Complete Clive Barker's Great And Secret Show [Paperback]

Chris Ryall (Author), Gabriel Rodriguez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2008

Collected here in one deluxe edition is the complete 12-part saga that comprises the comic book adaptation of master of horror Clive Barker's epic journey into the fantastic, The Great and Secret Show. Adapted by Chris Ryall (Zombies vs. Robots) and artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Land of the Dead), this collection presents the ultimate battle between good and evil that spans many decades and dimensions. Also featuring complete cover galleries by Gabriel Rodriguez and Clive Barker, full issue-by-issue annotations by Ryall and more! Also available in a hardcover edition (978-1-60010-110-6).

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: IDW Publishing (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600101216
• ISBN-13: 978-1600101212
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,016,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the Chief Creative Officer and Editor-in-Chief of IDW Publishing, a San Diego-based comic book and graphic novel publisher. I've been in this role for over half the company's existence, since July 2004. In that time, been involved in the acquisition of such brands as TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE, STAR TREK, and many other major licenses. In my time at IDW, the company has grown to become the fourth-largest publisher in the United States.

I'm also an Eagle- and Eisner Award-nominated editor and comic book writer, having written nearly four dozen comic books. These comics include:

- SHAUN OF THE DEAD (4 issues, released as a TPB and hardcover)
- MASTERS OF HORROR (2 issues, released as a TPB)
- GEORGE A. ROMERO'S LAND OF THE DEAD (5 issues, released as a TPB)
- CLIVE BARKER'S THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW (12 issues, released as a TPB and a hardcover)
- DOOMED (adaptations of stories from Robert Bloch, Rochard Matheson, and David J. Schow, including the Eisner-nominated "Best Short Story" from 2005, "Blood Son." Released as COMPLETELY DOOMED TPB and as DOOMED PRESENTS: ASHLEY WOOD)
- BEOWULF (4 issues, released as a TPB)
- TRANSFORMERS MOVIE PREQUEL (4 issues, co-written with Simon Furman; released as a TPB and as THE COMPLETE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE COLLECTION, VOL. 1 HC)
- "Circle Seven" in GENE SIMMONS HOUSE OF HORRORS TPB
- ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS (co-created with Ashley Wood; released as an oversize HC, THE COMPLETE ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS TPB [now in its 2nd printing] and ZOMNBIUS TPB)
- ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS VS AMAZONS (released as an oversize HC, THE COMPLETE ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS TPB and ZOMNBIUS TPB)
- D'AIRAIN AVENTURE (2 issues, with "Zombies vs Robots Prequel" and "Black Magick"; The ZvR stories were collected as part of THE COMPLETE ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS TPB)
- "The Adventures of Booby-Watcher," a web-only tie-in to the movie ROLE MODELS; not collected)
- IDW: THE 10-YEAR HISTORY (an oral history of the company, co-written with Ted Adams and Kris Oprisko)
- GROOM LAKE (co-created with Ben Templesmith; 4 issues and a TPB)
- WEEKLY WORLD NEWS (4 issues and a TPB)
- ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS AVENTURE (4 issues and an oversize HC)
- Frank Frazetta's Neanderthal (one-shot for Image comics; collected in The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta, Vol. 2 HC)
- ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS: UNDERCITY with artist Mark Torres (4 issues starting in April 2011)

Prose:
- SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY (contributed a chapter, "The Fantastic Four as Family," co-written with Scott Tipton.
- COMIC BOOKS 101 (co-written with Scott Tipton; available as both a paperback and on the Kindle.)
- CLASSICS MUTILATED; I contributed "Twilight of the Gods," a mash-up of Twilight and Norse mythology, to this collection of "monster-lit" prose. Available as a prose book and on the Kindle.

Prior to all of this, I served as Editor-in-Chief for filmmaker Kevin Smith's entertainment Web portal for four years; was a corporate speechwriter for American Honda; a creative executive with Dick Clark Communications; and an advertising copywriter. In 2010, I wrote the text for Oakley's "Legion of Oakley" advertising comic book campaign and Web site.

I'm based in San Diego, where I live with my wife Julie, daughter Lucy, a cat, Pablo, and my adopted second child, who I call MacBook Pro.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Great & Secret Blah, April 3, 2009

By 

Jeremy S. Dobry (hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Clive Barker's Great And Secret Show (Paperback)

I've read the original novel several times in my day. Perhaps it is my familiarity with it that made this volume lackluster for me. The artwork is beautiful & it is fascinating to see someone else's vision of it. Alas, it has no soul. I was not engaged in the characters whatsoever. When I read a good graphic novel I end up laughin', yellin' and cursin' at them due to the fate of the characters. I sat and read it without a single emotion coming to me, except mild boredom & disappointment.

The astounding climax of the story is condensed to one measely page, where a two-page spread would've maybe had SOME impact. Nevertheless, its worth a read...if only for the art.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Synopsis of the novel, October 22, 2008

By 

Jason Cullen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Clive Barker's Great And Secret Show (Paperback)

As a review of the edition itself, the trade paperback is quite nice indeed. As for the book, the art is stunning, particularly the visions of the metacosm (quiddity, the ephemeris, etc) but the presentation of the narrative is a bit disappointing it reads like a synopsis of Barker's novel. Considering how sprawling and detail obsessed the novel is the comic's style is perhaps unsurprising and given how wonderful the actual novel is calling the comic disappointing is maybe a little misleading, I still wholly recommend it (hence the 4/5 mark). I just wanted to go to on the record somewhere saying that the comic reads like summary of someone else's story rather than being a story unto itself.

