Little Comic Shop of Horrors

Give Yourself Goosebumps #17

by R.L. Stine

While wandering through a creepy section of town, the reader ventures into Milo's Comics Dungeon, a dingy store filled with the world's greatest comic books, and is thrust into a bizarre world to battle the worst villains in the history of comics, in a story featuring more than twenty possible endings. Original.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Gamebooks, Middle Grade, Childrens, Young Adult, Horror Thriller

137 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little Comic Shop Of Horrors is one of the Goosebump books that I've always wanted to read as a kid.Mainly because it kind of got spoiled for me because I know there's a reference or an appearance from a previous Goosebumps monster.I waited for a long time to read it and again my anticipation was very high for this book .The story starts off with you at a comic book club thing with a couple of your friends.They're talking about these comic books that are worth a lot of money.One of the comic books they mentioned is some kind of scary comic book.You end up missing the bus to go home.So you take a shortcut to your house and end up on this part of town that you've never been to. One place in particular is a comic book shop.Inside this comic book shop they have all kinds of comic book stuff. They even have a lot of the books were the ones that were mentioned before but for cheap.This reminds me a lot of thrifting.You end up getting your first choice, which is if you want to explore the rack, or go explore the horror section. If this was me I would go and look at the horror section.But the horror section has a sign that says no trespassing.But of course you end up going anyway. The stairs turn into a slide.It ends up sliding you all the way down to the bottom.You end up in this big maze and you run into these kids, depending on your choices.There's a bunch of kids that you run into ,but my favorite has to be the kids Cammie and Jack ,which are kids that got trapped in the maze a long time ago. They don't even know how long it's been and they're like eating bugs and just trying to survive and stuff. But along the way you run into different monsters like mummies , Frankenstein's monster, a few hybrid monsters,like a snake with a human face with snake hair,and a half lion bull eagle thing.You end up running into the culprit that brought you down here, and it's pretty obvious who it is but it's actually a mutant and I'm not even going to say the name because it's I guess kind of a spoiler. But the reason why you got brought here is actually really cool the mutant started his own comic book and the comic book went out of print.He wants to bring back kids to scare them to see what all he can do to make the comics scarier.This mutant has the ability to shapeshift into different things ,and one thing he shape shifts into is a monster from our previous Goosebumps book which I won't spoil either. but I didn't know this thing had two tongues.I found that very interesting. The other choices are choosing a comic book off the rack and the rack start spinning.It takes you into a comic book world. You get to kinda choose which comic book you want to be a part of .But you can't switch to many times or you will turn into an ink split which was written to basically be like blood in some endings .I thought that was very cool.You got the Super Doer which is a guy that can fly and all this stuff. You can use different abilities to get yourself out of situations. And the main villain in this one is Tex Loudsnore,which is obviously a play on Lex Luthor. But that's not the only reference in this book.It gets way funnier.their is nods to Spider-Man, which is the Ballistic Bug You get trapped in the origin story of him.But you're allergic to the bug bite, which I thought was hilarious .My favorite of the superhero arcs had to be the Ys guys which is a play on the X-Men.The Wise guys are ran by a group of mutants,the leader being professor Y and they even give his full name. I don't remember it. But trust me,it's funny. He's a hairy guy in a chair that has mind control powers.and he can control his hair. Their is also Jean Green. There's probably a few that I'm missing .This story arc is actually pretty funny and pretty creative.Their is a scene where you get to use your different abilities to break down a door and you accidentally burn some of the comic with your magma vision, which I thought was pretty cool.This one was pretty solid.Some of my favorite endings were the obvious monster ending featuring the monster from the original Goosebumps series. The Good endings were very satisfying too.One of my favorite endings was were you eventually get put in the spot that these kids tell you is a way out,only to get out and find yourself escaping to this world filled with these human bug hybrids.I actually like that.I thought it was going to be a little bit longer .but that was just it .I will say Little Comic Shop Of Horrors didn't quite reach my younger selfs expectations.But it definitely came close.It is definitely one of the better books in the series. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. the only complaints I really have about it would be in the monster maze story you run into quite a few different kids. If you want to get all the endings it does get a little confusing with which kid is what.You get Charlie and I can't tell you anything about Charlie he's only in like one sentence.You got Cammie and Jack. And you got Bob (Vance from Bob Vance refrigeration) And Bob is his kid with a slingshot.I think there's a little bit too many of the kids.I think it should have just stuck with the two characters of Cammie and Jack. They're way more interesting.Other than that I highly recommend this one.

