October 31, 2025 • 56 mins
Reader beware, you're in for a scare! If you were a kid, tween, or teen at all in the '90s, you knew Goosebumps books, and you were obsessed with those colorful and creepy covers! Mark welcomes the original Goosebumps cover illustrator Tim Jacobus on the show to talk about his career, the process of making all those iconic covers, and what cover designs are most special to him. This is Part 1 of a Goosebumps celebration, and Part 2 will focus on the premiere episodes of the Fox TV series for its 30th anniversary.
Follow Tim @timjacobus on Instagram, check out his work at jacobusstudios.com, and say hi to him at future conventions, where he sells prints of his work and gives a portion of the income to help feed those who are in need.
Follow Tim @timjacobus on Instagram, check out his work at jacobusstudios.com, and say hi to him at future conventions, where he sells prints of his work and gives a portion of the income to help feed those who are in need.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Reader, Beware you're in for a scare. Hi everybody, and
happy Halloween. Welcome to a special episode of Release Date Rewind,
a podcast that celebrates movies and TV shows on their
milestone anniversaries. I'm your host, Mark J. Parker, a film
lover and TV lover and filmmaker and TV maker, And
(00:26):
thank you for listening to this on your favorite podcast
app thanks to the straw Hut Media Network, or maybe
you're listening on the You Run Podcast Network, or maybe
you're watching on YouTube boo. Our spooky holiday is coming
to a close now, wah wah, but we are keeping
the creeps going and I have a great special guest
(00:46):
in this first part of a two part episode that
will give you goose bumps. It's the thirtieth anniversary of
the Fox TV series which premiered in October ninety five,
based on the world famous R. L. Steinbooks of and
Here with me is a very talented, very kind man
whose work many of us in my generation and even
(01:07):
younger have admired, loved, and worshiped. Here is the original
Goosebumps cover illustrator Tim jacobis to talk about his amazing
career so it's time to rewind. I am so honored
(01:33):
to truly have you, Tim, because, like many people that
you probably talked to all the time, I mean, your
work is I know this word is overused now, but
it truly is iconic.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, thank you. It's very nice of you to say.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, you are a true artist. You're a great guy.
We met for a few minutes back at nineties con
and I know you do all the conventions now, you're
hitting so many. How many do you think you've gone
to just this year?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Do you know? Maybe? Wow? Yeah, yeah, this was a
busy year. This was a busy year.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
What do you like about the cons Obviously it's a
great way to meet fans and make some money selling
your prints, which everybody who's watching I got assigned.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Tim Jacoba's Prince.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
But but what do you love about it? Is it
a nice way to connect with people?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, I mean, of course that's first. It's nice to
so I've been doing this for a lot of years,
and it's a it's a solitary endeavor. You sit behind
the desk and you do it by yourself. And back
in the nineties I was creating all this artwork and
at that time, you were in elementary school or in
(02:44):
middle school, so it's not like we were gonna have
any chance encounters along the way. So going to the
cons now you guys are grown up, we can have
conversations that we couldn't have back in the nineties. And
it gets me out and forces me to look people
in the eye and be social and have conversations.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean, because you designed all these covers, how
many Goosebumps covers were there? Over one hundred that you
worked on?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Am I right?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yes, that's correct, I did over one hundred. I don't
know how many there are all.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Together, right, yeah, because it's right now and you designed
when when you you know, illustrated the covers you worked on,
I mean, it's just you writer. Did you have a
team with you, an assistant or it's you?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
No, No, it was it was me.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I worked with an art director at Scholastic, just one,
which is rare. Usually there's a couple of people who are,
you know, working with you, But no, it was me
and one other person. Due to the fact that we
were going so quickly to produce these there wasn't a
lot of messing around. It was, you know, submit some sketches.
(03:56):
She would take them to the editors. They pick one,
I'd sit down and do the painting. I turn it in,
they go, yeah, that looks good. Start the next one.
So it was really kind of an assembly line. I
don't not really an assembly line, but they were coming
in back.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
To back to just yeah a rhythm.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Wow, that is so not so so they're going to
use that rhythm right, just okay, next next, that's amazing
tom now. So then it sounds like they didn't really
have many notes for you, like because you know, as
a designer, I'm sure for other people, you know, you
you send something and it's like, Okay, that's good, can
you move that?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
But did they kind of just and that was really
due to too uh.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Two things had to do with that. First off, we're
working traditionally back then and to make changes. We'll make them,
but they're going to take time as compared to today,
where we have digital art and a change, I can
move stuff all around all the time. Once that painting
gets approved and we start working, we're not moving stuff easily.
(05:01):
So you got to really want it, and it's going
to take at a minimum maybe three day turnaround, one
for you to ship the painting back to me, one
for me to do the art, and then another one.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
For me to ship it back to you.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
So you had to really want that change to pull
it out of production. So no, not a lot of notes.
It was I mean, from an artist's point of view,
that was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I believe that everyone.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Every artist thinks everything they put down is gold, and
it's not.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
But to not have a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Second guessing what you're doing was just wonderful. And I
got real spoiled because Goosebumps went on for ten years.
So ten years of nobody telling me I'm not any good,
that's not good for your head. Oh my goodness, people
to tell you and you're not that good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
But I know because then I'm sure when that ended,
you're like okay, and then you're working with other people
and you're like, what do you what.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Do you say that? What are you thinking? What you
want to change? Wow?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, so you started working on Goosebumps. Was
it nineteen ninety two? It was early nineties?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Am I right? Right? Actually?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It was, uh, yeah, it was it was late in
ninety two. No, it was early in ninety two. The
book came out in July of ninety two, but I
think I painted the first cover like in December of
ninety one.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Don't hold me to that yet.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
My memory was ninety one was when that very first
Welcome to Dead House was completed. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, back in the winter. Yeah, I was wondering. So, so, okay,
let's let's backtrack. I'd love to hear how you got
into this. So you went to school for art, I
assume that when you college yep. And then so how
did how did you get on scholastics radar? Were you
already working with them or did you have some sort
of representative? How do how do these people find you time?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Right? Yes to both of those.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I did have a rep, and we were working for
the luxury of living in New Jersey and being close
to New York City is that's where all the publishers
were in the nineties, and they were all in a
five block radius of one another. So I got my
first books by myself by knocking on doors, very inefficient,
(07:25):
was able to get myself a rep after a number
of years. And then then that's his job. He goes
around and he has all the connections. And then I
get to stay at home and paint. And my Rep
sal Baraka was his name, was able to get us
in a number of places, and Scholastic was just one
(07:47):
of them.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I had maybe done.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
More than two, less than six books for them, I think,
not a lot. And those those were kids books. I mean, yeah,
generally kid's book. Once in a while to throw me
an adult mystery or or or something. So but for
Scholastic it was mostly the kids stuff. No horror, though,
(08:15):
Adventure did some outer space stuff. I did some fantasy stuff.
So you know, they had they had been used to
working with me. And so when Goosebumps came along, I
was kind of in between jobs. I was, you know,
sitting on the bench and the coach was looking for
somebody to put in the game. Hey Jacob is here,
(08:37):
maybe you can do this. So yeah, so I was
kind of standing in the right place at the right
time when the Goosebumps came along.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Absolutely it sounds like it. You were prepared and you
were available, and there you go. So now, these amazing
covers that you made, and I love them, and I'm
sure many people have told you this. I love them
because I mean they're so colorful. I love that you
embraced color, because back in the day, in the nineties,
we had your stuff and we had like like Lisa
Frank remember how colorful and shrippy.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That stuff was.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I loved all that stuff, and I loved I mean,
I've always loved horror, but I love that your your
images were spooky.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Of course, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Some kids it might be you know, like this is
the Haunted Mask. So I mean, I know you can
sort of see it with the zoom filter, but I mean,
you know, it could maybe scare a couple kids. I
was like, give me more of that, right, But I
love that you embraced color. Was that your doing was
that scholastic? Was that a meeting of the minds with
like going with these bold, bright colors?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
So I was I was working with bold colors in general.
And if you look at the very first color Welcome
the Dead House, it's rich, but it's not as rich
as some of the color covers that came afterward. So
what had happened was I did book number ones Welcomed
the Dead House, and a different illustrator did book number two, Stay.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Out of the Base. Okay, And this was a.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Guy named Jim Theesen. Jim had a horror background, mostly
worked in the in with adult books, and they weren't
sure what angle they were going to take. So they said,
who cares, Tim, do you do one? Jim, you do one,
and when we're done that guy, we'll get to do
the other two books. Because only supposed to be four books.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Of this series. That's you, how funny? Just a limited thing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And yeah, so it wasn't like this, it was a
huge competition or it was a very much a okay,
let's see what happens. And one of the main concerns
with Scholastic is at the time, no one had put
out a horror series for kids ages seven to eleven,
So being too scary was that was right up there
(10:50):
on the top of the list of you know, we
got to keep this easy. We don't want to freak
the kids out, you know, we want to give him
a thrill. And when that we got done, when Jim
and I got done, they said, yeah, Tim's art's a
little bit more, you know, for lack of betic terms
I didn't use. You know, it's a term I used.
They didn't say this, but my art work is less realistic,
(11:13):
a little more cartoonish, and I had used the rich colors, right,
So when they came back to me and said, yeah, Tim,
you're going to do the rest of them. We really
like those rich colors. Okay, that's all I needed to hear.
And then I broke out my old color theory charts
and stuff that I had did in art school and said,
all right, what can we do here? And until they
(11:35):
cry uncle, I'm going to come up with every different
color theory that I can think of and keep them,
you know, keep them using that technique.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So yes, it was totally intentional.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, it's amazing because so then that's what's really brilliant
about that is it's your idea. These are your colors
and thoughts. Like, for example, with like the next one,
I'm looking at the list of books right here, like
Monster Blood, the third book with the stairs, like the
Green right So did they say like, okay, Tim, like Ken,
we're thinking for this cover it's going to be like
something on the stairs or did you just.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Like BRL was writing the book at the same time
I was doing the cover, so he would give me
a paragraph telling me what the book was about. When
each book was different, I can't tell you if I
got a specific note that said, hey, how about a
staircase with the monster blood coming down? I'm not sure,
(12:33):
I don't remember, but if they had that idea, I
would draw that idea up. But then I would always
do two other sketches. So if that one didn't float
everybody's boat, here's two other ideas that are kind of
along the same line. Or I got something, I read
something different into that paragraph of material, and I threw
(12:57):
this third one in.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So what's ever when you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Think alternate like this is a ye field idea?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yes, see what we came up with.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So there were always choices so we weren't losing time.
