I'd guess, from seeing his art in Abarat, that the Hellbound Heart cover is one of Barker's own paintings?

Looks like it.

Last night I was watching one of the featurettes on the Midnight Meat Train DVD; it showed many examples of his art. Can you believe he didn't start painting until he was 46? What an unusual, talented man.

I'm quite fond of Michael Whelan's covers for Del Rey's Lovecraft paperbacks:

The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Tomb and Other Tales
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Lurking Fear and Other Stories
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

These are probably the only instances where Whelan's covers don't represent the contents--that's because Del Rey simply commissioned him to do a horror-themed mural, which they then broke down onto the different covers. Still, they are wonderful images, and I think they set the tone well, with their mostly grey tones and occasional red highlights.

I've always liked these: Don't Tell Mommy by Harold Lee Friedman. I'd link it but there's no cover art for it on the site. It is of a baby/toddler tearing the face off of a woman. I have no idea if the content is similar because it is lingering on my TBR shelf.

Another is: Victoria by Ruby Jean Jensen. Something about dolls has always creeped me out.

Bethany's Sin by Robert R. McCammon

I don't know why but I'm really drawn to this one. For YA it's very simple and lovely. Not overcluttered looking like so many of them: The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

The Collection by Bentley Little

@scott,

The Hellbound Heart art is Clives own and was made for the 20th anniversary ed, first time in hardback.

Easy one for me...should be NO surprise (and yes, Tressa, just for you! lol):

http://www.edwardleeonline.com/biblio/pu...

Oh...The 2 Abarat books by Clive Barker are probably my favorites for Cover art, as well as the art within the book.
and


A non-horror cover I've always loved was , don't know why. I've never read the book myself, but I used to shelve Juvenile fiction, and the cover always caught my eye.

Interesting choice, LinBee. Barker is an incredible artist.

Two of my Favorites are Kim Newmans Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron British Covers they are amazing. Cemetery Dance does great covers on alot of their books also. Some of the old Steve Resnick covers
are alot of fun too.

I find allot of limited ed. books have some really killer covers too. British covers seem to have more character than US ones too.

Chris wrote: "Interesting choice, LinBee. Barker is an incredible artist. "

I think so too. Clive Barker Visions of Heaven and Hell is amazing. Even if I didn't like his writing (and I don't like some of it), I do love his artwork.

I hear ya. Personally, I wish he would get back to his roots, horror. Apparently he is working on a novel involving his supernatural detective Harry D'Mour and Pinhead from Hellraiser. Can't wait for that one!

It's called The Scarlet Gospels, he's been working on it for awhile. For the first time he will actually name Pinhead in a novel, hopefully 'Pinhead' will still be a chick, like in The Hellbound Heart. He had to take a break from it because it was taking too much out of him. It's supposed to be one of his darkest works. I hope he finishes soon since he's on his 5th draft of the book. But it doesn't help he's been all out Abarat since he started. I wouldn't expect it until after Abarat 3 comes out sometime in 2009. The Scarlet Gospels is Barkers way of finishing and putting to rest the Hellraiser mythos, in writing, washing his hands of the movies and franchise for good and ending it his way.

Harry D'Amour has appeared in a few Barker novels and this would be the first time that he is a main character in a novel (not short story). If Barker ever gets around to finishing the last Book of the Art [Art III:], we'll see Harry yet again!

Thanks, Jerrod, for the clarification. I'd read in Fango about it a few months ago...sounds awesome!