[Raed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This time I was killed :(

[Jasleen Kaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed going back and forth in book to experience various things.

[Camille Dent · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has never read a Goosebumps book nor a choose-your-own-adventure book before, this was such a fun introduction to both of those things! I did not get every single ending, but it was fun to experience several completely different stories in one book ☺️

[Devin Wheeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve got to about 5 ending , this is my first goosebumps book with this multi ending book, it’s bite-size story telling with no character building, it was somewhat enjoyable but not near good as a full story

[Alise Gonzalez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nostalgia 🩷

[Weathervane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is mostly ordinary for the series. The puns are a tad more atrocious, but the parodies of superheroes produce some, albeit little, amusement. The recurring references to "your" Uncle Mel were interesting; it's not the sort of thing I would expect from GYG. I was not impressed with the choices, which were more or less dull. Let us also not forget the lack of any clear goal, which is, of course, the primary problem plaguing Give Yourself Goosebumps.

Standard.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the eve of a new Goosebumps show, I have decided to check out Little Comic Shop of Horrors in preparation for an upcoming review-a-thon on my YouTube channel. And… it’s quite good. The best thing about this book was the Horror arc, or as I’ll call it, the Backrooms arc. The ghost writer basically depicted the Backrooms but filled with Universal Monsters, as well as kids of all fucked up things. It’s a really dark arc and I like how vague it is about the whole thing, let alone set design there is so simple yet so creepy—like the Backrooms lol. There were also no endings in here I genuinely disliked, a rare compliment for a GYG that I hope to give out more (this is the third time now I believe). There was some fun stuff in the Superhero arc, some standout endings, and a great set-up. Now for negatives, the book has some horridly cringe bits in the Superhero arc. I’m not into Superheroes and have been actively avoiding Marvel and DC for years, and this is why: CAH-RINJE. CRINGE. NO-GO. Yeah, not a fan of a few things, and I found myself uninterested in the Superhero arc half of the time, let alone the pointless inclusion of Wally. He didn’t need to be here, but he was, and served no purpose aside from exposition. Blah. Also, some moments in here were uninspired feeling. Some bland points, ya know? Overall, 8.5/10. It’s quite good indeed, though not my cup of tea when it comes to the Superhero mush. I like the ending where you turn into Case Oh.

[paige turner ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up on page 93.

I had a lot of hope of getting out of that maze in one piece and I'd have a happy ending, but it turns out I ended up in some sort of bee hive and all the bug people were afraid of me. So instead of being chased by monsters, I became the monster even though I didn't want to hurt anyone.

Even though it wasn't the ending I wanted, it was still a pretty cool ending.

Until next time!

[Paige Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was another fun one. It reminded me of Attack of the Mutant but from a tad different perspective this time.

Little Comic Shop of Horrors follows you as you are late to your bus and have to walk home and along the way you stumble into a comic shop and can't resist the urge to go inside. Once inside you are faced with two choices and you better choose wisely!

[Flossie Xing · Rating 4 out of 5]

It did cost me a while to finish reading it and so many bad endings of it!Then I learned a lesson from goosebumps world is:Don’t trust in anyone you met after you attended it’s universe unless you have no more choice.

[Griffin C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has two story lines, one where you explore the horror comics and one where you explore the superhero comics. The clear winner of these two storylines is the horror comics storyline which has you exploring a backrooms-esque maze in the basement. I didn't really enjoy the superhero comics story line you likely will if you enjoy those types of comics. 9.5/10

[Andie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I seem to keep picking dis-satisfactory endings.

[Kade Highland · Rating 5 out of 5]

a choose your own adventure book

[Cayden Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

**3.5 Stars**

[fanboyriot · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were lots of entertaining ending and paths for this book, while it isn’t my favorite in the series it was still a fun read.