It really was a matter of okay, here you go,
what do you think? And yeah, the monster blood h
the very first one was that. That one was fun
because I did know that the monster blood was this
green slime, and back in the nineties, that's green slime
(13:26):
was I.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Mean, yeah, it was ubicuous, and I mean that's what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I have this what I meant. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right, the Goosebumps logo, Now, did you did you work
on the logo or what did Scholastic already?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Kind of that was that was done by somebody else,
a woman named Holly Rubin, who uh just came up
with the idea, and I know they went round and
round with it and they and they kept coming back
to her original concept and said, heck with it, let's
use Hollies everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And yeah, right, it looks so I mean, I'm looking
at all the covers online, like you know, Arlstein Goosebumps
logo and then your imagery. I mean, it's just like
it's a match made in kid Heaven, nineties, kid Heaven?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Like I remember growing up in South Jersey, we had
a closet at home that was toys and books, and
I would open that door and the Goosebumps books were
straight ahead and they were your covers and colors. And
so I mean, it's ra el Stein's story. But I
think you know, they say not to judge a book
by its cover, but it's hard not to do that,
you know with yours.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, when you're ten years old, it's all about the cover, right.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So I got to give props to the people who
worked in the book design department because they would wait
until my covers came in. And if you notice, when
you put all the Goosebumps books next to each other,
there are always a different color scheme. The logo was
(14:51):
it a different color, in the background was a different color,
and they always pulled those colors out of the artwork
so that it worked well with the piece of art
that was in there. But it was completely different set
of colors than the book before.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So you know, they.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Leaned into that whole color theory, and yeah, they gave
that the books a unique look.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and that's a really beautiful collaboration because it's you're
thinking of each individual one and then yeah, then they
can look at them all together and pull yeah, because
I mean, now I'm looking at the Werewolf of Fever Swamp.
Do you remember all of these?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Like do you?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And I say that, yeah, but yeah they're my children,
yes there are, right, I have one hundred children, but
I know them well.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It's really brilliant, how Yeah, like the green glow of
the water and Werewolf of Fever Swamp they pulled that
for the background of like the logo up top, and
it's just yeah, they married everything very well. And that
was fun for kids to see because no kid had
only one Goosebumps book, right, you would buy a bunch,
especially at the Scholastic book fairs that were like Heaven
(15:54):
on Earth. It's like, all right, now, I'm gonna get
these three. So you add to the collection and we
would see it's like, not only is every cover so
unique and interesting, but then the little details around the
edges like really flowed well, so yeah, oh my god,
I'm like nerding out.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This is so cool. Will be right back.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
The number one best selling author in America, RL Stein
wants to give you lots and lots of Goosebumps three
different ways. First, Goosebumps books where the terror began, had
the screams go on forever and ever, no one anticipated
(16:40):
the success that we got through Goosebumps. So yeah, at
the beginning, there wasn't a budget to make new art
to go on the VHS boxes. So heck, you know,
the kids recognized it from the book, so let's just
take that art and put it on there. So no,
I didn't get any extra money for that, but it
(17:03):
just made it easier for you guys to go, well,
is this the same Haunted mask or is this a
different version of the Haunted mask? Yep, And so I
didn't have anything to do with they didn't call me
when they were making the TV show and ask for
pointers or Okay, what were you thinking of? I got
(17:25):
to enjoy it just like you guys did. I could
just tune in every week and go, all right, let
me see what. I never anticipated them being live action,
so okay, show me what I wasn't thinking of. I
was thinking two D the whole time, right, what three
D is?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, I mean it was so oh my god to think.
I mean, I'm just thinking back Tim thirty years ago,
like being up because the books of course were already
out for a few years and still like very popular
when the show was running. Of course that like to
have the books and now see live action. I mean,
I was just like over the moon. But yeah, I
was wondering because like, for example, like you created the
look for Slappy right for not a living dummy unless
(18:04):
they gave you like some really clear kind of like guidelines,
like you created him and now, I mean he is
such a famous face, and then I can't remember I'm
pretty sure there was an episode of course about him.
So yeah, it's sort of like they used your your
what came out of your brain as like that is
the character, like we need to now create a dummy
or whatever that looks just like this artwork, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, And you know when I got the assignment, this
is now in the very early days of the internet,
so that wasn't where I went for my information. Whenever
I was doing research for any of my art I
would get in the car and drive to the county
library and go get a book.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And I got this.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Incredible book about Ventriloquist dummies, you know, like the history
of Van Triloquist dummies, and you know, saw them from
the late eighteen hundreds all the way up to the
present day. And those early dummies, you know, without them trying,
were incredibly horrific. And I went, oh, you know what,
(19:10):
I don't have to do a lot here to make
my point. They're already stay close to what a ventriloquist
dummy is. There's no need to get real, to exaggerate
a lot. Just tweak it a little bit and this
thing will be scary all by itself.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Absolutely, there's no need to really go above and beyond
what you already existed, right, use that model and it's
already right pretty much done. That's cool now, How okay,
So two questions. First, one is what was the turnaround
time like like when they first sent you, you know, when
you book the gig back in ninety one ninety two,
(19:48):
right and you're working on Welcome to Dead House. I
assumed that first book. Did you have a little bit
more time to work on that cover unlike the other ones,
which might have been faster, or was it all kind
of fast? Every time we were.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Kind of it was ready to go. So they gave
me there was a We had a you know, the
books came out every month, so we started a little
bit early so that we built in a buffer, so
we were probably four five books ahead of what you
(20:24):
guys saw on the shelf. It took me if we
took all the time, and we put it very linear,
and I, you know, on Monday morning, I got the
concept facts from R. L. Stein and then I spent
two days doing sketches and then immediately got a response
(20:47):
and then did the painting. I could do it in
a week. The paintings took about thirty hours, so first
part of the week would be doing sketches, second part
of the week would be doing the final art. Now
you never got responses that quick, but it took me
a week's time, but I had kind of the month
(21:08):
to move in other jobs, so we were working on
other and when Goosebumps picked up, then we were doing
you know, calendars and you know other stuff. So yeah,
but you know, a one week turnaround is what I needed.
The guy who had the heavy lift was RL. You know,
(21:28):
he's got to write that whole book every month and
write Fear Street books at the same time and not
drop the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So it's incredible. I mean, you guys were machines, but
you're right. I mean he was churning him out in
just days. I mean how but yeah, oh my god, I.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, because well I think we all kind of do that.
If you have a skill, you go all. My part's
easy because I know how to do that. But I
struggled to put you know, a three sentence email together,
and I'm going, this, dude's just crank now books you
helm right after the other. I have no like, I
(22:04):
can't get my head wrapped around.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Oh, it's so impressive, it really is. And I mean,
you know, as you know, us kids, we just were
eating it right up. I mean, there was no way
we were thinking about all the steps involved and all
that it was just like, okay, another one. You know,
so as an adult, it's like, holy cow, did you
ever feel pressure or did it always feel pretty good?
Like wherever was there ever like a time you're like,
(22:27):
oh my god, I can't come up for air.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Generally, no, it was again, you had to treat it.
You had to treat it respectfully. If you thought you
had lots of time, you were lying to yourself. But
if you got up every morning and sat down, had
your cup of coffee back, then I you know, would
maybe thumb through the newspaper for twenty minutes. Then at
(22:50):
you know, whatever time it was, you sit down and
you start at that time. Every day you work until lunch.
You could stop and have a lunch break, and then
you put it. You got to put in a full
day every day. And saturdays were optional, you know, like
I worked a lot of Saturdays.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Sunday I'm taking off.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And so if you could stay disciplined enough to sit there,
it was okay. Every once in a while we would go,
you know, take on that extra job. You know, my
rep would call, go, hey, man, you know, I know
we usually do this many in a month. Maybe we
(23:28):
can squeeze another one in let's see what happens. And
once in a while it would get a little you know,
it would get a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But again, you know, I have all my family.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Members are in the in the medical field on all
different levels, and what they do matters.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I'm drawing picture painting pictures of monsters.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, you can't really get that worked up if
i'm you know, yes, I want to be on time,
Yes I want to be responsible, but no one's gonna die.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right right, that's a good way to put it. I mean,
it's very important to many many, many of us around
the world, But I know what you mean. Yeah, it's
kind of like, hey, you know, this is fun. There's
other people out there like doing life or death.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Death serious things, and when they do mess up, it
means something. The only Goosebumps cover that really had a
wild a turnaround was a night in terror tower.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Oh okay, with the executioner coming downstairs. So, like I said, they.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Would, I generally had that thirty hours spread out over
the course of a week, and in this particular case,
we did exactly like I just said. We squeezed in
the extra book and when it got down to it,
I only had it was due the next day.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So I got up and it's so good.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
It's another one I remember very well, right.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
All night, and then finished it up in the morning
and because I missed the window to give it to
Federal Express, and I drove it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
To the city myself.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Wow, so you know, it was a kind of a
thirty hour run and just went, Okay, this is this
is what it's going to take.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And I got it done.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
And what I like about it is that it doesn't
look it doesn't look strained, it doesn't look you know,
I would have liked it done maybe a couple of
extra things in the background, but the executioner himself, he's
exactly what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And so yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Doing all nighters was something I've done a few times
over my career. But again, if you keep everything in order,
those are few and far between, because those, you know,
they're fine. Everybody needs to do them now and then.
But you know, you don't just bounce back from those.
(26:06):
You're gonna pay for it, you know, down the road,
and uh yeah, so stay on top of it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wow, that is such good trivia.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
No, I mean, the cover looks like it blends in
with every other one, so you'd never know. But wow,
I mean that alone should be like a short film
or like an episode or something.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Well, I'm glad there wasn't a camera there back then,
and pull my hair out. Oh jeez.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And then you for that job, right because this was
all before. I mean, I guess there was email, but
it's not anything like it is to you're not.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
We weren't even using email righting by facts and phone calls,
answering machines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very you know, it's it's
even hard for me.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
To remember that. You know that that's how we did things. Yeah,
and you know I did.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Now I sound like Grandpa when I'm going, Oh, it
was back and you know when it snowed and I
walked both ways up to school and yeah, but uh
yeah it was it was a different Uh, it was
a different way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And that is so cool.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So yeah, with FedEx, you must have liked just carefully
what maybe put cardboard on either side or that and
wrapped it up and.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, so that's was the That was one of the
main reasons I chose to do acrylic paintings because they
dry almost instantly, and once they're dry, they're almost you know,
they're almost damage proof.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
They can take it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You know, you can rub, you could touch, you can
do a lot of things. So yeah, there would be
the illustration board, like a heavy cardboard paper, and then
I would go get refrigerator boxes from the appliance store
down the street and just cut them up. Got to
be very friendly with the people at the Federal Express
Building because I was always getting there just before they
(28:06):
locked the doors.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Wow, and they're like, there's ten right After a while they'reoing,
you know, what is what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And then I explained what I was doing, and then
they went, oh, okay, well, if it really gets tight,
we lock this door first. But if the door's locked,
you can drive around the back of the building and
we keep the garage doors open for an extra ten
minutes so you can come in and hand it in
and we'll take it from you. So but he goes,
don't you know, don't be spreading the word up right right,
(28:36):
I'm coming in the back door.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's like goosebumps VIPs only exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
That must have been so cool for them to be like, oh,
you're that guy.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh I know you gotta remember if you weren't, if
you weren't ten years old.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
It didn't mean anything.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Hey, you know, I didn't even I just said I
was a book illustrator. That was impressive enough to them.
