The delightful Wickedness of Clive Barker's Hell waits for its victims in more than mere puzzle boxes. It waits in the mystery of crystal lifeforms lightyears away. It waits in seductive whispers of evil at a Parisian artists' colony. It waits in the notes a musical genius plays on the way to madness. Inside these pages, Hell waits for you-- and it can afford to be patient.
It has eternity on its side.
Contents: The Crystal Precipice by Jan Strnad, Steve Buccellato, Stan Drake The Blood of a Poet by R.J.M. Lofficier, John Ridgeway Songs of Metal and Flesh by Peter Atkins, Dave Dorman, Lurene Haines
Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England, the son of Joan Rubie (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. Educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University and his picture now hangs in the entrance hallway to the Philosophy Department. It was in Liverpool in 1975 that he met his first partner, John Gregson, with whom he lived until 1986. Barker's second long-term relationship, with photographer David Armstrong, ended in 2009.
In 2003, Clive Barker received The Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards. This award is presented "to an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individual who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for any of those communities". While Barker is critical of organized religion, he has stated that he is a believer in both God and the afterlife, and that the Bible influences his work.
Fans have noticed of late that Barker's voice has become gravelly and coarse. He says in a December 2008 online interview that this is due to polyps in his throat which were so severe that a doctor told him he was taking in ten percent of the air he was supposed to have been getting. He has had two surgeries to remove them and believes his resultant voice is an improvement over how it was prior to the surgeries. He said he did not have cancer and has given up cigars. On August 27, 2010, Barker underwent surgery yet again to remove new polyp growths from his throat. In early February 2012 Barker fell into a coma after a dentist visit led to blood poisoning. Barker remained in a coma for eleven days but eventually came out of it. Fans were notified on his Twitter page about some of the experience and that Barker was recovering after the ordeal, but left with many strange visions.
Barker is one of the leading authors of contemporary horror/fantasy, writing in the horror genre early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories (collected in Books of Blood 1 – 6), and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game (1985). Later he moved towards modern-day fantasy and urban fantasy with horror elements in Weaveworld (1987), The Great and Secret Show (1989), the world-spanning Imajica (1991) and Sacrament (1996), bringing in the deeper, richer concepts of reality, the nature of the mind and dreams, and the power of words and memories.
Barker has a keen interest in movie production, although his films have received mixed receptions. He wrote the screenplays for Underworld (aka Transmutations – 1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou. Displeased by how his material was handled, he moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. His early movies, the shorts The Forbidden and Salome, are experimental art movies with surrealist elements, which have been re-released together to moderate critical acclaim. After his film Nightbreed (Cabal), which was widely considered to be a flop, Barker returned to write and direct Lord of Illusions. Barker was an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters, which received major critical acclaim.
Barker is a prolific visual artist working in a variety of media, often illustrating his own books. His paintings have been seen first on the covers of his official fan club magazine, Dread, published by Fantaco in the early Nineties, as well on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations (1995) and Forms of Heaven (1996), as well as on the second printing of the original UK publications of his Books of Blood series.
A longtime comics fan, Barker achieved his dream of publishing his own superhero books when Marvel Comics launched the Razorline imprint in 1993. Based on detailed premises, titles and lead characters he created specifically for this, the four interrelated titles — set outside the Marvel universe — were Ectokid,
Still mining the same vein of style and know-how, compression of quantity and its inversion of quality is the incredible result. In fact, with the total number of yarns compressed, their lengths and enjoyability proportionally grow. Less micro, and more fully bodied tales are the pleasurable results.
What starts with a decidedly cosmic tinged setting (very Amazing Science Fiction pulps) is traded for more worldly places as the stories spool forward. With more pages per yarn, far denser stories are allowed to be properly sauted. Horror is allowed to properly develop as the stories becomes fully saturated with their flavors in all their delicious details.
Out of the three stories featured here, the first two are straight dogshit and are probably the worst in the series so far. But the third story is surprisingly the complete opposite and the best one so far. Unfortunately, it's also the smallest out of the three. While it's 14 pages long, the same as the first story, it features less dialogue. Which means about 70% of this book is an absolute slog. But that last story is really worth it, it really gets Clive Barker's mythology and philosophical implications of The Hellbound Heart, and expands upon them in graceful and unexpected ways.
Weakest book so far, even though the premise lends itself to numerous stories, these have started to become rather predictable (also, the break room for Cenobites must get crowded, considering almost every author sets up a new one).
The Crystal Precipice which is an odd tale that feels like its set in the labyrinth of hellraiser II - with all the floating crystalline shapes.
The Blood of the Poet takes us to Paris in the early 1900's where a young American poet tries to disturb the angels and gets more than he bargained for.
The final story, Songs of Metal and Flesh is my favourite both in terms of story and art - its written by Hellraiser II screen writer Peter Atkins and tells the tale of a blind musician who opens a dimensional door via music to get revenge on a rival.
Over all not a bad collection at all and well worth looking for due to the strength of the last story.
This is a blueprint for how horror comics should be created. It is not essential, but having read the Hellbound heart or seen the first film will make you much more invested in the characters.They work as stand alone books as well though. Aside from Joe Hill's Lock and Key IMO these are the only other good horror comics being published
This was the best of the three so far. I really liked the longer story of the poet in Paris in the 20s it felt almost lovecraftian and had a nice use of the occult and French literature (eve if it did misattribute the Zhuangzi quote). The science fiction story was a bit silly but a more interesting setting. The story about the blind musician was also good but felt like the last page let it down.