[Pratyush Kamal · Rating 3 out of 5]

thank you to the person who gifted me the golden 1997 version of the book :)

[Tiffany Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Little Comic Shop of Horrors
Late from a comic club meeting you cut through a shortcut alley and find yourself amongst shops that aren’t familiar and sell strange merchandise. You spy a comic book store. You go in and browse (even though the owner is a bit of a jerk and is eyeing us down. (I’ma leave that alone). It’s getting darker as you go further and there’s a light between one of the bookshelves. There are some more comics back there that go for thousands but are being priced dirt cheap and a doorway. It says HORROR and gives a warning. There are also some stairs leading down to a basement. Which way to go

When we investigate the comic book rack it starts to spin and spin and spin and glow. It sucks us into the comic. We now find ourselves outside in a crowd with a robot towering overhead. A kid named Walley tells us we’re in the Comic Book Universe. There’s a magic word but if we say it enough we’ll turn into an ink blot like a friend of his. The Robot is getting close. He tells us the magic words “Guest Shot” and that if we can find a mad scientist he can return us home. Then he disappears. So I had two choices Super-Doer and Ballistic Bug. They both have a mad scientists.
I choose Super-Doer. (I guess it’s the good part of me drawn to that one). We say the words and… Now we’re in a space with a office tower and before I know it a brick falls out the sky and lands on my head. Only it doesn’t knock me out or kill me. We’re transformed into the comic book hero Super Doer and immediately try out his steel-bending powers. Not long after we’re alerted there’s a monster in the vicinity. Time to kick some butt!

The mechanical dinosaur turns out to be Wally. We decide instead of fighting with him to talk it out (fighting should never be the first resource). Walley wants to fight you regardless but before he does he starts to drip and then so do you. (Ok that’s.. I didn’t even use the word but once)

Rating 5
And again this had SO much potential and dropped the ball. I tried another direction and I thought this would be the better outcome over getting trapped in a maze, getting discovered, only to get locked in a room with a trap door, frozen by mist, and wind up in the Artic as a living freak show. I read comics and the idea of going from one to the other with a magic word is just such a FUN and amazing thought and plot to build on. These endings just feel rushed to me the more I read them. As if there’s just no thought into making the drawing them out and adding just a touch more creativity into them. I guess though you have to keep reading endings and going down different paths (much like real life) until you get to one you find satisfactory.

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The more Give Yourself Goosebumps books I read, the more I realize how difficult it is to reach a positive ending.

By this seventeenth entry to the series, R.L. Stine has clearly hit his stride. The stories branch off very well from the central point, and the pacing is strong. The similarities to the Choose Your Own Adventure books have begun to fade by the time Little Comic Shop of Horrors is published, but the result is a purely Goosebumps sense about it, and R.L. Stine makes it work well. (Still, I can't help but feel a visceral connection between the shopkeeper in this book and the one found in the Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventure volume, The Great Zopper Toothpaste Treasure. :-)

[Abhijit Gupta · Rating 1 out of 5]

- You (as the protaganist) goes into a comic book store and then through a series of 'if you do this, then go to this page', you get to direct the ending
- Some of the endings include
(a) End 1 = You end up in a comic book, as the main hero, fighting your school mate (who is a mechanical T-Rex). He says some magic word that allows him to go to another comic book , but uses it much too often and gets reduced to a smudge. The same think (for god knows, what reason) happens to you as well.
(b) End 2 = While fighting the T-Rex, you get whacked into outer space and crash into the moon (I shit you not)
- That was it. It dawned upon me that I was wasting my time.

[Colton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have any nostalgic memories for this one. It was alright, but I think I would have found it more interesting when I was younger, seeing as how I was into comics and all that. The comics storyline was actually upstaged, I thought by the storyline where you join an underground band of kids in a maze filled with monstrous creatures. The other plotline, you turn into different superheroes and fight different supervillians. Not really mind-blowing stuff, but enough to keep you interested.

[Risa Maeda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hah!!! I actually made it to the end of this one!!! And on the first try too... :) I'm not going to tell you what I chose or how the story went... That would give too much away.Read it for yourself and see how far you get and if you make it to the end... ;)

[Marcus freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actully die in this book but i cheated so i chould win.

[Gran Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sexy book

[amanda s. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it even though it's not really my favorite. :)

[Keokimchhay]

so good

[Earline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story... what made it even better was that the comic shop's name was "Milo's Comics Dungeon" :)

[Danielle Cozzola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the majority of the Goosebumps books growing up. They were pretty decent, and I'd give an overall 3 star rating to most of them.

[Donna-Marie Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review got lost!!! will write a new one soon.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, an easy read, and it brings back memories! As an avid comic collector in my youth, this story connects my childhood love of comics with my love of Goosebumps. The “Give Yourself Goosebumps” series is probably one of my favourites of R.L. Stine. Inspired by the Choose Your Own Adventure series these books allow you to create your own nightmarish world.

I found this book to be a pleasant read, but I would not consider it one of my favourites from the series. A few of the options were rather repetitive and none of them were that shocking. Probably a good book for wasting time on road trips!