But no, say goose Bumps. You know, like it caught
on way later later the adults you would have to
have kids, yep, and they'd have to be that age
for you to go, oh, I know what this is?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Right, you're so right?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean the second it was out,
it's just been part of my life.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I mean adults who weren't around kids, they'd be like, okay,
goose what right?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah? Exactly Fox Kid's life way.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It brings the most popular books to life in the
most thrilling, spiking, serious ever bumps coming this fall to
Fox Kids.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Can you walk me through the actual process of making this?
So so you mentioned, you know, you would would you
sketch out like actually hand draw with like pen and paper,
pencil and paper, like your your sort of samples for them?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Is that how it started?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And then once once everyone agrees on the right one,
you would would you use then your sketch and then
like paint over it? Is that like kind of your process.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
You're close, so I would get the facts from RL
with the description. So the first thing I would do
are called thumbnail sketches, little teeny tiny scribbles, kind of
like putting down bullet points if you were a writer,
and I would just start making them, and you know,
just fill up pages worth and just don't spend much
(30:23):
time on them. Just they're not for anybody to see.
Ideas down, just getting ideas down, think of it different.
Oh okay, we're doing a low angle. Let's do from
the top. Let's try something from the side. What other
characters can we work in?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Here? Is it night? Is it day?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Anyway, after I would do a bunch of those pages,
and without any discussion with anybody else, I'd go, all right,
I like these three. I think these do the best.
And then I would draw them up on an eight
and a half by eleven piece of paper with pencil
and erasers, and you're just a standard drawing.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Reason they were eight and.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
A half by eleven is I was then going to
fax them back to the people that's scholastic, and then
they could see you know, what I had in mind.
You know, the facts was terrible. The drawings on my
side were pretty nice. What they looked at on the
other side. I remember going there once agoing, holy smokes,
(31:24):
this is what you guys are making your decisions off of.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
This is awful.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
What it was enough, and then they'd go, okay, yeah,
we like sketch number two. I would then take that.
The first thing I would do. The next thing I
would do is I would take a smaller version of
the sketch.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Glue it to it.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I would take a xerox of it, and I would
glue it to a piece of illustration board, and this
is like six inches by six inches, and I would
do a little tiny painting, not thinking about detail. This
was where I was playing around with all those wild colors,
because what I didn't want to do is do a
giant final painting, spend the whole day painting the background purple,
(32:11):
at the end of the day going that should have
been blue, and spending a whole day fixing it. So
this was kind of a you know, a quick plan,
what of our colors, what are they going to be
get that all hammered out? And then go and start
the final painting. Final paintings were on what is called
(32:31):
the number eighty illustration board. It's relatively thick, it's got
a little tooth to it. It's not totally like glass smooth.
And then I worked with typical sable brushes, and I
also worked with an airbrush. Airbrush is you know, gave
me that real slip polished look, real smooth with smooth
(32:54):
out my brushstrokes, and gave it kind of a digital
look before what a digital was.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That's what's so amazing, tim is. Yeah, I mean I'm
looking at it with adult eyes, but even kid eyes
as well. It always looked in a good way, like
like it was yeah computer generally like an artist on
the computer, do you know what I mean? It looked
so smooth and that cartooniness was so it just looked
I don't know how else to say it other than like,
it's so impressive that this was all by hand, because
(33:24):
it just looks so perfect, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
That's I mean, that's very nice of you to say.
The thing that did help me, though, was earlier on,
I started painting motorcycle tanks and on vans and cars,
and nobody wants to see any lump or bump in
your paint style. So I learned to work flat early on,
(33:49):
and then just carried over what I had learned doing that,
and it just kind of evolved into the style that
you see on the illustrations.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I mean, yeah, I'm looking at a shop on Shock
Street and that red background the sky, but then there's
some purple. I mean, it's beautiful. It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So then yeah, so you paint on the board once
and I think that's so smart and so interesting that
you made like a little mini paint version first to
mess up and right, So then once once you and
you said the acrylics dry pretty quickly, so yeah, once
you paint the full thing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And how big was that?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
They were twenty inches by twenty inches. And then I
actually painted with a hair dryer in one hand and
a paint brush in the other because I worked by
by work table was you know, not ninety degrees, but
it was very vertical in front of me, and I
like to rest my hand on my art while I work,
(34:47):
so I wanted to be dry, and you know, we'd
just hit it with the hair dryer and then paint
with the other hand. Yeah, and again, acrylic is just
wonderful for your ability to fix mistakes. Oh, you can
cover any color with any color. You can if you
(35:07):
get too much paint on there, you can sand it
with a piece of sandpaper.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
It's just nothing nothing.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Uh No, painting is unfixable. So where if you do watercolor,
you get kind of one or two shots and if
it doesn't work, you're throwing that one away and starting
all over. There was never throw anything away and start over.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
We were all everything was was salvageable and rescuable.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Wow, that's amazing because you again, I wouldn't think that.
I mean, it looks all so perfect that I got.
My brain would just be like, oh, I wonder how
many times it took to get it just right. But
that's so cool that it's.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
It's it's your paintings evolved as you're doing them, and
you know things are you think you got it right,
and then you step back at the end of the
day and you're going, yeah, that arm, that's that doesn't
look quite right.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You're close, but we got to mess with that some more.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So you know, uh yeah, painting is fixing, fixing problems
until you go, I think that's four times up. I
wish I had another week, but I don't that's true.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that that deadline's there, so it's
like this is gonna have to be as good as
it can.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Be, right, Ye.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Wow, did your hands ever cramp up?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
No? Luckily, I had never had any carpal tunnel or
none of that. You know. No again, because I think
because my artwork was, yeah, the angle it was. I
sat up very straight, you know. You know, I wasn't
hunched over the desk, and you know, maybe if I
(36:45):
work that way, that would have been different. So no, luckily,
no hand stuff. I mean, your eyes would get tired.
When I was younger and in the early part of
my art career, I did did you know, I did
real work, you know, I worked on construction sites. I
was a laborer. I was a garbage man, you know,
(37:08):
so I know what hard work is. So I don't
want to sit here and go, oh, it was so
hard to sit at my desk and do a painting
in the air conditioning and you know, and have a
cup of coffee next to me.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I'm never gonna do.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
That, you know, So no again, even now where i'm
a little bit you know, I'm I'm heading over the
hill and I'm a little bit more banged up than
I was many years ago.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's still it's still fine to sit here and paint.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
You know, I don't have to go all right, I
gotta stop my hands are cramping or my eyes are
blurry or you know.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Luckily it all still it all still works good. That's great. Yeah,
what do you so? Okay?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So obviously Goosebumps is what you're most known for, but
we know you've done other cool things. And everybody go
to Tim's site because there's lots of great stuff. You
have different samples on there, like I love the the
two Broke Girls art that you made. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's some custom work that you've done for people. So
lots of cool things. What are you working on anything?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Now? What is life for you?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Now?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Obviously a lot of the cons But do you still
you know, make commissions for people.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Do you still have your clients and everything?
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah? What's nice is there's I so along with the illustration,
I'm also an art director at a small company. It's
corporate work. That's what pays the bills. And then in
the second half of the day, I still get to illustrate.
What's nice is everybody wants the goosebump style. So I'm
(38:43):
not doing Goosebumps covers. But everything that I do looks
like at Goosebumps, it's just showing up somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, that's beautiful, and you're able to do that because
I know maybe some companies might have said to you, like,
this style that you're doing for us can only be
for us. It sounds like Scholastic ever said it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Again, it was so many years ago, you know, nobody
got hung up on style.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
But just to touch on.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
That, so around Goosebumps ended for me in early two
thousand and three, two thousand and four, and Goosebumps stopped
for a short period of time before they started it
back up again, and nobody wanted that style anymore. So
(39:32):
it was it was old for a short period of time,
so I had to kind of reinvent the wheel. People
were like, nah, that's cool, we don't want to see
that anymore. We want to see something else. So what
was lucky for me is that's when digital art was
making big inroads, and I then went all right, well
(39:54):
and I didn't do this volunteerarily. I was told you
better learn how to do digital art, and so that
gave my art a different you know, I had a
whole new platform to fool around with. I expanded what
I was doing, not just doing books, but doing other things.
And yeah, so I was able to kind of leverage
(40:17):
the success of Goosebumps and keep things going, but in
a completely different way. That's great now, all these years later,
it's the Goosebump stuff that people remember and that's what
they want. And so yes, all my current art work,
if it, you know, it could go on a Goosebumps cover,
even though it's not. It's not a Goosebumps book.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, that's cool. See isn't that funny? Because yeah, I
feel like in the two thousands, I think, you know,
everyone just kind of wanted to make art, especially you know,
or any kind of art, like they wanted to make
that feel different than the nineties. Right, But now it's inevitable. Yeah,
it's now where we are. It's kind of like, no,
let's just like whatever we really loved, whatever really worked,
(41:03):
let's just do that always.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And it's not even just with book covers. It's why
we get so many sequels of things, and it's just
kind of like, hey, we love it no matter what.
So you're right, let's just keep riding that wave. So
it is funny that, like now, it seems like in
general there isn't really a major craving to like, no,
let's do something totally with a different look. It's kind
of like, no, let's embrace what we have always loved, right.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
And what's interesting is it what I'm doing is showing
up in different places and people. The best compliment I
can get is, oh, that looks like an old Goosebumps cover.
That is a one hundred percent home run to me.
And if everybody says that, then they see my name
on it, and people have become familiar with who I was.
(41:51):
When you were ten, you didn't know who I was.
