. That’s when I’m done. My grandkids are 10 and 5. And Dylan is carrying on my son’s tradition of not reading me. My son, his claim to fame is he never read a Goosebumps book. Isn’t that awful? It’s just a natural way for kids to get dad.
DESTITO: Maybe he’s secretly reading them and just not telling you.
STINE: No, that’s what a nice person says. It’s not true. Dylan, my grandson, is carrying on that tradition. I did a book signing at Barnes & Noble Union Square about a month ago, and Dylan came, and all the time I was up there talking, he was reading Wings of Fire, someone else’s stuff. Then afterwards, I said, Dylan, did you like the ghost story I told? He said, I liked it when you told it last year.
DESTITO: I credit your books and Scooby-Doo as to why I’m a big horror fan. For me, the scary stuff was safe because I knew that it was fake.
STINE: We always call them “safe scared.” You know there’s going to be a happy ending.
DESTITO: Is that why you chose to do more of the young reader stuff, to make it a safe space?
STINE: I’ll tell you the truth. I didn’t want to do Goosebumps. That’s the businessman I am. I was doing Fear Street books, and they were doing really well as I was killing off teenagers every month. People love that. They love it when you kill teenagers. Why?
DESTITO: Teenagers are a lot.
STINE: My wife and her partner had a company called Parachute Press, and my books were going through them. They said, No one has ever done a scary book series for 7 to 12 year-olds, we should try it. I said, No, I don’t want to do it because I don’t want to mess up Fear Street. I don’t want to mess up the older audience. They kept after me and they kept after me. Finally, I said, All right, if we think of a good name for the series, we can try two or three. Here we are. 32 years later. It’s 32 years of this stuff.
DESTITO: Are you a horror fan or did you fall into it?
STINE: No one’s listening, right? I’m not really into horror. Don’t tell anyone. I read mostly mysteries and thrillers. But I’m a big Stephen King fan. People can’t quiz me about horror. I wouldn’t do too well.
DESTITO: How do you feel when you write TV versus a novel?
STINE: Well, television is totally collaborative. You have to collaborate with everybody. “See what the guys in the mail room think of that.” I didn’t enjoy it. Everybody gets a vote. I didn’t enjoy it that much. I like being in a room by myself.
DESTITO: How about writing comics?
STINE: The ones for BOOM! Studios, I’m having a great time. I was a comic book freak when I was a kid. That’s all I read. When I was a kid, you see horror comics all around. I just love them. I’m having a great time. I’ve done three… I did a middle-grade graphic novel series called Just Beyond. Then I did some horror comics for adults called Stuff of Nightmares. That was fun. Really gruesome stuff for grownups. And now I have my new series just came out. It’s a YA graphic novel series called The Graveyard Club. I’m having a great time.
DESTITO: Do you have an audience preference?
STINE: The middle-grade audience is my audience. They’re a wonderful audience. I get them from 7 to 12. That’s the last time in their lives they’ll ever be enthusiastic. They turn 12, they discover sex, they have to be cool. They’re gone. You’ve lost them. Those teenagers. Yeah, you’ve lost them.
DESTITO: That’s why we kill them off.
STINE: Exactly.
DESTITO: What about writing for an adult, do you feel it’s a little bit freer?
STINE: Oh, sure. You don’t have to do safe scares. But nobody wants me to write for adults. I’ve written four novels, horror novels, for adults, but no one noticed. On Twitter, people would say, “Why don’t you write something for us? We’ve grown up.” I wrote this book for Simon & Schuster called Red Rain. Where’d they go? They weren’t even answering my phone calls at Simon & Schuster. That’s how bad it did.
They don’t want me to write for adults. I’m nostalgic. It took a long time to get used to that. I do a book signing, there’d be 10 year-olds and 20 year-olds and 30-year-olds.
DESTITO: Is there anything that you’ve wanted to do that you haven’t done yet?
STINE: Well, what has happened to me is well beyond anything I ever dreamed of. Look how lucky I am. I’ve never dreamed of all a TV series and movies, Jack Black playing me. He’s great. He’s one of my favorites, too. He’s a really nice person. We had a great time together. He’s just a very generous guy. That was a nice experience. The movie was good.
DESTITO: You had cameos in some of these. How was being an actor?
STINE: I’m Mr. One Take. We did this thing at the end of the first Goosebumps movie where Jack came out and said, Hello, Mr. Black, and I said, Hello, Mr. Stine, and they shot it 25 times. Oh, my gosh. It was lunchtime. I was really hungry. He shot it 25 times. I said, Jack, I would kill myself if I had to work like this.
Stay tuned for more NYCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
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