Mr. Mortman is a minor villain in the Goosebumps franchise, acting as the main antagonist of The Girl Who Cried Monster.
Biography[]
Mr. Mortman is the librarian of Timberland Falls who is secretly a monster. Nothing is known of his past, but he does not appear to have any immediate family, as he appears to live on his own. It is implied he recently moved in to the town, as it is stated that he was the first monster to move to Timberland Falls in 20 years. He leads a "Reading Rangers" club at his library, rewarding readers stars for reading books.
The story's protagonist, Lucy Dark, is one of the members of the "Reading Rangers". One day, she forgets her roller skates at the library and returns to get them, only to see Mortman humming to himself. Mortman tells his pet turtles that it is time to eat and transforms. His head swells up, his hair vanishes, his eyes shoot out of his head on stalks like a snail or slug, his mouth widens, his teeth become razor sharp, and his fingernails turn into claws. Instead of feeding his turtles flies, Mortman begins eating flies himself.
The next time Lucy is in the library, she sees that Mortman eats his own pet turtles. She becomes determined to expose his secret. and gets a camera. The next time at the library, Lucy takes a picture of Mortman in his monster form, but it turns out that his monster form is invisible to recording equipment.
One day at the library, Mortman reveals that he knows Lucy has been trying to expose him. He transforms and attempts to kill her to silence her. Lucy manages to distract Mortman by disrupting the library's card catalogue, allowing her to escape. Her friend Aaron saw the event, and his personal endorsement is enough to convince Lucy's parents that Lucy is telling the truth. The parents invite Mortman over one evening for dinner. When he asks what is for dinner, they reveal they are also monsters disguised as humans and eat him alive for attacking their daughter and to eliminate competition.
Other media[]
Mortman appears in the episode adaptation of the book. In the episode, he is more sadistic and creepy, taking delight in chasing Lucy and trying to eat her. He also owns tarantulas instead of turtles. Unlike in the book, Lucy does not know she and her family are also monsters until the end when her parents eat Mortman.
Mortman is also a character in Goosebumps Horrortown. In the game, his monster form looks different from the book and episode, being green. Unlike in the book and episode, this version is not evil and simply scares kids who discover his secret so they will become too afraid to try and expose him.
Personality[]
In the original book, Mortman is characterized as being very overly organized and easily distracted, stopping in his chase of Lucy to reorganize the disrupted card catalogue and earlier being distracted in his pursuit of an intruder by the telephone ringing. He has a habit of humming to himself, and whenever he prepares to eat in front of his pet turtles, he feels the need to tell them. While he initially seems to care for his turtles, he later eats one of them. He seems to want to live his life in peace and appears to prefer eating animals over humans. He appears to be rather friendly toward others, even going to the effort of returning Lucy's book bag to her after she leaves it in the library. He is nice to the children in his reading program and rewards them with stars. Despite all of this, he proves fairly evil when he attempts to kill and eat Lucy to keep his secret, though he apologizes before attacking her. While he mostly seems to not take joy in harming others, he does laugh when he thinks he has Lucy.
In the episode, Mortman does not appear overly organized and is made more openly villainous, showing sadistic glee while chasing Lucy, laughing and taunting her. Mortman is also shown to genuinely enjoy the idea of eating a human child. He does not appear to be attacking primarily to protect his secret like in the book. He also acts more creepy in his human form and lacks the politeness of his book counterpart. He also seems to like monsters like himself, as when Lucy gives her report on Frankenstein, he asks her if she considered the monster the most sympathetic character in the book. It should be noted that while the monster did have a very tragic existence, his crimes, including child murder, make him considerably less sympathetic than some of the human characters.
In Goosebumps Horrorland, Mortman is not evil like in the book and episode and is shown as a grump who simply wants to be left alone. When kids discover his secret, instead of trying to kill them, he opts to scare them so bad they abandon any plans to expose his secret.