You didn't know my name, You just knew my art.
So it's nice now where then people look at it
and go, oh, yeah it is it's Tim's work, no
wonder it looks like a goosebut.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's your style absolutely. Yeah. Now with the work you're
doing now is it are you still doing a lot
of like hand painting or is it mostly all digital
or is it?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
So I have a hybrid technique where everything still starts
on my desk with a pencil and a piece of paper.
I get my drawings very tight, and then once we
all agree yeah that's what we're doing, then I scan
it into the computer and the color work is done digitally.
(42:33):
But everybody, if I did a painting right now and
handed it to a printer, they wouldn't know what to
do with it. You know, like that that was you know,
that ship has sailed. So everybody, if the artwork is
going into production and it's going to be printed at
(42:55):
any stage, I'm going to do the art digital for you.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
If you said nah, no, Tim, all I'm doing is
I want a piece of your art and I want
to hang it in my living room, and that's all
it's ever going to do is hang on the wall,
then that's the perfect time to go traditional because along
with it being well, you get a one of one,
(43:19):
it is truly an original and you can see that
it's hand painted, and then it's worthwhile and it's good
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Do you wish that thirty plus years ago? Thirty three,
I think is probably when you were really getting started
on everything. Do you wish what you have today you
could have had then? Or not necessarily in terms of
like the digital all that like you wouldn't have to
maybe be running to FedEx all the time or yeah,
(43:51):
that's a good question, or do you feel like no,
you know, again, it's probably best that it went the
way that it went because it forced me to learn
how to do things a certain way.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
And then when I did make that transition in the
early two thousands, it was like a second career, and
you know, it kept me very interested. If I was
doing the same thing for all these years, maybe it
would start to feel a little stale. So there's been
enough evolution over the years where it's still it's still
(44:28):
it's still exciting. I you know, I still enjoy it.
I still it's the three quarters of the way through
an illustration. That's when I'm the most excited. That's when
I go, yeah, this is working, Oh, very cool. And
then there's a point right about the three quarter mark,
maybe a little farther in, where it's like, all right.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Now I got to finish it.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
That's all it needs to do is be finished, and
you know, it's still you get a little bit more
excitement when you turn it in and people then see
it and get excited. But for me, yeah, it's that
you know, early part you're going, I don't know, I
don't like this, this isn't this isn't happening yet. And
then as you hit those later stages, you go, Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Okay, it's coming together. I see it right. We're gonna
bring this plane in for a landing. Yeah. The Master
of Kids Suspense R. L.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Stein brings your favorite extra life in an all Fox
Kids television series.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Things are not always what they appear to be On Goosebumps,
premier November third on Fox Kids. Watch It with a friend.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, one last question with the whole process. So, yeah,
once you send it off or you know, to FedEx,
or you have to drop it off at Scholastic. So
would you let's say, let's say you you fed Exit
and your home, and would you then later that day
or something get a call from Scholastics saying, oh this
is amazing, Like would someone confirm that, like it's perfect
and we're moving forward or not necessarily, like if if
(46:01):
they liked it, would you just make it?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
It's kind of like no news is good news. Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, you know the best thing that I could hear
is I turned something in and I know that they've
got the package and because a lot of times I'd
send it to my rep and he would hand deliver it.
Sometimes just due to the scheduling, I'd send it directly there.
But it's a big building and it would be in
the mail room and take a while to get to
the person. But if a couple of days passed and
(46:27):
nobody said anything, and then I heard, oh, here's the
next one, get started, that's perfect.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
That's I'll take that every single time totally.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
You're like okay, And so what would they do with
the big poster board? Would they then like take a
photo of it or scan it and then that that
then becomes the file for right, The.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Scanners were weren't really a household item. What there was
was there was a couple of incredible photographers in New
York and their absolute full time job was taking pictures
of illustrators paintings. And they had a studio that was
all set up with the lights and we would all
(47:07):
stand in line and come in one after another and
they would set it up. My art again, we talked
about it earlier. If the finish was very non glossy
and it was very flat, that's easy, you know, I
could photograph my own artwork. But if you get somebody
who's got a very high gloss painting and it's done
in oils and there's some real texture to it, man,
(47:30):
that's a real skill to get the lightning just right
so you don't get any reflections or hot spots. So
these people were super super skilled at getting that photo
reproduction of your art.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
So yeah, basically the covers that we would see and touch,
they were a photo of your arts.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Okay, correct? Interesting? Wow?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Different now because now, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
The scans you can get on a cheap scanner are incredible.
You know, the quality of the prints that you would
get other than that particular person who did the photographs,
if you got if you tried the photograph from yourself
or even a friend who had a good camera set up,
(48:15):
they were always not very good.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
And so.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Because of that fact, most of us walked around looking
for new work with original paintings in a portfolio case
and taking them into art directors to show them what
you could do. So, yeah, you know, our artwork was
just thrown out a bus and carried around and.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Banged up, and you know that was just the way
you would do it.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Where now all the artwork is either hanging behind glass
or it's tucked away someplace and you don't touch it.
And yeah, back then we total disrespect, total disrespect for
that piece of.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Oh, oh my god, Oh that's so funny. Wow, Tim, Well,
this was amazing. Thank you for all of your work
and all of your info and your kindness. Where can
people find you next year? I know you have more
cons coming up? What's next for you?
Speaker 3 (49:07):
The next con is in the middle of November, exactly
a month from now, in Savannah, Georgia. It's a Galaxy
Con in Savannah. So that will be the second to
last con of the year. And if anybody is interested
in Goosebump's prints, those are available at Jacobisstudios dot com.
(49:33):
And just as an extra hook to that whole thing,
if you buy a print through our site, we take
ten dollars from the sale of every poster and we
buy food for the food bank down the street. And
we're coming up on our five year anniversary, so thank
you to all the people who have already bought, and
(49:53):
the people at the food bank are very appreciative of
everybody's participation.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
That is so cool, Tim, Yeah, so you donate a
portion of everything you sell it seems like, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
So yeah, you know I when I when I first
set this up, I did the whole thing on the
back of a napkin, and yeah I could, Yeah I could.
Ten bucks is a good number. The food Bank does
way way well and I don't do so well on this,
but I can't stop doing it, and uh, you can't.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I guess you can't. Be like, actually, now it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, yeah, eight fifty five bucks. Oh jeez, wow, Well.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Now it's it's fine. We want to make sure you're
you know, it works out very well. It's something that
my son and I do together. He's very helpful, so
once he was helping, it kind of changed the you know,
the overwhelming effect of it. And but yes, it's it's
very nice. I always think, well, at some point they're
(50:54):
gonna stop ordering them, and you know, that's just why
it's going to go and for five years in and
every morning there's a couple more orders there, right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
And it's it's not only the prints. You have sketches
on here too, which are so cool. That's gonna be
something I'm going to buy next.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Is these sketches.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
But you and you have a book a like a
coffee table book, right, selling that of all your artwork.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's sold out as of right now. We're trying to
find some past copies the Okay make a long story Shark,
the distributor for the publisher. When chapter eleven and the
remaining books have been they're kind of disappeared, but somebody
has them.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I just don't know where they are.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
And if that's mystery, is fine.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
I'll buy them from them and offer them back up
on my site. But as of right now, there are
no more.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
All right, Well, hey, I mean that's still pretty cool
to be sold out of an amazing coffee table book
of your work.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
So yes, see, hopefully you get more.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
But if you, if you, if you go out there
on the internet, there's there's some of that somewhere right
eBay or them, Yeah, exactly, grab.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Someone's selling something for sure. Last question for you, Tam,
and I'm sure you get this very often, so I'm
gonna ask a slightly different version of the question. Not
only your favorite Goosebumps cover that you made, but your
favorite that you were working on. Like you mentioned, you know,
three quarters of the way through you're really feeling it
was there one cover that you can think of that
(52:23):
like from the get go, you just were like giddy
to make is there anything that comes to mind?
Speaker 3 (52:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (52:30):
So I like them all.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
The thing that was very fun about Goosebumps is, and
I've used this example before, when you get on a series,
like say I got on the Harry Potter series and
I was doing the book cover for Harry Potter, kind
of always the same. It's the same people, it's the
same type of location, it's there's this there's a familiarity
(52:57):
or a similarity to it. Every goosebump says new kids,
new monster, new place, new everything. So I always was
as excited as you guys were when I saw the
synopsis of what the new book would be. So the
fact that they were all like I never knew what
was coming next, and I got just as excited. Ones
(53:18):
that I like the ones where right from the start
I was kind of scratching my head. So RL's ideas
and even the titles of the book tell you exactly
what the story is. Scarecrow walks at midnight, Ye okay,
(53:40):
we all have a picture in our head. You know
what's going to happen. Werewolf in Fever swamp. Got it,
got it, we know what we're doing. But then RL
would hit me with these ones every once in a
while where I go, so egg monsters from Mars, I
don't know what an egg monster from Mars is. Nobody does.
I can't go get reference material somewhere. I gotta conjure
(54:04):
this one up. And those were the most fun because
first off, it's the first time we as a community
get to see what an egg monster from ours is,
and uh, you can't tell me I'm wrong. Yeah, I'm
right right, like it or not, I'm right. So uh yeah,
those were the ones that were the most fun.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
That's cool where you could really create something exactly, yeah,
exactly we've never seen in a movie or an old whatever.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Yeah, okay, that's really cool. Tim.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Wow, Well, thank you seriously so much. This was a blast.
I'm so honored, and I know people are very excited
to hear this, so it's gonna be a really good one.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
But thank you. I appreciate you reaching out and and doing.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
This absolutely And you're also such a nice guy.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
You took a picture with me.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I mean, like people when you go see him at
the cons, not only is he selling things and signing things.
But you can get a picture with Tim and you're
just so it's very cool, because oh not everyone is
so cool. So when a celebrity is cool, it's like,
oh my gosh. You know, so we appreciate you. We
thank you for all of the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
So thank you for so much appreciated.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Beware You're in for a scare. From the pages of
Ario Stein's best selling books, comes a brand.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
New series of Goosebumps videos, videos that will creep you out,
freak you out, will simply make you left your head off.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
What an amazing guy and what truly awesome work he
has given us over the years. Thank you very much,
Tim Jacobis for not only all your great stuff, but
for spending an hour with me and making life more
colorful and more creepy. And thank you out there for
listening to or watching this episode. Follow Tim at Tim
Jacobis and check out his website jacobistudios dot com to
(55:52):
see his gallery of work, and follow me too while
you're at it. At release date, rewind to see more
footage from this great conversation. Stay tuned for part two
of this Goosebump celebration when I bring on another guest
to deep dive with me into the show's premiere episodes
of the Haunted Mask Story, which has been a fave
of mine for thirty years. That episode drops very very soon,
(56:16):
so this is a real treat. Thanks Draw Media, the
U run podcast Network, Kyle Motsinger, and the Portland Media
Center in Maine, And as R. L Stein says, have
a scary day everyone. Bye.
