Fiction Inspired By Clive's Works

Clive Barker's Next Testament

US Proof

Earthling Publications, USA, 2017. Paperback advance copy.

US Limited Edition

Earthling Publications, USA, 2017. Hardback edition limited to 350 numbered copies (signed by Miller) @ $45.00.

US Limited Edition

Earthling Publications, USA, 2017. Hardback edition limited to 100 numbered leatherbound copies (signed by Miller, Barker, Wilson) @ $125.00.

US Limited Edition

Earthling Publications, USA, 2017. Hardback edition limited to 15 lettered traycased copies (signed by Miller, Barker, Wilson) @ $500.00. (Note: not yet published)

Earthling Publications is set to publish a novelisation of Clive Barker's Next Testament comic in March 2017. Mark Miller, who co-wrote the comic series, has written the adaptation to which Clive has added his artwork and a foreword, and the introduction comes from F. Paul Wilson.

Mark Miller : "Next Testament is a project that is deeply personal for me. I want to thank Clive for allowing me to collaborate with him from the beginning of the project, and for writing a foreword that moved me to tears. I also want to thank Boom! studios for giving this story a home, in its original comic form, where it can live on in perpetuity and find new and exciting incarnations. And finally, I want to thank Paul Miller and Earthling Publications for publishing my first novel. Their guidance, from editing to printing has been a thrill. I hope those who pick up the book are as changed by reading its words as I was writing them."

E-mail to Revelations

By Mark Miller, 6 September 2016

Next Testament comics...
Clive and others on the Next Testament comics...

Hellbound Hearts

US Proof

Pocket Books, New York, USA, 2009. Bound page proofs.

US First Edition

Pocket Books, New York, USA, 2009. Paperback edition @ $16.00.

Published on 29 September, our good friends Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan have assembled a stellar cast for their anthology of stories set within the Hellraiser mythos. The only reprint here is Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Wordsworth - and even that one comes with Neil's previously unpublished script for the graphic short story - everything else is newly commissioned. With the likes of Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Pete Atkins, Nick Vince, Barbie Wilde, Conrad Williams, Sarah Pinborough, Mick Garris, Tim Lebbon, Kelley Armstrong, Richard Christian Matheson, Nancy Holder, Simon Clark, Steve Niles, Sarah Langan, Yvonne Navarro, Mark Morris, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Nancy Kilpatrick, Gary A. Braunbeck, Lucy A. Snyder and Chaz Brenchley contributing fiction and other contributions from Clive, Doug Bradley and Stephen Jones. The cover is Clive's new cenobite, Vestimenti...
Following many queries about the genesis of this project, Paul and Marie have very generously agreed to write their story of how Hellbound Hearts came to be, and to share it here with us - thanks guys!

Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan : We were both delighted when Phil and Sarah asked us to provide an introduction for readers of Hellbound Hearts, exclusively for Clive's excellent Revelations site. The main reason we decided not to do this in the book itself was that it already contained an insightful foreword by Clive; a thorough and informative introduction from award-winning editor and writer Stephen Jones, who acted as unit publicist on the first three Hellraiser movies; and an afterword by Doug Bradley, to close the anthology... Other than that, we wanted the fiction to speak for itself. But after being asked so many times how the book came about, what our motivations were, and to talk about the stories, which we can now do because the book is out (so go and buy it everyone!), it's nice to be able to reply to everything all in one place.
Firstly, we've both been fans of Clive's work - in all its forms - since the first Books of Blood were released. His originality and talent kept us coming back for more, and separately we both collected as much of his material as we could (now that we're married, that collection is massive). We can both remember reading The Hellbound Heart when it first came out, and obviously seeing Hellraiser - the movie based on the novella, scripted and directed by Clive. It had a similar impact on us both: namely, we couldn't shake the ideas behind it from our minds. Judging from a lot of the authors we asked to be involved in Hellbound Hearts, this was the case for them as well.
Our aforementioned collection includes the Hellraiser comics from the late 80s, early 90s, which took the original mythology and let writers and artists come up with their own takes on it (some of them associated with the films anyway, such as Peter Atkins and Nicholas Vince). We'd always wondered why nobody had done the same thing in the fiction world. So, once we had enough editing experience under our belts - the majority of which was through the British Fantasy Society, but also Paul editing and co-editing the Shadow Writer and Terror Tales anthologies respectively - we felt confident enough to mention this idea to Clive on the phone one day, as he owns the rights to the literary version of this world.
Luckily, he felt just as passionate about the idea as we did, and gave us his blessing to go off and gather together the authors. He even kindly said he would not only provide the foreword, but the cover artwork as well (over time this became a brand new Cenobite in the form of 'Vestimenti'). It was also in this original chat with Clive that the germ of the idea to include illustrations inside the book was planted: the result of which was being able to incorporate Mike Mignola's illustrations for his and Christopher Golden's story 'Mechanisms' (something that had worked very successfully with their book Baltimore), and the graphic insert of the story 'Wordsworth' by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (aware that this was a reprint and we wanted new material, we also cheekily asked Neil if he still had the script to hand... which, God bless him, he did).
From those original discussions came months of hard work contacting authors we admired and thought would bring something original to the table... Mick Garris (because of his obvious associations with Clive, most recently with the Masters of Horror episodes 'Haeckel's Tale' and 'Valerie on the Stairs'), Steve Niles (again, because of his long-standing connections with Clive's universe, dating back to those early BoB comic adaptations he penned), Richard Christian Matheson, Simon Clark, Kelley Armstrong, Sarah Langan, because they were admirers of the mythology as well as being cracking writers, plus of course Pete Atkins and Nick Vince again - and also Barbie Wilde, who we met at the launch of The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and who'd told us she was now writing fiction (her first novel is called The Venus Complex and quite stunning it is too). Bit of unknown trivia here: Barbie's story 'Sister Cilice' was actually the first to be written and handed in, almost a year before we had the rest in our hands, and when we read it we just knew this anthology was going to be something quite special.
As we looked around for publishers - with Pocket, thankfully, seeing the potential of the first new stories in this mythology in almost twenty years - more and more authors joined the list, an impressive array of US and UK talent such as Jeff Mariotte, Nancy Kilpatrick, Gary A. Braunbeck & Lucy A. Snyder, Chaz Brenchley, Mark Morris, Tim Lebbon, Sarah Pinborough, Yvonne Navarro, Nancy Holder and Conrad Williams, each eager to write their own story based on the mythology. What we ended up with, once everything was in, was a rich and multi-faceted set of short stories that drew on such diverse elements as Native American mythology, science, the art world, Mexican religious icons, fairy tales, mazes, cinema history, detective stories, and tales from the ocean, to name but a few examples.
People have also asked us what our favourite story in the anthology is, and it's an impossible thing for us comment on; it's like asking us to choose between our children. We're extremely proud of this book which took us over two years to put together from start to finish. From what the authors have told us, they feel the same, and we sincerely hope readers and fans of both Clive's oeuvre and the Hellraiser canon enjoy reading the finished product which goes on sale today.

