In honor of the 20th anniversary of the announcement of Goosebumps Gold (which is next month), I figured I'd reach out to Tim Jacobus for further comments about the series. Here's what I learned:
- Unlike Tim's previous work on the Goosebumps series, the Gold covers were created digitally.
- Scholastic commissioned Tim to create covers for the series "maybe 6 months" after his work on Series 2000 concluded.
- The Slappy head that was featured on Tim's website on the Goosebumps Gold page was "just a random sketch" and had nothing to do with Slappy New Year.
- Tim does not recall any other books besides the first 3.
- Tim was never officially notified about the series cancellation. After the October 2000 release date came and went, he changed the date to "2001" on his website because he thought the series was still going to release.
- The full artwork that's available on the wiki are somewhat incomplete versions, as they have some subtle changes from the covers.The Haunted Mask Lives! artwork was made on January 12, 2000, while Happy Holidays from Dead House was made on January 28.
- Notice how I said "covers"? An autographed cover mock-up of The Haunted Mask Lives! surfaced on eBay in October 2018. Hmm... It sure would be nice to have an HD version of it along with a cover for Happy Holidays from Dead House... That would be nice...
Well, me and Tim have got you covered! (no pun intended)
Aren't they beautiful? They're pretty unique cover designs, I must say, with the contrasting colors and all. These mock-up covers added a mysterious mist to both artworks and they were created on January 31, 2000. Interestingly enough, Tim also created the cover design and logo. So everything on the covers are 100% made by him, which I think is pretty cool. I asked Tim if he made these covers just for fun, to which he replied "I’m pretty sure I was commissioned for the logo and mock up."
So there you have it. Some new insight about the covers + the official mock-up covers released for the first time. Hope you enjoyed!