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Reader, Beware you're in for a scare. Hi everybody, and
happy Halloween. Welcome to a special episode of Release Date Rewind,
a podcast that celebrates movies and TV shows on their
milestone anniversaries. I'm your host, Mark J. Parker, a film
lover and TV lover and filmmaker and TV maker, And
(00:26):
thank you for listening to this on your favorite podcast
app thanks to the straw Hut Media Network, or maybe
you're listening on the You Run Podcast Network, or maybe
you're watching on YouTube boo. Our spooky holiday is coming
to a close now, wah wah, but we are keeping
the creeps going and I have a great special guest
(00:46):
in this first part of a two part episode that
will give you goose bumps. It's the thirtieth anniversary of
the Fox TV series which premiered in October ninety five,
based on the world famous R. L. Steinbooks of and
Here with me is a very talented, very kind man
whose work many of us in my generation and even
(01:07):
younger have admired, loved, and worshiped. Here is the original
Goosebumps cover illustrator Tim jacobis to talk about his amazing
career so it's time to rewind. I am so honored
(01:33):
to truly have you, Tim, because, like many people that
you probably talked to all the time, I mean, your
work is I know this word is overused now, but
it truly is iconic.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, thank you. It's very nice of you to say.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, you are a true artist. You're a great guy.
We met for a few minutes back at nineties con
and I know you do all the conventions now, you're
hitting so many. How many do you think you've gone
to just this year?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Do you know? Maybe? Wow? Yeah, yeah, this was a
busy year. This was a busy year.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
What do you like about the cons Obviously it's a
great way to meet fans and make some money selling
your prints, which everybody who's watching I got assigned.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Tim Jacoba's Prince.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
But but what do you love about it? Is it
a nice way to connect with people?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, I mean, of course that's first. It's nice to
so I've been doing this for a lot of years,
and it's a it's a solitary endeavor. You sit behind
the desk and you do it by yourself. And back
in the nineties I was creating all this artwork and
at that time, you were in elementary school or in
(02:44):
middle school, so it's not like we were gonna have
any chance encounters along the way. So going to the
cons now you guys are grown up, we can have
conversations that we couldn't have back in the nineties. And
it gets me out and forces me to look people
in the eye and be social and have conversations.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean, because you designed all these covers, how
many Goosebumps covers were there? Over one hundred that you
worked on?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Am I right?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yes, that's correct, I did over one hundred. I don't
know how many there are all.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Together, right, yeah, because it's right now and you designed
when when you you know, illustrated the covers you worked on,
I mean, it's just you writer. Did you have a
team with you, an assistant or it's you?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
No, No, it was it was me.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I worked with an art director at Scholastic, just one,
which is rare. Usually there's a couple of people who are,
you know, working with you, But no, it was me
and one other person. Due to the fact that we
were going so quickly to produce these there wasn't a
lot of messing around. It was, you know, submit some sketches.
(03:56):
She would take them to the editors. They pick one,
I'd sit down and do the painting. I turn it in,
they go, yeah, that looks good. Start the next one.
So it was really kind of an assembly line. I
don't not really an assembly line, but they were coming
in back.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
To back to just yeah a rhythm.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Wow, that is so not so so they're going to
use that rhythm right, just okay, next next, that's amazing
tom now. So then it sounds like they didn't really
have many notes for you, like because you know, as
a designer, I'm sure for other people, you know, you
you send something and it's like, Okay, that's good, can
you move that?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
But did they kind of just and that was really
due to too uh.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Two things had to do with that. First off, we're
working traditionally back then and to make changes. We'll make them,
but they're going to take time as compared to today,
where we have digital art and a change, I can
move stuff all around all the time. Once that painting
gets approved and we start working, we're not moving stuff easily.
(05:01):
So you got to really want it, and it's going
to take at a minimum maybe three day turnaround, one
for you to ship the painting back to me, one
for me to do the art, and then another one.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
For me to ship it back to you.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
So you had to really want that change to pull
it out of production. So no, not a lot of notes.
It was I mean, from an artist's point of view,
that was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I believe that everyone.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Every artist thinks everything they put down is gold, and
it's not.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
But to not have a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Second guessing what you're doing was just wonderful. And I
got real spoiled because Goosebumps went on for ten years.
So ten years of nobody telling me I'm not any good,
that's not good for your head. Oh my goodness, people
to tell you and you're not that good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
But I know because then I'm sure when that ended,
you're like okay, and then you're working with other people
and you're like, what do you what.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Do you say that? What are you thinking? What you
want to change? Wow?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, so you started working on Goosebumps. Was
it nineteen ninety two? It was early nineties?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Am I right? Right? Actually?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It was, uh, yeah, it was it was late in
ninety two. No, it was early in ninety two. The
book came out in July of ninety two, but I
think I painted the first cover like in December of
ninety one.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Don't hold me to that yet.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
My memory was ninety one was when that very first
Welcome to Dead House was completed. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, back in the winter. Yeah, I was wondering. So, so, okay,
let's let's backtrack. I'd love to hear how you got
into this. So you went to school for art, I
assume that when you college yep. And then so how
did how did you get on scholastics radar? Were you
already working with them or did you have some sort
of representative? How do how do these people find you time?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Right? Yes to both of those.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I did have a rep, and we were working for
the luxury of living in New Jersey and being close
to New York City is that's where all the publishers
were in the nineties, and they were all in a
five block radius of one another. So I got my
first books by myself by knocking on doors, very inefficient,
(07:25):
was able to get myself a rep after a number
of years. And then then that's his job. He goes
around and he has all the connections. And then I
get to stay at home and paint. And my Rep
sal Baraka was his name, was able to get us
in a number of places, and Scholastic was just one
(07:47):
of them.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I had maybe done.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
More than two, less than six books for them, I think,
not a lot. And those those were kids books. I mean, yeah,
generally kid's book. Once in a while to throw me
an adult mystery or or or something. So but for
Scholastic it was mostly the kids stuff. No horror, though,
(08:15):
Adventure did some outer space stuff. I did some fantasy stuff.
So you know, they had they had been used to
working with me. And so when Goosebumps came along, I
was kind of in between jobs. I was, you know,
sitting on the bench and the coach was looking for
somebody to put in the game. Hey Jacob is here,
(08:37):
maybe you can do this. So yeah, so I was
kind of standing in the right place at the right
time when the Goosebumps came along.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Absolutely it sounds like it. You were prepared and you
were available, and there you go. So now, these amazing
covers that you made, and I love them, and I'm
sure many people have told you this. I love them
because I mean they're so colorful. I love that you
embraced color, because back in the day, in the nineties,
we had your stuff and we had like like Lisa
Frank remember how colorful and shrippy.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
That stuff was.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I loved all that stuff, and I loved I mean,
I've always loved horror, but I love that your your
images were spooky.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Of course, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Some kids it might be you know, like this is
the Haunted Mask. So I mean, I know you can
sort of see it with the zoom filter, but I mean,
you know, it could maybe scare a couple kids. I
was like, give me more of that, right, But I
love that you embraced color. Was that your doing was
that scholastic? Was that a meeting of the minds with
like going with these bold, bright colors?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
So I was I was working with bold colors in general.
And if you look at the very first color Welcome
the Dead House, it's rich, but it's not as rich
as some of the color covers that came afterward. So
what had happened was I did book number ones Welcomed
the Dead House, and a different illustrator did book number two, Stay.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Out of the Base. Okay, And this was a.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Guy named Jim Theesen. Jim had a horror background, mostly
worked in the in with adult books, and they weren't
sure what angle they were going to take. So they said,
who cares, Tim, do you do one? Jim, you do one,
and when we're done that guy, we'll get to do
the other two books. Because only supposed to be four books.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Of this series. That's you, how funny? Just a limited thing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And yeah, so it wasn't like this, it was a
huge competition or it was a very much a okay,
let's see what happens. And one of the main concerns
with Scholastic is at the time, no one had put
out a horror series for kids ages seven to eleven,
So being too scary was that was right up there
(10:50):
on the top of the list of you know, we
got to keep this easy. We don't want to freak
the kids out, you know, we want to give him
a thrill. And when that we got done, when Jim
and I got done, they said, yeah, Tim's art's a
little bit more, you know, for lack of betic terms
I didn't use. You know, it's a term I used.
They didn't say this, but my art work is less realistic,
(11:13):
a little more cartoonish, and I had used the rich colors, right,
So when they came back to me and said, yeah, Tim,
you're going to do the rest of them. We really
like those rich colors. Okay, that's all I needed to hear.
And then I broke out my old color theory charts
and stuff that I had did in art school and said,
all right, what can we do here? And until they
(11:35):
cry uncle, I'm going to come up with every different
color theory that I can think of and keep them,
you know, keep them using that technique.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So yes, it was totally intentional.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, it's amazing because so then that's what's really brilliant
about that is it's your idea. These are your colors
and thoughts. Like, for example, with like the next one,
I'm looking at the list of books right here, like
Monster Blood, the third book with the stairs, like the
Green right So did they say like, okay, Tim, like Ken,
we're thinking for this cover it's going to be like
something on the stairs or did you just.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Like BRL was writing the book at the same time
I was doing the cover, so he would give me
a paragraph telling me what the book was about. When
each book was different, I can't tell you if I
got a specific note that said, hey, how about a
staircase with the monster blood coming down? I'm not sure,
(12:33):
I don't remember, but if they had that idea, I
would draw that idea up. But then I would always
do two other sketches. So if that one didn't float
everybody's boat, here's two other ideas that are kind of
along the same line. Or I got something, I read
something different into that paragraph of material, and I threw
(12:57):
this third one in.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So what's ever when you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Think alternate like this is a ye field idea?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yes, see what we came up with.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So there were always choices so we weren't losing time.
