“Before he published any horror, Stine was a humorist. At Ohio State University, as Jovial Bob, he edited the humor magazine The Sundial (and ran a write-in campaign for student president as an exiting senior; his campaign promise was to leave). In 1975 he started the teen humor magazine Bananas for Scholastic. He wrote a range of single-topic joke books like 101 Vacation Jokes and Jovial Bob’s Computer Joke Book, many of which were simple lists of one-liners and Q&A gags. But Don’t Stand in the Soup is a more sophisticated work: a concept book.”

- nickdouglas profiles the early comedy of R.L. Stine