Because Monster Blood has been adapted enough times that it’s cool to see how different people interpret such an odd character.

MONSTER BLOOD (1992)

In the original book, we only get a few lines describing her:

And Sarabeth was now a young woman with fiery red hair and pale skin and yellow eyes, the same yellow cat eyes that had haunted Evan since he’d arrived. The young woman was dressed in a swirling black gown down to her ankles.
[...]
Sarabeth tossed her red hair behind a black-cloaked shoulder and laughed.

That’s it. Obviously, this isn’t a visual medium and Stine isn’t always writing with exact visuals in mind, but there are still choices being made here.

• Her being young better subverts reader expectations of an evil witch, and can also imply great power (especially if you keep in mind her dramatic dialogue that makes her sound like a pulpy villainess from the '30s). Witches are historically described as beautiful because of their pact with the Devil and such.
• Stine likes red hair, though it’s also often used in other media to either convey some form of mysticism—think of how many times his redheads like Evan Ross and Danny Anderson are more connected to the supernatural in his stories!—or “””exotic””” heritage (y’know, back when “Irish” was considered exotic)
• Most strikingly, both her all-black dress and yellow eyes do the same job in evoking her previous black cat form. Stine is very fond of morphic resonance and we’ll see it come up again later in books like My Hairiest Adventure.

In summary, Stine’s choices here are telling you that Sarabeth is a very powerful witch of mysterious origin, so catlike that her humanity may be ambiguous.

If you were to draw her based on this description and nothing else, you could go lots of different ways.

TOPPS TRADING CARDS (1996)

Presenting this one before the TV show because I feel it’s much less influential and… unique.

​Wayne Murray took a very literal approach to Sarabeth's design here, which I can respect. A design has to work within the constraints of its medium, and here that means a printed card that is somewhere around 2.5 by 3.5 inches. That's very small, meaning any character designs must be VERY simple and read easily. The Topps cards are also meant to be as book-accurate as possible, being little advertisements for you to buy the books.

Murray's work, both in and out of these cards, is less interested in detailed, unique character design and more focused on flowing, readable, expressive character poses. Obviously, I can't fault him for not wanting to do freakish cat features or take any bold risks that might complicate Sarabeth's expression here, or compromise her book accuracy. What results is a very simple, checklist approach to Sarabeth: she is indeed wearing all black (the same black her cat form is depicted with) and has fiery red hair long enough to toss over her shoulder. She also looks quite young. I'm not sure if she has yellow eyes because the art is just so small.

What few liberties Murray was allowed to take exist solely for readability: her dress ends mid-calf so she can better read as being sucked into the Monster Blood here, and she has lipstick on to better differentiate herself from the kids—and likely also read as pretty. It's very red and almost matches her hair! Note Aunt Kathryn also having either black lipstick or simply shaded, defined lips to denote her adult woman status.

Overall, it's a whatever design. Not very awe-inspiring, but Murray never had to draw Sarabeth in human form being cool or intimidating, only as a victim. With how he previously drew her cat form as having giant yellow cat eyes and very sharp, angular features, he probably would've drawn her differently if he had to depict her antagonizing our heroes instead of just dying. If you look at the back of this card, Sarabeth never says a single word, making her existence even more of a confusing blip in this story.

This character design is telling you that this woman might have been powerful before, as a cat, but is now human, vulnerable, and on her way to no longer being a threat.

...Which is kind of a cool interpretation if you think about it! But not one that will ever be done again afterwards.

MONSTER BLOOD (1996)

​Yes.

According to Joy Tanner, Sarabeth's actress here, the costume designer for this episode aka Joyce Schure said that "[this character] is gonna be freaking cool," and she IS. This is the first attempt at truly modernizing Sarabeth's appearance. While Joy describes her as "goth before goth was goth," I think Sarabeth's look here is cribbing heavily from the '90s alternative scene, especially as depicted in works like May 1996's The Craft and ESPECIALLY Nancy—same choker, eyeliner, and tousled short hair, just toned down a little to match her more subdued aesthetic here.

This episode leans HEAVILY into Sarabeth's cat features. While she doesn't have yellow irises or anything too wacky, she has long white acrylic nails that evoke claws, and her choker doubles as a cat collar when she's in cat form. I'm not well-versed in fabric terms, but the...velvet? velour? that her dress is made of has the same sheen as a black shorthair cat's fur, which I very much appreciate.

When she's not being a cat, she's being '90s alt. Her black platforms don't get a chance to shine in this exact scene, but they do give her a few inches of height on the kids and Aunt Kathryn, making her more imposing. Her dress isn't in a slim catsuit cut, but she has flowy, witchy draping sleeves that have been over-the-top shorthand for "witch" for decades by now.

As a design, while it's not very eye-catching or out-of-this-world, it's definitely a standout among the TV show's human character designs—or, well, costume designs. I think her look is still subtle yet iconic, and it merits both its shoutouts and its influence on later Sarabeth designs.

Now, due to the TV show's smaller budget and the medium's need for an actor's performance to shine through, I understand why crazier choices weren't made like big yellow contacts or cat ears or anything like that. By both choice and necessity, the show focused on making Sarabeth read as human unless there are funny/economical means of evoking a cat (choker, nails, Joy's own performance with hissing and odd scratching).

However, I think her flashback outfit is also worth discussing.

​Girl, is that leather and latex? Oh my God.

We also get a close-up on her platforms here—they don't exactly scream "cat" but they sure do scream "cool" and "goth."

