Hellraiser III TPB
ISBN# 0-9710249-2-8
Checker Book Publishing Group
Got a couple nights? Better yet, you best read these stories in the daylight. That probably won't help but it certainly couldn't hurt. This third collection tips in well over 300 fear packed pages. Checker Books really has this anthology format down to a science. What they've done this time around is ...er...fleshed out...the collection with full page versions of what I'm guessing to be the covers from the original printings. I missed the original printings of these books in the early 90's by Epic Comics so I could be wrong. They've been thoughtful enough to remove any text distractions from these paintings in order for us to be able to appreciate the painted page, as a whole and uncluttered. These are nice enough visuals to be collected up into a portfolio for framing so if the publisher is taking any suggestions they just got a good one. Within this collection you'll find the explorations of : Jan Strnad, Carl Potts, Scott Hampton, Bernie Wrightson, Ted McKeever et al. 70 artists and writers in all.
There's terror on the high seas with " In These Blue Depths Lie Hell", watch as the evangelical fall to the temptations of the Lamentation Puzzles in "Demons to Some, Angels to Others". If you needed only one reason to shell out your hard earned bucks for this anthology it would be for the brilliant tale "To Prepare a Face". Lavish watercolours set the mood for a thinly veiled Chaney-esque actor in pursuit of the next face to bring to the screen. Wonderful stuff. This tale alone is almost worth the cost of the collection as a whole.
This collection I just couldn't put down.
Posted by: Trollking Moderator
"By Gary Butler, published in Rue Morgue"
Hellraiser: Collected Best TPB, vol 3
Checker Book Publishing has been doing a fantastic job of, ahem, “pinning” down comics based on Clive Barker’s “The Hellbound Heart,” a.k.a. Hellraiser. Essentially a group of anthologized anthologies, their Hellraiser: Collected Best series of glossy trade paperbacks is dedicated to remastering original, Barker-licensed shorts previously issued in four-colour under Marvel’s Epic imprint between the years 1989 and 1992.
As is always the way with multi-contributor books, results are a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the deadly. Released this summer, volume 3 of the series if arguably one of the strongest to date. Was Checker saving the best for last?
“The third volume encompasses what we view to be the best that the series had to offer,” agrees publisher Mark Thompson, check(er)ing in from Miamisburg, Ohio. Thompson adds that this installment likely marks the end of the series – for now. “The publishing history of Clive’s stuff in comics is varied, and we have been methodical in our choice of material. A fourth Hellraiser volume would have difficulty maintaining an even level of quality.” In other words, you can sleep soundly: there are no plans to reprint Marvel’s hellishly-humdrum mid-‘90s Pinhead series (talk about a Ceno-blight!).
Notable moments in Hellraiser: Collected Best vol. 3 include Ron Wolfe’s “Glitter and Go” – wherein a building mysteriously favired by suicide jumpers is discovered to be an actual Lament Configuration – and Jan Strnad’s “To Prepare a Face” – essentially Lon Chaney gone Leatherface. “The image of the clown in that story…” Thompson remarks, “Man, it produced one of those rare moments in comics where I was actually frightened to continue. Kind of a Buffalo Bill [Silence of the Lambs] thing going on with the lead character, flaying people to accomplish a transformation.”
Superb art abounds throughout the book, particularly Scott Hampton’s nightmarish washes for his cleverly diabolic Russian Roulette survivalist tale, “The Tontine”. As well, this volume places added emphasis on collecting gallery pinups – by the likes of Bill Sienkiewicz, Ted McKeever, Simon Bisley, and Mike Mignola, to name but a few – dedicating over 100 of the book’s 350-odd pages to outstanding concept posters.
With vol. 1 of Collected Best in its third pressing, it’s clear that Pinhead and co. still know how to get their hooks into readers. Why does Thompson think Hellraiser remains so popular? “It’s a morality play in reverse, which fascinates,” he says. “The existence of seduction and sin are eternal – they’ll always have a horrible kind of appeal."