It really was a matter of okay, here you go,
what do you think? And yeah, the monster blood h
the very first one was that. That one was fun
because I did know that the monster blood was this
green slime, and back in the nineties, that's green slime
(13:26):
was I.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Mean, yeah, it was ubicuous, and I mean that's what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I have this what I meant. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right, the Goosebumps logo, Now, did you did you work
on the logo or what did Scholastic already?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Kind of that was that was done by somebody else,
a woman named Holly Rubin, who uh just came up
with the idea, and I know they went round and
round with it and they and they kept coming back
to her original concept and said, heck with it, let's
use Hollies everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And yeah, right, it looks so I mean, I'm looking
at all the covers online, like you know, Arlstein Goosebumps
logo and then your imagery. I mean, it's just like
it's a match made in kid Heaven, nineties, kid Heaven?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Like I remember growing up in South Jersey, we had
a closet at home that was toys and books, and
I would open that door and the Goosebumps books were
straight ahead and they were your covers and colors. And
so I mean, it's ra el Stein's story. But I
think you know, they say not to judge a book
by its cover, but it's hard not to do that,
you know with yours.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, when you're ten years old, it's all about the cover, right.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So I got to give props to the people who
worked in the book design department because they would wait
until my covers came in. And if you notice, when
you put all the Goosebumps books next to each other,
there are always a different color scheme. The logo was
(14:51):
it a different color, in the background was a different color,
and they always pulled those colors out of the artwork
so that it worked well with the piece of art
that was in there. But it was completely different set
of colors than the book before.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So you know, they.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Leaned into that whole color theory, and yeah, they gave
that the books a unique look.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and that's a really beautiful collaboration because it's you're
thinking of each individual one and then yeah, then they
can look at them all together and pull yeah, because
I mean, now I'm looking at the Werewolf of Fever Swamp.
Do you remember all of these?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Like do you?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And I say that, yeah, but yeah they're my children,
yes there are, right, I have one hundred children, but
I know them well.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It's really brilliant, how Yeah, like the green glow of
the water and Werewolf of Fever Swamp they pulled that
for the background of like the logo up top, and
it's just yeah, they married everything very well. And that
was fun for kids to see because no kid had
only one Goosebumps book, right, you would buy a bunch,
especially at the Scholastic book fairs that were like Heaven
(15:54):
on Earth. It's like, all right, now, I'm gonna get
these three. So you add to the collection and we
would see it's like, not only is every cover so
unique and interesting, but then the little details around the
edges like really flowed well, so yeah, oh my god,
I'm like nerding out.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This is so cool. Will be right back.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
The number one best selling author in America, RL Stein
wants to give you lots and lots of Goosebumps three
different ways. First, Goosebumps books where the terror began, had
the screams go on forever and ever, no one anticipated
(16:40):
the success that we got through Goosebumps. So yeah, at
the beginning, there wasn't a budget to make new art
to go on the VHS boxes. So heck, you know,
the kids recognized it from the book, so let's just
take that art and put it on there. So no,
I didn't get any extra money for that, but it
(17:03):
just made it easier for you guys to go, well,
is this the same Haunted mask or is this a
different version of the Haunted mask? Yep, And so I
didn't have anything to do with they didn't call me
when they were making the TV show and ask for
pointers or Okay, what were you thinking of? I got
(17:25):
to enjoy it just like you guys did. I could
just tune in every week and go, all right, let
me see what. I never anticipated them being live action,
so okay, show me what I wasn't thinking of. I
was thinking two D the whole time, right, what three
D is?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, I mean it was so oh my god to think.
I mean, I'm just thinking back Tim thirty years ago,
like being up because the books of course were already
out for a few years and still like very popular
when the show was running. Of course that like to
have the books and now see live action. I mean,
I was just like over the moon. But yeah, I
was wondering because like, for example, like you created the
look for Slappy right for not a living dummy unless
(18:04):
they gave you like some really clear kind of like guidelines,
like you created him and now, I mean he is
such a famous face, and then I can't remember I'm
pretty sure there was an episode of course about him.
So yeah, it's sort of like they used your your
what came out of your brain as like that is
the character, like we need to now create a dummy
or whatever that looks just like this artwork, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, And you know when I got the assignment, this
is now in the very early days of the internet,
so that wasn't where I went for my information. Whenever
I was doing research for any of my art I
would get in the car and drive to the county
library and go get a book.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And I got this.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Incredible book about Ventriloquist dummies, you know, like the history
of Van Triloquist dummies, and you know, saw them from
the late eighteen hundreds all the way up to the
present day. And those early dummies, you know, without them trying,
were incredibly horrific. And I went, oh, you know what,
(19:10):
I don't have to do a lot here to make
my point. They're already stay close to what a ventriloquist
dummy is. There's no need to get real, to exaggerate
a lot. Just tweak it a little bit and this
thing will be scary all by itself.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Absolutely, there's no need to really go above and beyond
what you already existed, right, use that model and it's
already right pretty much done. That's cool now, How okay,
So two questions. First, one is what was the turnaround
time like like when they first sent you, you know, when
you book the gig back in ninety one ninety two,
(19:48):
right and you're working on Welcome to Dead House. I
assumed that first book. Did you have a little bit
more time to work on that cover unlike the other ones,
which might have been faster, or was it all kind
of fast? Every time we were.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Kind of it was ready to go. So they gave
me there was a We had a you know, the
books came out every month, so we started a little
bit early so that we built in a buffer, so
we were probably four five books ahead of what you
(20:24):
guys saw on the shelf. It took me if we
took all the time, and we put it very linear,
and I, you know, on Monday morning, I got the
concept facts from R. L. Stein and then I spent
two days doing sketches and then immediately got a response
(20:47):
and then did the painting. I could do it in
a week. The paintings took about thirty hours, so first
part of the week would be doing sketches, second part
of the week would be doing the final art. Now
you never got responses that quick, but it took me
a week's time, but I had kind of the month
(21:08):
to move in other jobs, so we were working on
other and when Goosebumps picked up, then we were doing
you know, calendars and you know other stuff. So yeah,
but you know, a one week turnaround is what I needed.
The guy who had the heavy lift was RL. You know,
(21:28):
he's got to write that whole book every month and
write Fear Street books at the same time and not
drop the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So it's incredible. I mean, you guys were machines, but
you're right. I mean he was churning him out in
just days. I mean how but yeah, oh my god, I.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, because well I think we all kind of do that.
If you have a skill, you go all. My part's
easy because I know how to do that. But I
struggled to put you know, a three sentence email together,
and I'm going, this, dude's just crank now books you
helm right after the other. I have no like, I
(22:04):
can't get my head wrapped around.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Oh, it's so impressive, it really is. And I mean,
you know, as you know, us kids, we just were
eating it right up. I mean, there was no way
we were thinking about all the steps involved and all
that it was just like, okay, another one. You know,
so as an adult, it's like, holy cow, did you
ever feel pressure or did it always feel pretty good?
Like wherever was there ever like a time you're like,
(22:27):
oh my god, I can't come up for air.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Generally, no, it was again, you had to treat it.
You had to treat it respectfully. If you thought you
had lots of time, you were lying to yourself. But
if you got up every morning and sat down, had
your cup of coffee back, then I you know, would
maybe thumb through the newspaper for twenty minutes. Then at
(22:50):
you know, whatever time it was, you sit down and
you start at that time. Every day you work until lunch.
You could stop and have a lunch break, and then
you put it. You got to put in a full
day every day. And saturdays were optional, you know, like
I worked a lot of Saturdays.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Sunday I'm taking off.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And so if you could stay disciplined enough to sit there,
it was okay. Every once in a while we would go,
you know, take on that extra job. You know, my
rep would call, go, hey, man, you know, I know
we usually do this many in a month. Maybe we
(23:28):
can squeeze another one in let's see what happens. And
once in a while it would get a little you know,
it would get a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But again, you know, I have all my family.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Members are in the in the medical field on all
different levels, and what they do matters.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I'm drawing picture painting pictures of monsters.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, you can't really get that worked up if
i'm you know, yes, I want to be on time,
Yes I want to be responsible, but no one's gonna die.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right right, that's a good way to put it. I mean,
it's very important to many many, many of us around
the world, But I know what you mean. Yeah, it's
kind of like, hey, you know, this is fun. There's
other people out there like doing life or death.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Death serious things, and when they do mess up, it
means something. The only Goosebumps cover that really had a
wild a turnaround was a night in terror tower.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Oh okay, with the executioner coming downstairs. So, like I said, they.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Would, I generally had that thirty hours spread out over
the course of a week, and in this particular case,
we did exactly like I just said. We squeezed in
the extra book and when it got down to it,
I only had it was due the next day.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So I got up and it's so good.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
It's another one I remember very well, right.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
All night, and then finished it up in the morning
and because I missed the window to give it to
Federal Express, and I drove it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
To the city myself.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Wow, so you know, it was a kind of a
thirty hour run and just went, Okay, this is this
is what it's going to take.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And I got it done.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
And what I like about it is that it doesn't
look it doesn't look strained, it doesn't look you know,
I would have liked it done maybe a couple of
extra things in the background, but the executioner himself, he's
exactly what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And so yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Doing all nighters was something I've done a few times
over my career. But again, if you keep everything in order,
those are few and far between, because those, you know,
they're fine. Everybody needs to do them now and then.
But you know, you don't just bounce back from those.
(26:06):
You're gonna pay for it, you know, down the road,
and uh yeah, so stay on top of it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wow, that is such good trivia.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
No, I mean, the cover looks like it blends in
with every other one, so you'd never know. But wow,
I mean that alone should be like a short film
or like an episode or something.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Well, I'm glad there wasn't a camera there back then,
and pull my hair out. Oh jeez.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And then you for that job, right because this was
all before. I mean, I guess there was email, but
it's not anything like it is to you're not.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
We weren't even using email righting by facts and phone calls,
answering machines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very you know, it's it's
even hard for me.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
To remember that. You know that that's how we did things. Yeah,
and you know I did.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Now I sound like Grandpa when I'm going, Oh, it
was back and you know when it snowed and I
walked both ways up to school and yeah, but uh
yeah it was it was a different Uh, it was
a different way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And that is so cool.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So yeah, with FedEx, you must have liked just carefully
what maybe put cardboard on either side or that and
wrapped it up and.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, so that's was the That was one of the
main reasons I chose to do acrylic paintings because they
dry almost instantly, and once they're dry, they're almost you know,
they're almost damage proof.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
They can take it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You know, you can rub, you could touch, you can
do a lot of things. So yeah, there would be
the illustration board, like a heavy cardboard paper, and then
I would go get refrigerator boxes from the appliance store
down the street and just cut them up. Got to
be very friendly with the people at the Federal Express
Building because I was always getting there just before they
(28:06):
locked the doors.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Wow, and they're like, there's ten right After a while they'reoing,
you know, what is what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And then I explained what I was doing, and then
they went, oh, okay, well, if it really gets tight,
we lock this door first. But if the door's locked,
you can drive around the back of the building and
we keep the garage doors open for an extra ten
minutes so you can come in and hand it in
and we'll take it from you. So but he goes,
don't you know, don't be spreading the word up right right,
(28:36):
I'm coming in the back door.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That's like goosebumps VIPs only exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
That must have been so cool for them to be like, oh,
you're that guy.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh I know you gotta remember if you weren't, if
you weren't ten years old.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
It didn't mean anything.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Hey, you know, I didn't even I just said I
was a book illustrator. That was impressive enough to them.
