Comics' greatest talent (Wrightson, Bolton, Doran, Van Fleet, Spiegle and Wachowski) unleashed on Barker's horrifying world of warring order and chaos. The third Hellraiser collection from Checker. 14 stories in jaw-dropping full color, in addition to the complete poster art galleries from the original epic publications.
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From Publishers Weekly
Who'd have suspected that Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart would spawn the feature film Hellraiser (helmed by the author himself), a gaggle of uneven sequels and a following that craved even more tales of twisted individuals and demonic Cenobites? At 342 pages, this third collection of the Hellraiser-inspired comicsmight look like a cornucopia of kinky chills, gore and fetishism. Yet while there is occasionally some impressive art, the overall content is extremely disappointing, pretentious and, above all, repetitive. Most of the stories follow the by-the-numbers scenario of a disaffected malcontent figuring out the solution to a puzzle box that opens a doorway into the nightmare world of the Cenobites, thereby dooming himself to eternal sadomasochistic torment. That formula is wearying after one or two run-throughs, and more than that—the 15 stories read like they came from an assembly line—is an exercise in tedium. There's also a gallery of some 100 one-page illustrations, mostly mediocre, that serves as filler. Matrix completists may be interested in the adaptations by the nonprolific director Larry Wachowski. Clive Barker's brand name notwithstanding, few will find this book worth the price.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Comics stories ought to work visually as much or more than verbally, and horror stories usually cry out for visual pyrotechnics, which is what they got in the Hellraiser comics. --Booklist
Overall, the stories achieve to avoid the clichés so often found in horror. With an interesting amalgam of writers and artists, these tales, though most over a decade old, still don t quite sit well in the stomach. They question the world, and the hell beneath it. Jacob Malewitz --Paperback Reader
Overall, the stories achieve to avoid the clichés so often found in horror. With an interesting amalgam of writers and artists, these tales, though most over a decade old, still don t quite sit well in the stomach. They question the world, and the hell beneath it. Jacob Malewitz --Paperback Reader
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A COLLECTION OF DEPRAVITY AND DESPAIR,
This review is from: Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best III (Paperback)
I first became aware of Clive Barker back in the late 1980's when a friend turned me onto his Books of Blood series. Barker was really unlike anyone at the time as we went right for the throat with a raw, visceral, and yes quite graphic style. Barker's had several of his stories turned into film but the most famous was the Hellraiser films. Barker actually directed the first film and wrote the screenplay. In the 90's Marvel Comics Epic line had a Hellraiser comic series and Checker Books has been doing a fantastic job of collecting these fantastic stories into trade paperback format. This is the third collection and includes fifteen stories from some of the top artists and writers in the world of comics including: Jan Strnad, John Bolton, Berni Wrightson, Scott Hampton, and many more. This massive trade also includes dozens of full page illustrations, darkly complementing the stories within.
Among the stories in this volume that rank as standouts: "To Prepare a Face" by Jan Strnad and Mark Chiarello is a silent film era story about (although never mentioned by name) silent horror star Lon Chaney Sr., the "Man of a Thousand Faces". We'll find that it takes more than just great make-up to turn Chaney into the memorable characters like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera". "The Warm Red" by Strnad and Berni Wrightson concerns a middle-aged con-woman who looks to bilk a country hick out of his home because she knows that a development country will be soon building a theme park in the area. The temptress soon finds herself making another deal for her very life...with a Cenobite! Larry Wachowski of Matrix fame provides the story for "Closets" about an abusive mother who locks up her young son in a basement closet, all alone with nothing...except a lamentation puzzle box. "Under the Knife" by Ron Wolfe and Bill Reinhold ties in the Jack the Ripper legend with a modern day serial slayer with a reporter caught in the middle between the two bloody fiends. An obvious Donald Trump-like character in "I in the Pyramid" has become the world's first trillionaire but can only maintain his status as a recruiter for hell with the largest pyramid scheme ever perpetrated. "The Tontine" by Scott Hampton. Several friends enter into a tontine, a pact in which the last survivor will gain the jackpot. The friends meet year after year to play a deadly game of Russian Roulette until the last survivor gets his just rewards. "The Sweet Science" The heavyweight boxing champion is bored as he seeks a real challenge. When he unknowingly unlocks a puzzle cube within the boxing ring, he's faced with a greater challenge than he could ever imagine. As you would expect, this is a book aimed at mature audiences due to the subject matter as well as the grisly illustrations. These stories represent an expansion of the Hellraiser mythos that is even better than all but the first couple of films. They provide some great background on the motivations of these demons, particularly Pinhead, who takes a starring role in a few of the tales, including one where he is placed on trial by his rivals in hell. The art is uniformly great throughout and it's quite interesting to see different artist's interpretations of the Cenobites. A definite must have item for fans of Clive Barker or the Hellraiser films. Reviewed by Tim Janson
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but nothing like the original,
By
This review is from: Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best III (Paperback)
The third collection of Hellraiser comics has, as always, Clive Barker's name in its title, but Barker himself hasn't contributed with any of the scripts. His only contribution is a short preface, where he expresses his great pride in having created the short story The Hellbound Heart which over the years has grown into a life of its own and gained millions of fans all over the world. In 2006 The Scarlet Letters will be published - Barker's return to the world of Hellraiser - and fans of Pinhead are already trembling in anticipation.
But until then, fans will have to do with whatever is available right now, and the comics will disappoint few if any or the real fans. None of the stories are of the quality of Barker's own stories, but it's not far from it, and in most cases the stories are as well-written as the drawings are beautiful. But not only that; in between every story the reader is treated with a little gallery of Hellraiser-based art, and these pieces are indeed a must for any fan of macabre art. The story named "The Tontine" is by far the most interesting story in the collection, with its creepy storyline and amazingly dramatic drawings. The great thing about high-quality comics is that the reader happily returns again and again to re-read them and find new things to marvel of, and the Hellraiser collections are definitely worth reading if one appreciates classical horror. It's a fact that none of the stories are as good as The Hellbound Heart, but still, the collection is worth reading and can be highly recommended.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but nothing like the original,
By
This review is from: Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best III (Paperback)
The third collection of Hellraiser comics has, as always, Clive Barker's name in its title, but Barker himself hasn't contributed with any of the scripts. His only contribution is a short preface, where he expresses his great pride in having created the short story The Hellbound Heart which over the years has grown into a life of its own and gained millions of fans all over the world. In 2006 The Scarlet Letters will be published - Barker's return to the world of Hellraiser - and fans of Pinhead are already trembling in anticipation.
But until then, fans will have to do with whatever is available right now, and the comics will disappoint few if any or the real fans. None of the stories are of the quality of Barker's own stories, but it's not far from it, and in most cases the stories are as well-written as the drawings are beautiful. But not only that; in between every story the reader is treated with a little gallery of Hellraiser-based art, and these pieces are indeed a must for any fan of macabre art. The story named "The Tontine" is by far the most interesting story in the collection, with its creepy storyline and amazingly dramatic drawings. The great thing about high-quality comics is that the reader happily returns again and again to re-read them and find new things to marvel of, and the Hellraiser collections are definitely worth reading if one appreciates classical horror. It's a fact that none of the stories are as good as The Hellbound Heart, but still, the collection is worth reading and can be highly recommended.
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