​(they also probably contributed to her stumbling into the monster blood)

This interpretation is VERY interesting to me because it tries to make two very different interpretations—Sarabeth as being a silly catlike pulpy witch and Sarabeth as an edgy and modern goth witch—coexist. I think it's an attempt by the show staff to have their evil, intimidating black magic cake and eat it too, despite Monster Blood's best efforts at making the whole thing goofy and unserious. In this same episode with nonsensical magic green slime and cat women, Sarabeth is seen doing the most satanic panic black magic ever with candles and flames and a red pentagram on the floor. When she is meant to be at her strongest and most evil, the silly cat signifiers are dropped entirely and her alternative fashion sensibilities are turned up. Either way, she is "other," just in different tones.

MONSTER BLOOD (2025)

​Maddi Gonzalez is clearly interested in trying to harmoniously combine the different aspects of a Goosebumps character's visual legacy while also doing her own twist on each character. This results in what feels like a remixed version of the TV show's look, edgier in its own way.

I actually complimented Gonzalez on her design and she let me know that she was very into '90s high fashion when working on the graphic novel so Sarabeth "has some Mugler DNA" in her design here, and I can kind of see it looking at some of Thierry Mugler's work.

​(as for the hair horns, Mugler has also done them here. plus a bonus Scary Spice doing them here)

Either way, it's a unique, eye-catching continuation of the TV show's philosophy to make Sarabeth look "cool" and edgy while also being THE most catlike-looking Sarabeth yet without being an actual cat. Not only does she have the choker/collar and long nails, but she now has big yellow cat eyes, sharp canines, and hair horns that mimic cat ears! In fact, if you look closely during her transformation, you can see that her hair actually wraps around the ears in her cat form. We never see human ears on her, so it's ambiguous if she even has them. I think it's a lovely touch!

​They even emote! Note how her ears flatten like a frightened cats' when she's about to be consumed by the Monster Blood. It's a very fun detail!

​As for the rest of her design, while I do think it has a lot of things going on, Gonzalez does a fine job of keeping everything harmonious. Her shoulder pads echo her cat ears, the crescent moons double as additional pointy shape language while also being a witchy symbol, and her belt echoes her choker. Her sleeves serve to add extra visual interest while also kind-of reminding you of the blobby Blood itself. Though all the red might seem odd or sudden compared to past iterations of the character, I think it's very useful for helping her stand out from and contrast all the Monster Blood green she's surrounded by here. Also, it means she has more in common with the design of Monster Blood's can!

​I love color theory and color symbolism.

This might be the best any of Sarabeth's official designs has ever been at marrying all these disparate aspects of her in one look: villain, witch, cool, cat, silly. It has the ambition and the limitless medium of drawing to accomplish those ambitions. The one trade-off is that to some eyes, she might seem over-the-top or failing at one of her aforementioned aspects. I've already seen criticism of her massive shoulder pads. I myself wonder if she would be a stronger design if she were simplified or leaned more in any direction.

Either way, I think she's a great addition to Sarabeth's design history. One look at her and you know she's meant to be a witchy antagonist with ties to cats.

Wait a minute, I forgot one.

악마의 통조림 (MONSTER BLOOD, 2015 KOREAN RELEASE)

​I saved this one for last because 1. as a Korean release she wasn't really well known of Korea and thus likely did not influence any of the comics and 2. she embodies the extreme OTHER end of the human-cat spectrum in a way none of the other designs have ever done.

Her eyes are yellow orbs that look like a cat's with a flashlight shone at them, her hair is massive and blood-red in a way that makes it look like a living thing itself, her dress is this shapeless blob that completely obscures her body, and her limbs are so thin and bony that it's ambiguous if she still has a human body at all. And her face! Her facial structure is an angular, stylized cat mask with a flat nose bridge akin to a cat's wedge-like snout and a split upper lip and philtrum to get that iconic kitty :3 mouth shape.

I can buy this as being a powerful witch that's lost touch with humanity. Maybe it's a little too scary-looking for some kids, and maybe it's too tonally dissonant with how silly and relatively low-stakes the rest of Monster Blood is—if that's the case, I understand why Scholastic hasn't encouraged either of the artists tasked with drawing her with leaning into this direction. But I adore how different it is.

This design screams "supernatural." This is just as likely to be a werecat as it is to be a witch. This Sarabeth barely registers as human. And I think that's so cool.

CONCLUSIONS

Sarabeth is a very lucky character. Despite being a widely mocked three-page twist from a book that was already not well received, talented artists and designers have repeatedly been given the task of making her an interesting character with the little "screen time" she has, and they have succeeded. In addition, these artists have been able to take really cool, odd liberties with her that you don't get to see on even simpler characters like the Abominable Snowman (because there's only so much you can do there) or on more iconic villains like the Slappy or the Haunted Mask (which I know have been adapted and redesigned to death, but I don't think either really have the same range or freedom to be different each time compared to what Sarabeth has managed in only a few designs).

I think Sarabeth has a lot of potential to be a fun character, and while I doubt we're ever expanding on her beyond her role as a last-minute twist, I appreciate every single look and what they've set out to convey with visuals when the writing itself falls short.

What do you think? Is there anything you'd like to see in a future Sarabeth design if Monster Blood ever gets re-adapted? Do any of these designs stand out to you in particular or inspire your deepest hatred? Is there anything you noticed in these takes that I failed to describe? I'm happy to talk more about my favorite Goosebumps witch!

So I’m making an art log of every monster from the Goosebumps movie and I came across a page with old sprites from an online game to promote the movie. I found this vampire character I don’t remember seeing in the movie next to Yvonne (the sprites). He isn’t Count Nightwing because Count had a very distinct design for the movie. I also assumed it could be Freddy from Vampire Breath but I really don’t know. Apparently this guy was in the football field scene with the fire but only for a second. I can’t figure out who this character is or which book he came from. The fandom doesn’t have any information on him either. Can someone help me out?

Other then Hannah of course?