A COLLECTION OF DEPRAVITY AND DESPAIR, June 14, 2005
Amazon Review Timothy Janson (Michigan) 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.
