Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome to a new decade for R.L. Stine reviews. This month we’re again going into tie-in territory with another round of IDW comics. As a refresher, I reviewed Monsters at Midnight, IDW’s first attempt at a Goosebumps stor. Despite some bumpy elements, it turned out well. It had neat references, was good fun, and was able to capture the general feel of the series, while also throwing in two moms to show it can at least throw in something new for the series that is nice to see.

A year later in 2018, we got this arc, which wanted to be slightly more ambitious than the previous one. Not to a huge extent, but it is more story/character focused than Monsters at Midnight was. And as you can tell from the title, it is taking inspiration from Say Cheese and Die. I think it goes without saying that it’s better than Again but will it be closer to the first or the awesome-ness Julie Martin bought in Say Cheese and Die Screaming? We’ll see.

Out creative team this time around is writer Jen Vaughn and artist Michelle Wong. The former’s credits as either writer or artist include Teenage Waseland, Betty & Veronica: Vixens, Deadwater and other things I’m naturally not familiar. …And also a Descendants comic that IDW made to prove someone there follows me. The latter has credits on some of Lumbrjanes and some Legend of Korra comics. Certainly some interesting stuff, and looking into it gives me of an idea what they brought to this.

Oh and speaking of following me, remember when I said that the Monsters at Midnight artist followed my Out of Context account? Well, Michelle liked one tweet from that I did so uh…that’s cool. Full disclosure, I read this one first and have been itching to talk about it, to the point where I basically did Monsters just to get this one, mostly due to one element we’ll get to in time.

All that said, how does this fare overall? Let’s see.

This, is Download and Die!

I have now become Linkara by talking about this trade cover. (Or not since he doesn’t talk about the covers to the trades but whatever). Anyway, it’s fine. It gets the job done and tells you what you’re in for: Kids with phones who are scared of Slappy and the Creeps. Nothing amazing per say but it’s striking enough and sells the concept well.

We got a Stine introduction again but it doesn’t add too much and repeats of some what he said before. Still, it’s nice to see, we can move on.

We begin with our protagonist Mitra and her friend Kyra as they meet on the first day of school, and sing a cute little locker buds song. They are approached by a girl named Flips. That’s not her real name, thank god, but that’s still on par with Champ and Hat. It turns out Kyra actually already knows her from an online game she plays, so they’re getting along swimmingly already.

“You know the only thing cooler than us?”

“The temp of the computer lab. Ice cold”

I can’t imagine a computer lab is really that cold so really you’re saying room temperature is cooler than you, oof.

Later at lunch they talk some more and after finding out Kyra has the amazing last name of Steelbreaker and Flips’ actual name is Amanda Sneeds, we see Mitra looking at some girl at the next table. …We’ll get back to that.

“More like Sneeds-ing into my seat at lunch”

5/10 pun aside, we sure turned on her quickly, yeesh. I get why, just a bit random in execution. After lunch, Mitra goes to check when they can use the lab when she drops her phone, which is then stomped on by a group of bullies. Finally, we reached that Goosebumps staple. They have it out for her since her brother Mehrdad is a hall monitor and gave them a slip.

“Wish I could text Kyra about these creeps”

Well, clearly these guys won’t turn out to be important.

She talks about this with her friends over a game that night, and at one point someone makes a meme complete with a form of impact font. …Okay, this generally avoids “how do you do fellow kids” type stuff but that bit is an exception, oof.

The next morning, a package appears on Mitra’s doorstep containing a phone, which a message claims is from a “secret admirer”. Naturally, she barely questions it despite how creepy that sounds. But hey, a skull appears when she turns it on, it seems pretty harmless. That night, she looks into it further and her first act is to…take a picture of her cat.

“There, now it’s a real phone”

Pfft, now that’s funny.

She finds out that Kyra went to the movies with Flips and she’s a bit jelly about it, but Kyra assures her that Mitra isn’t being replaced at all. I know where this is going but it’s still nice on her part. The next day, we properly meet that girl Mitra was looking at, Weather. …And suddenly Flips looks like the best name ever. Wow, her parents must have been either cruel or uncreative.