But no, say goose Bumps. You know, like it caught
on way later later the adults you would have to
have kids, yep, and they'd have to be that age
for you to go, oh, I know what this is?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Right, you're so right?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean the second it was out,
it's just been part of my life.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I mean adults who weren't around kids, they'd be like, okay,
goose what right?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah? Exactly Fox Kid's life way.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It brings the most popular books to life in the
most thrilling, spiking, serious ever bumps coming this fall to
Fox Kids.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Can you walk me through the actual process of making this?
So so you mentioned, you know, you would would you
sketch out like actually hand draw with like pen and paper,
pencil and paper, like your your sort of samples for them?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Is that how it started?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And then once once everyone agrees on the right one,
you would would you use then your sketch and then
like paint over it? Is that like kind of your process.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
You're close, so I would get the facts from RL
with the description. So the first thing I would do
are called thumbnail sketches, little teeny tiny scribbles, kind of
like putting down bullet points if you were a writer,
and I would just start making them, and you know,
just fill up pages worth and just don't spend much
(30:23):
time on them. Just they're not for anybody to see.
Ideas down, just getting ideas down, think of it different.
Oh okay, we're doing a low angle. Let's do from
the top. Let's try something from the side. What other
characters can we work in?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Here? Is it night? Is it day?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Anyway, after I would do a bunch of those pages,
and without any discussion with anybody else, I'd go, all right,
I like these three. I think these do the best.
And then I would draw them up on an eight
and a half by eleven piece of paper with pencil
and erasers, and you're just a standard drawing.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Reason they were eight and.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
A half by eleven is I was then going to
fax them back to the people that's scholastic, and then
they could see you know, what I had in mind.
You know, the facts was terrible. The drawings on my
side were pretty nice. What they looked at on the
other side. I remember going there once agoing, holy smokes,
(31:24):
this is what you guys are making your decisions off of.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
This is awful.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
What it was enough, and then they'd go, okay, yeah,
we like sketch number two. I would then take that.
The first thing I would do. The next thing I
would do is I would take a smaller version of
the sketch.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Glue it to it.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I would take a xerox of it, and I would
glue it to a piece of illustration board, and this
is like six inches by six inches, and I would
do a little tiny painting, not thinking about detail. This
was where I was playing around with all those wild colors,
because what I didn't want to do is do a
giant final painting, spend the whole day painting the background purple,
(32:11):
at the end of the day going that should have
been blue, and spending a whole day fixing it. So
this was kind of a you know, a quick plan,
what of our colors, what are they going to be
get that all hammered out? And then go and start
the final painting. Final paintings were on what is called
(32:31):
the number eighty illustration board. It's relatively thick, it's got
a little tooth to it. It's not totally like glass smooth.
And then I worked with typical sable brushes, and I
also worked with an airbrush. Airbrush is you know, gave
me that real slip polished look, real smooth with smooth
(32:54):
out my brushstrokes, and gave it kind of a digital
look before what a digital was.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That's what's so amazing, tim is. Yeah, I mean I'm
looking at it with adult eyes, but even kid eyes
as well. It always looked in a good way, like
like it was yeah computer generally like an artist on
the computer, do you know what I mean? It looked
so smooth and that cartooniness was so it just looked
I don't know how else to say it other than like,
it's so impressive that this was all by hand, because
(33:24):
it just looks so perfect, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
That's I mean, that's very nice of you to say.
The thing that did help me, though, was earlier on,
I started painting motorcycle tanks and on vans and cars,
and nobody wants to see any lump or bump in
your paint style. So I learned to work flat early on,
(33:49):
and then just carried over what I had learned doing that,
and it just kind of evolved into the style that
you see on the illustrations.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I mean, yeah, I'm looking at a shop on Shock
Street and that red background the sky, but then there's
some purple. I mean, it's beautiful. It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So then yeah, so you paint on the board once
and I think that's so smart and so interesting that
you made like a little mini paint version first to
mess up and right, So then once once you and
you said the acrylics dry pretty quickly, so yeah, once
you paint the full thing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And how big was that?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
They were twenty inches by twenty inches. And then I
actually painted with a hair dryer in one hand and
a paint brush in the other because I worked by
by work table was you know, not ninety degrees, but
it was very vertical in front of me, and I
like to rest my hand on my art while I work,
(34:47):
so I wanted to be dry, and you know, we'd
just hit it with the hair dryer and then paint
with the other hand. Yeah, and again, acrylic is just
wonderful for your ability to fix mistakes. Oh, you can
cover any color with any color. You can if you
(35:07):
get too much paint on there, you can sand it
with a piece of sandpaper.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
It's just nothing nothing.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Uh No, painting is unfixable. So where if you do watercolor,
you get kind of one or two shots and if
it doesn't work, you're throwing that one away and starting
all over. There was never throw anything away and start over.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
We were all everything was was salvageable and rescuable.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Wow, that's amazing because you again, I wouldn't think that.
I mean, it looks all so perfect that I got.
My brain would just be like, oh, I wonder how
many times it took to get it just right. But
that's so cool that it's.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
It's it's your paintings evolved as you're doing them, and
you know things are you think you got it right,
and then you step back at the end of the
day and you're going, yeah, that arm, that's that doesn't
look quite right.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You're close, but we got to mess with that some more.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So you know, uh yeah, painting is fixing, fixing problems
until you go, I think that's four times up. I
wish I had another week, but I don't that's true.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that that deadline's there, so it's
like this is gonna have to be as good as
it can.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Be, right, Ye.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Wow, did your hands ever cramp up?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
No? Luckily, I had never had any carpal tunnel or
none of that. You know. No again, because I think
because my artwork was, yeah, the angle it was. I
sat up very straight, you know. You know, I wasn't
hunched over the desk, and you know, maybe if I
(36:45):
work that way, that would have been different. So no, luckily,
no hand stuff. I mean, your eyes would get tired.
When I was younger and in the early part of
my art career, I did did you know, I did
real work, you know, I worked on construction sites. I
was a laborer. I was a garbage man, you know,
(37:08):
so I know what hard work is. So I don't
want to sit here and go, oh, it was so
hard to sit at my desk and do a painting
in the air conditioning and you know, and have a
cup of coffee next to me.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I'm never gonna do.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
That, you know, So no again, even now where i'm
a little bit you know, I'm I'm heading over the
hill and I'm a little bit more banged up than
I was many years ago.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's still it's still fine to sit here and paint.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
You know, I don't have to go all right, I
gotta stop my hands are cramping or my eyes are
blurry or you know.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Luckily it all still it all still works good. That's great. Yeah,
what do you so? Okay?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So obviously Goosebumps is what you're most known for, but
we know you've done other cool things. And everybody go
to Tim's site because there's lots of great stuff. You
have different samples on there, like I love the the
two Broke Girls art that you made. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's some custom work that you've done for people. So
lots of cool things. What are you working on anything?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Now? What is life for you?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Now?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Obviously a lot of the cons But do you still
you know, make commissions for people.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Do you still have your clients and everything?
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah? What's nice is there's I so along with the illustration,
I'm also an art director at a small company. It's
corporate work. That's what pays the bills. And then in
the second half of the day, I still get to illustrate.
What's nice is everybody wants the goosebump style. So I'm
(38:43):
not doing Goosebumps covers. But everything that I do looks
like at Goosebumps, it's just showing up somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, that's beautiful, and you're able to do that because
I know maybe some companies might have said to you, like,
this style that you're doing for us can only be
for us. It sounds like Scholastic ever said it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Again, it was so many years ago, you know, nobody
got hung up on style.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
But just to touch on.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
That, so around Goosebumps ended for me in early two
thousand and three, two thousand and four, and Goosebumps stopped
for a short period of time before they started it
back up again, and nobody wanted that style anymore. So
(39:32):
it was it was old for a short period of time,
so I had to kind of reinvent the wheel. People
were like, nah, that's cool, we don't want to see
that anymore. We want to see something else. So what
was lucky for me is that's when digital art was
making big inroads, and I then went all right, well
(39:54):
and I didn't do this volunteerarily. I was told you
better learn how to do digital art, and so that
gave my art a different you know, I had a
whole new platform to fool around with. I expanded what
I was doing, not just doing books, but doing other things.
And yeah, so I was able to kind of leverage
(40:17):
the success of Goosebumps and keep things going, but in
a completely different way. That's great now, all these years later,
it's the Goosebump stuff that people remember and that's what
they want. And so yes, all my current art work,
if it, you know, it could go on a Goosebumps cover,
even though it's not. It's not a Goosebumps book.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, that's cool. See isn't that funny? Because yeah, I
feel like in the two thousands, I think, you know,
everyone just kind of wanted to make art, especially you know,
or any kind of art, like they wanted to make
that feel different than the nineties. Right, But now it's inevitable. Yeah,
it's now where we are. It's kind of like, no,
let's just like whatever we really loved, whatever really worked,
(41:03):
let's just do that always.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And it's not even just with book covers. It's why
we get so many sequels of things, and it's just
kind of like, hey, we love it no matter what.
So you're right, let's just keep riding that wave. So
it is funny that, like now, it seems like in
general there isn't really a major craving to like, no,
let's do something totally with a different look. It's kind
of like, no, let's embrace what we have always loved, right.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
And what's interesting is it what I'm doing is showing
up in different places and people. The best compliment I
can get is, oh, that looks like an old Goosebumps cover.
That is a one hundred percent home run to me.
And if everybody says that, then they see my name
on it, and people have become familiar with who I was.
(41:51):
When you were ten, you didn't know who I was.
You didn't know my name, You just knew my art.
So it's nice now where then people look at it
and go, oh, yeah it is it's Tim's work, no
wonder it looks like a goosebut.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's your style absolutely. Yeah. Now with the work you're
doing now is it are you still doing a lot
of like hand painting or is it mostly all digital
or is it?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
So I have a hybrid technique where everything still starts
on my desk with a pencil and a piece of paper.