An Introduction To Hellbound Hearts

By Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan, Revelations, 29 September 2009

Paul Kane : "Hellbound Hearts was originally an idea I ran past Clive a couple of years ago. I loved the Hellraiser comics that were around in the late '80s/early '90s, but if you wanted to read original stories in that mythology, now all you had were the reprints. Apart from Clive's Hellbound Heart novella and [his upcoming novel] The Scarlet Gospels, nobody had really done anything in the literary world connected with it. Clive loved the idea, and as he owns the literary copyright to the novella and its mythology, he very kindly gave me his blessing to round up authors and look for a publisher. Marie came on board as co-editor as it was too massive a job to handle alone...
"As Hellraiser fans ourselves, we think the loyal followers are going to love it. There's something for all devotees of Clive's work in here, ranging from the subtle to the more extreme. It's a book that, as fans, we would buy ourselves. It didn't exist, so we created it."

Editor Talks New Barker Hellbound Anthology

By Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.com, 5 August 2009

Paul Kane : "The original idea came from a love of the EPIC comics, which I wrote about in Legacy. I collected all of those, and then again when the reprints came out. The mythology had been covered in films and in the comics, just not in literature apart from Clive's original novella - and Scarlet Gospels which he's working on now. It just seemed like a natural thing to want to do. I knew Clive owned the literary rights to the mythology, so I ran the idea past him on the phone and was delighted when he loved the sound of it too. Clive's been absolutely fantastic, not just with this, but all along the line; he's such a great guy. From that initial conversation, there was a lot of pounding pavements to secure a publisher and to see who we could get to do stories. Marie joined me as co-editor because there was so much to do and we'd worked together on other projects - most recently the British Fantasy Society Celebration book, which also featured Clive - plus she's a damned fine editor in her own right. The book wouldn't exist without both Clive and Marie...
"We had to steer clear of anything from the Hellraiser filmic world, but actually that made the book extra special. It gave the authors involved freedom to invent their own Cenobites, to weave their own stories based in the mythology - exactly like the comics did all those years ago. Luckily the mythology Clive created in The Hellbound Heart is pretty much the same as it is in the films, in fact it goes into more detail in some respects, so the stories are all recognisably set within that world."

Hellbound Hearts Interview With Paul Kane

By Scarecrow, The Hellbound Web at www.cenobite.com, August 2009

Mondo Zombie

US Proof

Cemetery Dance, USA, 2006.

US First Edition

Cemetery Dance, USA, 2006. Hardback edition @ $35.00. (also available in a signed slipcased edition of 250 @ $65.00 and a traycased lettered edition of 52 @ $200.00)

In this Zombie anthology from Cemetery Dance, the editor himself - the incomparable John Skipp - has co-written God Save The Queen with Marc Levinthal. This short story is an adaptation of the graphic novel, Night of the Living Dead: London, written by Clive Barker and Steve Niles.

Midian Unmade: Tales of Clive Barker's Nightbreed

US Proof

Tor, New York, USA, 2015.

US First Edition

Tor, New York, USA, 2015. Hardback edition @ $24.99.

Featuring an introduction by Clive (reprinted from the Nightbreed Chronicles - see related books), Tor Books published this anthology of tales inspired by Clive's Nightbreed characters and following their lives beyond the events of the novella Cabal. Edited by Del Howison and Joseph Nassise, an open call for submissions was made in June 2013 and the final running order comprised 23 new Nightbreed stories, released in July 2015.

See the original call for submissions here...