Anyway, Kyra and Flips bumped into her at the theater so the jealousy has increased. To make matters worse, all the computer lab time is being taken up by the bullies, who I guess are just that petty. The next day, she discovers an app on the phone called Creeps. Sure enough, it is about putting seeds into cookies and spreading them everywhere, and it even uses real cities. Not gonna lie, I’d play the hell out of that game.

Also, Mitra takes a picture of the bullies and places a filter called “So Sick” on it and and one of them starts throwing up. Lovely-ness aside, this is a cool concept and a solid way to update the evil camera idea. And hey, still better app horror than Countdown.

Weather pops up while Mitra is sitting there and not much really happens outside of this being where we see the bully throw up. But since Weather is here, it’s finally time to talk about that element that made me really want to get this one. See, Mitra has been blushing up a storm every time she is next to Weather, and when that message mentioned a secret admirer, she thought bubbled of Weather. Yep, she likes her in a clearly romantic way. Mitra is gay, and her attraction to Weather is a notable plot element.

…I think they topped the two moms. Usually I wouldn’t treat this as the biggest deal since LGBT representation is getting more common these days and all that. But…this is GOOSEBUMPS we’re talking about. The last franchise anyone would ever think to put gay characters, in since romance barely pops up anyway. Which makes it even cooler that this happened, especially with the protagonist.

They do not hide it in the slightest and it is pulled off well. Romance is always weird to see in this series but even putting the gay thing aside, it is rather cute and it ends up adding to the story fairly well, as we’ll see. But yeah, gay rights.

ANYWAY, Mitra starts getting headaches when she uses the phone, which is not a warning sign at all. That night, the girls have a sleepover and Mitra has a dream where she sees Weather in the woods, but then she turns into Slappy. He has dream powers now for some reason, which will make even less sense later. Speaking of making sense, the logic of Slappy here is about as head scratching as it was in Monsters at Midnight so let’s not even think about it.

“Falling in love, huh? Maybe you’ll survive if you give me the phone”

I like how Slappy is aware of and mentions Mitra’s crush on Weather but doesn’t really mock it. Slappy may be a manipulative, evil, raging misogynist, but at least he’s not homophobic. (Perhaps that one Onion article was right). Oh and once again, I don’t like Slappy’s design, it might actually be worse this time, in my opinion.

He looks more like a dummy at least, but he just doesn’t look right to me. But eh, could just be me, ah well. Mitra wakes up to discover that Flips’ hair has been cut! Oh and there’s a piece of paper saying “I want the phone”, but come on, the hair is more horrifying.

That ends issue one, and issue two begins with Mitra being blamed for it. But thankfully it’s suddenly morning now so they get called to breakfast before this blows up. Afterwards, they discuss their theories for what is going on and they decide it was the work of Kyra’s pet bird. A bird being able to cut hair that precisely is far less believable than an evil phone but that’s just me. Also, what about that note then?

With that settled, they must focus on a school project they were given. Basically, they have to pick a small business and build a program or app to help them. Why are school projects in fiction so out there compared to real life? I’d fail this one fairly easily. Anyway, the business they drop by already has things such as a Cup of Joe for anyone named Joe. Lol.

They are told they use the coffee grounds for compost and after some thinking, they come up with a plan to use that for their project in a way I’m skimming over since the next part is more important. They drop by the skate park where Mehrdad is teaching some kids. Mitra busts out her phone to crunch some numbers but whoops, a picture is taken and Merhad falls and gets hurt. Oof. (The K-THUNK- thing kind of lessens the impact a tad though).

We cut to the hospital where Mitra plays some Creeps on her phone. I’d call her out for not seeming to care too much but you can argue it’s the phones influence. Then this gross and greasy looking boy starts talking to her.

“Do you have a basement? I like basements”

…Run.

“:No, I’m waiting for you. So you can…take care of me”

Uh…wait…take care of me…basement…What’s your name?

“It’s Keith”

Yeah, this is Keith from I Live In Your Basement. A bit of a deep cut compared to the other books referenced, so that’s pretty cool. And the next panel has him throwing up, but it’s some brown goop instead of his insides because kids comic and all that. Still super gross though. We move on after that as Mitra leaves but I’m sure he’ll be important.