4.0 out of 5 stars "Complete Great and Secret Show", March 10, 2008

By 

Alexandro C. Telander "Alex C. Telander" (Roseville, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Clive Barker's Great And Secret Show (Paperback)

After an incredible undertaking, with much conferring with the original creator Clive Barker, writer Chris Ryall and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have finally finished the complete story of the epic Great and Secret Show, now released in paperback in its complete form. With a brief but proud introduction from Barker, who has nothing but good and great to say about Ryall's and Rodriguez's work, and the hopes that they will do the same to the sequel, Everville. The Complete Clive Barker's Great and Secret Show is a great tale the likes of which you will not read anywhere else, brought to life in beautiful graphic fashion.

Randolphe Jaffe is a loser who's going nowhere fast, that is until he gets a job for the post office working in the dead letter room in Omaha, Nebraska - the nexus of the country where all lost and undeliverable mail ends up. Going through thousands of pieces of undelivered mail per day - money and everything of value is surrendered to his boss - he begins finding clues of an undiscovered power in existence beneath the realm of society. It takes time, but he puts the pieces together until he has a good idea of this power known as the Art, where he then receives a medallion, the very symbol of the Art. While it means little to him at first, he knows it is an important piece of the puzzle. Naturally, his boss wants the item and it is then that Jaffe takes the first step down his new path and kills the man in cold blood.

Collecting the important evidence together, with the medallion, he travels across America, living on the whim of the Art, letting it guide him where it will. Innocent bystanders are used by him, sensing the power of the Art and agreeing to whatever Jaffe tells them. It is in an alcohol- and drug-infused stupor that Jaffe conducts his pilgrimage into the desert and finds the Loop: a place out of time, and meets Kissoon, the last member of the Shoal. The Shoal was the group appointed to protect the Art. For the world is part of the Cosm, and beyond this is the Metacosm where the sea of Quiddity lies - a place visited by all when they are born, the night with their first love, and when they die - and within Quiddity lies the island of Ephemeris, the dream land. More importantly at the far edge of the Metacosm lie the Iad Uroborus, a great evil that is always looking to consume the Cosm. The Art is a way of getting to Quiddity. Kissoon tells Jaffe that he must occupy his body so he can leave the Loop and defend the Cosm. Jaffe suspects otherwise and flees, embarking on his own mission of discovery with Richard Wesley Fletcher as they research the Art in its entirety. Fletcher soon discovers a liquid form of the Art known as nuncio, testing it first on a chimpanzee who becomes a human with the ability of speech and thought, known as Raul. The nuncio will force the being to the next evolutionary step, but Richard also knows if Jaffe were to use it, it would focus on his urges of murder and revenge, making him into a serial killer. But it is too late, for Jaffe discovers the existence of the nuncio and in a fight both are infected by it and become higher beings - The Jaff and Fletcher.

And then a great war is fought in the skies of America between these two gods of power until they are spent and plunge into a lake in Palomo Grove, California. There they both rest until four unsuspecting girls go swimming and are inseminated by The Jaff and Fletcher to create subjects to regain their power. And so the town is irrevocably changed forever as the four girls are all changed, becoming pregnant, giving birth to the offspring of these deities. Only three survive: a son of Fletcher and twins of The Jaff, and it is when, years later, that Fletcher's son and The Jaff's daughter meet and fall in love at first sight that the gods are awakened and the town takes a turn for the worst. Using the life-force of a recent victim, The Jaff is able to regain his power and begins collecting minions that he calls terrata from the people of Palomo Grove, sucking out their souls and using their rage, evil and anger to fuel his creatures. Fletcher is left with the dregs and is barely able to leave the crevasse where the lake used to be and find out what has happened to his son; then in a heroic effort, he gives up his life, spreading his power through the minds of the people of the town, who then have their dreams of meeting celebrities come true. These are the allies who must battle against the terrata in the mansion on the hill.

With help from a pulp reporter, Grillo, and his friend, Tesla, Fletcher's son Howard with The Jaff's daughter - who despises her creator - confront The Jaff and his son in the big showdown. Only the evil god takes it all to a whole new level when he rips a hole in the fabric of reality with the power of the Art, opening a widening doorway to Quiddity. Soon everything in the room is being sucked into this other realm, with only The Jaff, Grillo and Tesla making it out of the room alive. As the rest of the world comes to comprehend the catastrophic events taking place in Palomo Grove and take notice, a decision must now be made with how to solve this whole horrible mess, as the Iad Uroborus are on their way at high speed to pass through this rip and take over the world.

Time is of the essence, and Tesla - who has visited Kissoon herself - puts it all together and manages to move this trans-dimensional hole to the land of the Loop where time is stuck. Realizing that Kissoon chose Trinity, New Mexico - the location of the first detonation of the atomic bomb, where no one would think to check - she must kill Kissoon, who has already broken free due to his taking over of Raul's (yes the evolved monkey) body, and with Kissoon gone, all that remains in the Loop is Raul's body. The only solution, which Tesla goes forward with, is for Raul to occupy her body: two spirits, two consciences in one body, but it works. The Loop collapses, time starts moving again and just as the Iad Uroborus begin spilling into this world, there is the bright light and giant mushroom cloud, and the world is saved this time, but the power of the Art is not over.

With this incredible story to tell, Ryall and Rodriguez have outdone themselves, bringing the people and places, the creatures and creations to life in a visual medium. As Barker says in his introduction: "This is no longer my Great and Secret Show . . . They've given life to my words." For Barker fans, this is a wonderful adaptation to discover and enjoy; for non-Barker fans who enjoy the medium of the graphic novel, this is a perfect introduction to Barker's incredible imagination, brought to life under the pen of Ryall and the brush of Rodriguez. The Complete Clive Barker's Great and Secret Show is an incredible and fantastic journey that once discovered and begun, readers will be unable to stop until they reach the last glossy page.

Originally written on December 22nd, 2007 ©Alex C. Telander.

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