The Give Yourself Goosebumps book where you enter the world of comic books.
You're a massive fanboy of comic books who, returning home from a meeting of your school's comics club, come across a shop called "Milo's Comics Dungeon". Strange, you don't remember seeing this shop a few days ago. But you decide to enter anyway, and its proprietor — Milo the mutant — doesn't want you to leave.
Which way will you go? Browsing through the comic aisle will have you transported into the world of comic books — which suspiciously resembles the comic book world from DC and Marvel from the real world — while choosing to go downstairs, ignoring a sign telling you to stay away, will lead you to a literal dungeon.
Little Comic Shop of Horrors provides examples of:
- Back from the Dead: The reader character has a vague understand of Jean Greene's power, but it apparently involves this.
- Covers Always Lie: Despite what the front cover implies, at NO point in the story does a costumed monster called a "Super Lizard" rampage across the comic shop. It's probably a reference to one scenario where you — as Super-Doer — gets turned into a giant monster, but that happens inside the comic world, not out of it, nor do you wear a costume.
- Dead All Along: In one of the good endings, you made your way out of the comic book world and ends up outside of the comic shop, which turns out to be locked. You then find out later that the owner, Milo, which you met earlier that day, had died years ago.
- Face Your Fears: You can challenge Milo, the comic shop's owner, into letting you out by a direct confrontation, at which point Milo will turn into the one thing you fear the most that you must overcome. That turns out to be none other than King Jellyjam, from the Goosebumps books of the same name.
- Failure Is the Only Option: One of the two main storylines is to find that you are stuck in the world of comic books, and having to decide which of two comics you will enter. One of those gives you the option going into a third different comic, but all choices made from there end badly — you're either killed by a Mad Scientist (who thinks you are a spy) or a team of other kids turned into comic book superheroes, who are angry that you accidentally caused one of them to get killed.
- Fauxshadowing: Early in the first storyline, you're warned that jumping from comic-to-comic one time too many will have you crushed into an ink blot, forever. NONE of the bad endings involves this happening to you, although some supporting characters you come across might suffer this fate. The one ending where you do become an ink blot, it's because another character is holding on to you while he's being crushed, the effects spreading to you by accident.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Inverted in a few scenarios where you become a superhero in the comic world; attempt to use your heat-vision, and you end up setting the comic's paper on fire instead, unintentionally killing yourself. And if you try to escape by literally crawling out of the page, you find out you're stuck as a miniature comic-book character literally made of ink, at which point you're caught and squashed instantly by Milo.
- Heel–Face Turn: Yeah, the scenario where Milo turns into King Jellyjam? You can actually convince Milo to join you, at which point he becomes the star of a reality show with you as his agent and business partner partner. You then become insanely rich thanks to being the owner of a snail farm, which you have a limitless supply of as King Jellyjam sweats snails regularly.
- I'm a Humanitarian: You can be eaten by your friends who have become cannibals after being trapped in a maze for too long.
- Mad Scientist: This book uses this as a plot point in one storyline where, after being sucked into a comic book, you're told to look for a Mad Scientist as they may be able to help you escape.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In the cellar, you can try to save another kid who's pinned under some wreckage while being pursued by a giant monster, but choosing that option will allow the monster to catch up on you and kill you.
- Parody Names: Many of these: Super Duper/Super Doer (Superman), Tex Loudsnore (Lex Luthor), Ballistic Bug (Spider-Man), Y's Guys (X-Men), Wolfenbean (Wolverine), and many more.
- Portal Cut: One bad ending involves a portal closing too soon and bisecting the reader where your lower half remains in the comic shop.
- Prehensile Hair: One of the bad endings where you end up in the comic-book world have Professor Yves Yaboum — a parody of Professor Francis Xavier — unleashing his mane on you, which throttles you to death on the spot.
- Schmuck Bait: In the scenario where you end up in the world of Ballistic Bug, a rather blatant Captain Ersatz of Spider-Man, you assume you're now in the role of Peter... erm, sorry, Peewee, the book's protagonist, on a field trip in a nuclear plant where you get bitten by a radioactive insect which serves as your Super Hero Origin. The book then asks if you'd like to have the radioactive insect bite you... choose that option, and it turns out you're NOT Peewee, but a different kid, who is fatally allergic to radioactive insect bites. Have a Nice Death indeed...
- Shout-Out:
- Aside from the superhero parodies mentioned above, there's a horror comic called The Cellar of Scary Stories.
- The title itself is a reference to Little Shop of Horrors.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Milo having the ability to turn into anything he wants, in a comic book-themed Goosebumps entry makes him pretty much another Masked Mutant.
- Too Dumb to Live: Two for the price of one in the Y's Guys scenario. First, the kid who became Wolfenbean ignores your warning about overusing the "Guest Shot!" teleportation technique, and promptly melts into an ink blot. Then, the other Y's Guys blame you and you nervously make a couple of jokes about what happened to him... to a group of super-powered kids who could easily beat you to death (which they apparently do.)
- Trapped in Another World:
- The very premise of the first storyline; by reading a comic book, you end up being transported into the world of comics, where depending on the choices you make, will have you becoming a Captain Ersatz of Superman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men.
- From the second storyline where you get trapped in the comic shop's cellars, in one of the worst endings, your attempt to find a way out have you going through a portal leading to a world populated entirely by insect-people instead, and you can't escape from since you're unable to find the way you entered. Worse of all, you are the alien in this particular scenario.
- Who's on First?: In one storyline, when you ask a Professor X parody called Professor Y why he wants to destroy the possibly visitor, it leads to one of these.
- Written Sound Effect: Early in the story, you come across stairs leading to the comic shop's basement, with a sign warning you to keep out stating "TRESSPASSERS WILL BE GLOMP-FED". If you tried to enter anyway, you end up sliding all the way to the cellar with a loud "GLOMPF!"