The next day, during computer lab time, Mitra takes a picture of Kyra and Flips, and sees a filter labelled Secrets and figures she may as well try it out. Then in a bit that was a tad confusing for me, the computer gets overtaken by I think some things from the phone, then suddenly a picture of Weather is there and gets covered in a pink filter that has hearts as well.’

“I just want to hang out with you”

Then boom, Weather appears and asks if Mitra can take a little break. Sudden-ness aside, at first this seems to just make Weather want to hang out with Mitra more often but we see later that this is basically a form of a love potion plot. I am totally here for how much they are not hiding Mitra’s thing for her.

The phone continues to do its thing as it makes Mitra start hearing her friends voices, and makes her think they are thinking bad things about her. This is pretty effective, as it’s preying on her already existing jealousy of Flips and Kyra’s bonding on top of a phone doing all of this being a creepy idea to begin with. Mentioning the phone made me realize I haven’t referenced Don’t Scream yet….so there ya go.

The next morning, she sees a news report saying that a strange affliction is affecting people in various cities, the same ones that were Creep’d in that game. Thankfully, lizard alien transformations seem to be slow this time of year. Kyra comes and tries to start up a conversation on how odd Mitra has been acting lately. Naturally, the phone makes Mitra think she is being malicious and that she wants the phone for herself.

They start fighting, which makes them fall off a ledge, ending issue 2. I’ll comment further on the artwork at the end but right now I gotta say I really like the lighting on the bits when the phone is manipulating her, it looks cool. Anyway, our final issue starts with…caption boxes piping in to pull a “yep, that’s me”.

Okay then. Kyra is able to pull Mitra out, then a wild Weather appears to help them. She says some force compelled her to come over here. I assume it was that whole crush filter, which basically means gay-ness literally saved the day, checkmate! …Anyway, this incident makes Mitra realize the phone needs to go, and she apologizes to Kyra.

She doesn’t know what to do since all her info is on the info. You could just jot it done elsewhere than throw the damn thing away but whatever, wiping it could work too. She decides to simply delete the photos that were filtered, which should undo everything, including all that attention from Weather.

But we can’t focus on that, as Kyra gets a pic from Flips showing her with Mitra…that is time stamped for right now. Huh, I thought I Am Your Evil Twin was the next review. ….Spoilers aside, this is the work of a “Twinning” filter so they head to school to confront Clone Mitra. But then Slappy shows his wooden face.

“Are you in theater tech? That’s one hell of a makeup job”

Between this and the second movie, 2018 was practically a golden age of light swearing in Goosebumps media. Oh and Curly is with him again, nice. But the villain train doesn’t stop here, as those bullies show up for the totally shocking reveal that they are the Creeps. They are the ones behind that app and need the phone for their world domination plan.

“Humans are the past, creeps are the future”

I have questions about how they made the app and whatnot, since they didn’t make the phone itself. Although them breaking her old phone is part of why she accepted this evil one to begin with, hmmm. But let’s move on, as Slappy and the Creeps fight and the kids sneak off to find Flips and Clone Mitra.

They confront the clone in the gym, who quickly swipes the phone and plans to delete the photo since the Mitra holding the phone will be the one to stick around. But then she accidentally clicks on some Beauty Consultant app which summons a hologram image of Sybil Wicked from the Give Yourself Goosebumps book Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum.

…Nice pull but don’t you think we’ve got enough going on? She mostly serves as a way to distract Evil Mitra, wanting her young skin, which I will not comment further on. Weather uses a drone to snatch the phone. Slappy shows up, but the creeps don’t appear again so I’ll just assume Slappy killed them all.

Mitra stomps on the phone, which takes care of Sybil and Evil Mitra but Slappy is ever so persistent on wanting slaves. They manage to push him under the rickety retracting bleachers.

“Please, these rickety pieces of junk always have safety measures”

“Not if they were made in the 90’s”

Then he’s crushed, I think. Awesome.

The kids hug it out and later that day Mitra explains everything to the others. They have a nice moment of friendship and quite quickly burly the hatchet with Flips. Mitra goes over to Weather and thanks her for helping out, and Weather apologies for her odd actions that she now knows are due to the phone.

