R.L. Stine Shoots Down 'Goosebumps Gold' Book Rumors

Author R.L. Stine's series of Goosebumps books were defining literature for burgeoning horror fans in the '90s, with cover illustrator Tim Jacobus having revealed on his website that a new line of books, Goosebumps Gold, were developed to launch in 2001, only for those books to be scrapped. Despite the titles of these stories making their way online, Stine confirmed that the books themselves never existed as anything more than concepts.

"I can't believe people still bring that up, Goosebumps Gold. I hear about it all the time," Stine shared with ComicBook.com. "Those books never came about. They were never written, they were never anything. And somehow, they're always present somehow."

The Goosebumps series earned more than 60 installments, with the only thing as memorable as the stories themselves being the artwork provided by Jacobus. The cover art which Jacobus revealed teased that Goosebumps Gold would be follow-up adventures to some of Stine's most memorable tales, though the author confirmed there were multiple roadblocks that prevented those books from being released.

"I think we were actually thinking of going to a different publisher or something, and we were trying to figure out what we would do with it that would be different, and we actually had a couple covers made, but then we never did it," the author continued. "It just never happened. With the second one, I think I used the title for a book later on. But it's just funny, I hear about Goosebumps Gold all the time, something that never happened at all."

The author's material is seeing new life thanks to two different Goosebumps films, the most recent of which has parallels to these "lost" Goosebumps stories. When a pair of kids discovers an untitled manuscript in an old, abandoned house, their discovery sets the villainous Slappy ventriloquist doll loose on the town to wreak havoc.

Before the launch of this iconic series, Stine delivered teen-aged audiences the Fear Street series of books, which ran for more than 100 installments. That series is also seeing a revival, as there are three different films based on the property coming to theaters next year.

These books were set in the fictional city of Shadyside, Ohio, where the Fear Street pit teenagers against adversaries both human and paranormal.

Stay tuned for details on the Goosebumps and Fear Street series.

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