I get my drawings very tight, and then once we
all agree yeah that's what we're doing, then I scan
it into the computer and the color work is done digitally.
(42:33):
But everybody, if I did a painting right now and
handed it to a printer, they wouldn't know what to
do with it. You know, like that that was you know,
that ship has sailed. So everybody, if the artwork is
going into production and it's going to be printed at
(42:55):
any stage, I'm going to do the art digital for you.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
If you said nah, no, Tim, all I'm doing is
I want a piece of your art and I want
to hang it in my living room, and that's all
it's ever going to do is hang on the wall,
then that's the perfect time to go traditional because along
with it being well, you get a one of one,
(43:19):
it is truly an original and you can see that
it's hand painted, and then it's worthwhile and it's good
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Do you wish that thirty plus years ago? Thirty three,
I think is probably when you were really getting started
on everything. Do you wish what you have today you
could have had then? Or not necessarily in terms of
like the digital all that like you wouldn't have to
maybe be running to FedEx all the time or yeah,
(43:51):
that's a good question, or do you feel like no,
you know, again, it's probably best that it went the
way that it went because it forced me to learn
how to do things a certain way.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
And then when I did make that transition in the
early two thousands, it was like a second career, and
you know, it kept me very interested. If I was
doing the same thing for all these years, maybe it
would start to feel a little stale. So there's been
enough evolution over the years where it's still it's still
(44:28):
it's still exciting. I you know, I still enjoy it.
I still it's the three quarters of the way through
an illustration. That's when I'm the most excited. That's when
I go, yeah, this is working, Oh, very cool. And
then there's a point right about the three quarter mark,
maybe a little farther in, where it's like, all right.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Now I got to finish it.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
That's all it needs to do is be finished, and
you know, it's still you get a little bit more
excitement when you turn it in and people then see
it and get excited. But for me, yeah, it's that
you know, early part you're going, I don't know, I
don't like this, this isn't this isn't happening yet. And
then as you hit those later stages, you go, Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Okay, it's coming together. I see it right. We're gonna
bring this plane in for a landing. Yeah. The Master
of Kids Suspense R. L.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Stein brings your favorite extra life in an all Fox
Kids television series.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Things are not always what they appear to be On Goosebumps,
premier November third on Fox Kids. Watch It with a friend.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, one last question with the whole process. So, yeah,
once you send it off or you know, to FedEx,
or you have to drop it off at Scholastic. So
would you let's say, let's say you you fed Exit
and your home, and would you then later that day
or something get a call from Scholastics saying, oh this
is amazing, Like would someone confirm that, like it's perfect
and we're moving forward or not necessarily, like if if
(46:01):
they liked it, would you just make it?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
It's kind of like no news is good news. Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, you know the best thing that I could hear
is I turned something in and I know that they've
got the package and because a lot of times I'd
send it to my rep and he would hand deliver it.
Sometimes just due to the scheduling, I'd send it directly there.
But it's a big building and it would be in
the mail room and take a while to get to
the person. But if a couple of days passed and
(46:27):
nobody said anything, and then I heard, oh, here's the
next one, get started, that's perfect.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
That's I'll take that every single time totally.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
You're like okay, And so what would they do with
the big poster board? Would they then like take a
photo of it or scan it and then that that
then becomes the file for right, The.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Scanners were weren't really a household item. What there was
was there was a couple of incredible photographers in New
York and their absolute full time job was taking pictures
of illustrators paintings. And they had a studio that was
all set up with the lights and we would all
(47:07):
stand in line and come in one after another and
they would set it up. My art again, we talked
about it earlier. If the finish was very non glossy
and it was very flat, that's easy, you know, I
could photograph my own artwork. But if you get somebody
who's got a very high gloss painting and it's done
in oils and there's some real texture to it, man,
(47:30):
that's a real skill to get the lightning just right
so you don't get any reflections or hot spots. So
these people were super super skilled at getting that photo
reproduction of your art.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
So yeah, basically the covers that we would see and touch,
they were a photo of your arts.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Okay, correct? Interesting? Wow?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Different now because now, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
The scans you can get on a cheap scanner are incredible.
You know, the quality of the prints that you would
get other than that particular person who did the photographs,
if you got if you tried the photograph from yourself
or even a friend who had a good camera set up,
(48:15):
they were always not very good.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
And so.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Because of that fact, most of us walked around looking
for new work with original paintings in a portfolio case
and taking them into art directors to show them what
you could do. So, yeah, you know, our artwork was
just thrown out a bus and carried around and.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Banged up, and you know that was just the way
you would do it.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Where now all the artwork is either hanging behind glass
or it's tucked away someplace and you don't touch it.
And yeah, back then we total disrespect, total disrespect for
that piece of.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Oh, oh my god, Oh that's so funny. Wow, Tim, Well,
this was amazing. Thank you for all of your work
and all of your info and your kindness. Where can
people find you next year? I know you have more
cons coming up? What's next for you?
Speaker 3 (49:07):
The next con is in the middle of November, exactly
a month from now, in Savannah, Georgia. It's a Galaxy
Con in Savannah. So that will be the second to
last con of the year. And if anybody is interested
in Goosebump's prints, those are available at Jacobisstudios dot com.
(49:33):
And just as an extra hook to that whole thing,
if you buy a print through our site, we take
ten dollars from the sale of every poster and we
buy food for the food bank down the street. And
we're coming up on our five year anniversary, so thank
you to all the people who have already bought, and
(49:53):
the people at the food bank are very appreciative of
everybody's participation.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
That is so cool, Tim, Yeah, so you donate a
portion of everything you sell it seems like, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
So yeah, you know I when I when I first
set this up, I did the whole thing on the
back of a napkin, and yeah I could, Yeah I could.
Ten bucks is a good number. The food Bank does
way way well and I don't do so well on this,
but I can't stop doing it, and uh, you can't.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I guess you can't. Be like, actually, now it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, yeah, eight fifty five bucks. Oh jeez, wow, Well.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Now it's it's fine. We want to make sure you're
you know, it works out very well. It's something that
my son and I do together. He's very helpful, so
once he was helping, it kind of changed the you know,
the overwhelming effect of it. And but yes, it's it's
very nice. I always think, well, at some point they're
(50:54):
gonna stop ordering them, and you know, that's just why
it's going to go and for five years in and
every morning there's a couple more orders there, right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
And it's it's not only the prints. You have sketches
on here too, which are so cool. That's gonna be
something I'm going to buy next.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Is these sketches.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
But you and you have a book a like a
coffee table book, right, selling that of all your artwork.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
It's sold out as of right now. We're trying to
find some past copies the Okay make a long story Shark,
the distributor for the publisher. When chapter eleven and the
remaining books have been they're kind of disappeared, but somebody
has them.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I just don't know where they are.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
And if that's mystery, is fine.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
I'll buy them from them and offer them back up
on my site. But as of right now, there are
no more.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
All right, Well, hey, I mean that's still pretty cool
to be sold out of an amazing coffee table book
of your work.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
So yes, see, hopefully you get more.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
But if you, if you, if you go out there
on the internet, there's there's some of that somewhere right
eBay or them, Yeah, exactly, grab.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Someone's selling something for sure. Last question for you, Tam,
and I'm sure you get this very often, so I'm
gonna ask a slightly different version of the question. Not
only your favorite Goosebumps cover that you made, but your
favorite that you were working on. Like you mentioned, you know,
three quarters of the way through you're really feeling it
was there one cover that you can think of that
(52:23):
like from the get go, you just were like giddy
to make is there anything that comes to mind?
Speaker 3 (52:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (52:30):
So I like them all.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
The thing that was very fun about Goosebumps is, and
I've used this example before, when you get on a series,
like say I got on the Harry Potter series and
I was doing the book cover for Harry Potter, kind
of always the same. It's the same people, it's the
same type of location, it's there's this there's a familiarity
(52:57):
or a similarity to it. Every goosebump says new kids,
new monster, new place, new everything. So I always was
as excited as you guys were when I saw the
synopsis of what the new book would be. So the
fact that they were all like I never knew what
was coming next, and I got just as excited. Ones
(53:18):
that I like the ones where right from the start
I was kind of scratching my head. So RL's ideas
and even the titles of the book tell you exactly
what the story is. Scarecrow walks at midnight, Ye okay,
(53:40):
we all have a picture in our head. You know
what's going to happen. Werewolf in Fever swamp. Got it,
got it, we know what we're doing. But then RL
would hit me with these ones every once in a
while where I go, so egg monsters from Mars, I
don't know what an egg monster from Mars is. Nobody does.
I can't go get reference material somewhere. I gotta conjure
(54:04):
this one up. And those were the most fun because
first off, it's the first time we as a community
get to see what an egg monster from ours is,
and uh, you can't tell me I'm wrong. Yeah, I'm
right right, like it or not, I'm right. So uh yeah,
those were the ones that were the most fun.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
That's cool where you could really create something exactly, yeah,
exactly we've never seen in a movie or an old whatever.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Yeah, okay, that's really cool. Tim.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Wow, Well, thank you seriously so much. This was a blast.
I'm so honored, and I know people are very excited
to hear this, so it's gonna be a really good one.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
But thank you. I appreciate you reaching out and and doing.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
This absolutely And you're also such a nice guy.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
You took a picture with me.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I mean, like people when you go see him at
the cons, not only is he selling things and signing things.
But you can get a picture with Tim and you're
just so it's very cool, because oh not everyone is
so cool. So when a celebrity is cool, it's like,
oh my gosh. You know, so we appreciate you. We
thank you for all of the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
So thank you for so much appreciated.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Beware You're in for a scare. From the pages of
Ario Stein's best selling books, comes a brand.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
New series of Goosebumps videos, videos that will creep you out,
freak you out, will simply make you left your head off.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
What an amazing guy and what truly awesome work he
has given us over the years. Thank you very much,
Tim Jacobis for not only all your great stuff, but
for spending an hour with me and making life more
colorful and more creepy. And thank you out there for
listening to or watching this episode. Follow Tim at Tim
Jacobis and check out his website jacobistudios dot com to
(55:52):
see his gallery of work, and follow me too while
you're at it. At release date, rewind to see more
footage from this great conversation. Stay tuned for part two
of this Goosebump celebration when I bring on another guest
to deep dive with me into the show's premiere episodes
of the Haunted Mask Story, which has been a fave
of mine for thirty years. That episode drops very very soon,
(56:16):
so this is a real treat. Thanks Draw Media, the
U run podcast Network, Kyle Motsinger, and the Portland Media
Center in Maine, And as R. L Stein says, have
a scary day everyone. Bye.
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