“Hope you weren’t weirded out by my crush on you”

“No, not at all. Infact-”

“Anyway, the phone made me do those things. I’m not sure why. Because I’m not really into anyone. I just want to play sports and make rad films”

“Oh. Well.”

Hmm…on one hand this is pretty mature. It’s kind of bittersweet and Weather “rejects” her in a fair way that is pulled off well. On the other hand…the one chance to give us a gay couple, and you missed it. A pox on your houses!

Jk, I like the resolution here. (Also, Weather is asexual confirmed?). I feel bad for Mitra here but eh, let’s move on to our twist ending. She and Mehrdad (who was also there) go home, as their mother tells them to go get their brother for dinner.

Puzzled by this, they go to Mitra’s room to discover Keith in her bed! And twist: he was the one who sent the phone! So he was the secret admirer, ew.

“Now I’ll be here to solve all your problems. Each and everyday. As long as you…take care of me. And you’ll take care of me, if you want your parents to stay alive”

The End. …I have questions. First off, what’s with the mom calling him a brother? Is he a reality warper? If so, is Mitra dreaming? Cuz ya know, that’s his thing and not Slappy’s as we saw earlier. And that’s even taking aside the phone thing, I can accept him creating an evil phone for some reason given what series we’re talking about.

But even strictly going by the logic of this story, this doesn’t make much sense. And I’ve actually read Keith’s book, imagine reading this without knowing of that one! His appearance is nice fan service but is kind of a monkey wrench in this story without that context.

He is pretty creepy here with his demands at least, but otherwise this is another twist for the sake of a twist, sadly. Ah well. (Oh and Keith’s blob form is on issue 3’s cover and in concept art, but not in the story. Huh)

Final Thoughts:

First, the art. I wasn’t sure about when I first saw it, but it grew on me. It’s more “realistic” compared to the previous comic and that works. The lighting and coloring ends up being the highlight here, really selling certain moments with the phone. The aesthetic is an acquired taste and some designs are …not my thing but overall, the artwork is pretty good.

As for the story overall, I do like it but I wish I liked it more, as the problems are a bit glaring despite the stuff I really did like. My main issue is that the pacing can be rushed. Some things get brought or resolved a bit too easily, even if they work for the story overall. Quite a bit happens here and I feel like you could have removed some stuff to make the story more compact.

Things like that creep app for example don’t add a lot and just raises questions more than anything else. Speaking of which, I get the logic won’t be airtight but there’s a fair bit I don’t quite get and certain things only make slightly more sense when you realize why this is going on. I feel like they either could have done an extra issue or trim the fat a bit.

But otherwise, this manages to update the concept of an evil camera really well. The way the filters are used is interesting, and gives us some solid moments. The highlight is how the phone manipulates Mitra. It’s rather creepy and preys after jealousy she already had. Again, it can be a bit rushed and could have been done better I guess but it was still effective. And it gives us a good reason for why she keeps using the phone!

Mitra overall is a good protagonist, being likable and interesting enough, with cute interactions with her friends. Being gay is a nice bonus as well. But seriously, that is pretty amazing and is another example of the things this adds to the series.

As a whole, Download and Die can be slightly frustrating as it could have taken more advantage of some of the concepts, and I want to like it more than I do. But despite some clumsy pacing and having a bit too much going on, I really appreciate for its ambition.

The team clearly had some solid ideas here, and they made for an interesting story. That plus certain references show they understand this franchise and wanted to put their stamp on and I admire that. It’s a bit bumpy at times but overall, it is something worth downloading. ..Or getting physically, preferably.

Rating: Good

I’m so glad I finally got share to this one with ya’ll. I think it’s safe to say a female protagonist is the key to a good Say Cheese and Die type story. Oh and based on their other works, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t any LGBT content in this, lol.

Man, now I wish Fear Street would jump on that train, since it has all that boring straight romance. But I doubt that series will ev-

…We’re living in the best timeline. ….I already said what the next review is, so that will be all, I’ll get to the last comic arc someday.

See ya.