Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English writer, film director, and visual artist. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works, and his fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser and Candyman series. He was also the executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters.
Barker's paintings and illustrations have been featured in galleries in the United States as well as within his own books. He has created original characters and series for comic books, and some of his more popular horror stories have been adapted to comics.
His archives have been a source of material for biographies and non-fiction books containing his personal essays, discussions of his fringe theatre work, interviews, and other content.
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Early life
Barker was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, the son of Joan Ruby (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. He was educated at Dovedale Primary School, Quarry Bank High School and the University of Liverpool, where he studied English and Philosophy.
When he was three years old, Barker witnessed the French skydiver Léo Valentin plummet to his death during a performance at an air show in Liverpool. Barker would later allude to Valentin in many of his stories.
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Writing career
Barker is an author of contemporary horror/fantasy. He began writing horror early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories (collected in Books of Blood 1 - 6) and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game (1985). Later he moved towards modern-day fantasy and urban fantasy with horror elements in Weaveworld (1987), The Great and Secret Show (1989), the world-spanning Imajica (1991), and Sacrament (1996).
When the Books of Blood were first published in the United States in paperback, Stephen King was quoted on the book covers: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker." As influences on his writing, Barker lists Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, William S. Burroughs, William Blake and Jean Cocteau, among others.
He is the writer of the best-selling Abarat series, and plans on producing two more novels in the series.
Film work
Barker has an interest in film production. He wrote the screenplays for Underworld and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou. Displeased by how his material was handled, he moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. After his film Nightbreed (1990) flopped, Barker returned to write and direct Lord of Illusions (1995). The short story "The Forbidden", from Barker's Books of Blood, provided the basis for the 1992 film Candyman and its two sequels. Barker was an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters (1998), which received major critical acclaim. He had been working on a series of film adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under Disney's management, but because of creative differences, the project was cancelled.
In 2005, Barker and horror film producer Jorge Saralegui created the film production company Midnight Picture Show with the intent of producing two horror films per year.
In October 2006, Barker announced through his website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser film. He is developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys.
Visual art
Barker is a prolific visual artist, often illustrating his own books. His paintings have been seen first on the covers of his official fan club magazine, Dread, published by Fantaco in the early '90s; on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations (1995) and Forms of Heaven (1996); and on the second printing of the original British publications of his Books of Blood series. Barker also provided the artwork for his young adult novel The Thief of Always and for the Abarat series. His artwork has been exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles and Chicago, at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York and La Luz De Jesus in Los Angeles. Many of his sketches and paintings can be found in the collection Clive Barker, Illustrator, published in 1990 by Arcane/Eclipse Books, and in Visions of Heaven and Hell, published in 2005 by Rizzoli Books.
He worked on the horror video game Clive Barker's Undying, providing the voice for the character Ambrose. Undying was developed by DreamWorks Interactive and released in 2001. He worked on Clive Barker's Jericho for Codemasters, which was released in late 2007.
Barker created Halloween costume designs for Disguise Costumes.
Comic books
Barker published his Razorline imprint via Marvel Comics in 1993.
Barker horror adaptations and spinoffs in comics include the Marvel/Epic Comics series Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Pinhead, The Harrowers, Book of the Damned, and Jihad; Eclipse Books' series and graphic novels Tapping The Vein, Dread, Son of Celluloid, Revelations The Life of Death, Rawhead Rex and The Yattering and Jack, and Dark Horse Comics' Primal, among others. Barker served as a consultant and wrote issues of the Hellraiser anthology comic book.
In 2005, IDW published a three-issue adaptation of Barker's children's fantasy novel The Thief of Always, written and painted by Kris Oprisko and Gabriel Hernandez. IDW is publishing a 12 issue adaptation of Barker's novel The Great and Secret Show.
In December 2007, Chris Ryall and Clive Barker announced an upcoming collaboration of an original comic book series, Torakator, to be published by IDW.
In October 2009, IDW published Seduth, co-written by Barker. The work was released with three variant covers.
In 2011, Boom! Studios began publishing an original Hellraiser comic book series.
In 2013, Boom! Studios announced Next Testament, the first original story by Barker to be published in comic book format.
Bibliography
Novels
- (1985) The Damnation Game
- (1986) The Hellbound Heart
- (1987) Weaveworld
- (1988) Cabal
- (1989) The Great and Secret Show (first "Book of the Art")
- (1991) Imajica
- (1992) The Thief of Always
- (1994) Everville (second "Book of the Art")
- (1996) Sacrament
- (1998) Galilee
- (2001) Coldheart Canyon
- (2002) Abarat (first book of the Abarat Quintet)
- (2004) Days of Magic, Nights of War (second book of the Abarat Quintet)
- (2007) Mister B. Gone
- (2011) Absolute Midnight (third book of the Abarat Quintet)
- (2015) The Scarlet Gospels
Collections
- (1984-1985) Books of Blood
- (1985) The Inhuman Condition
- (1986) In the Flesh
- (2000) The Essential Clive Barker: Selected Fiction
- (2015) Tonight, Again: Tales of Love, Lust and Everything in Between
Others
- (1990) Clive Barker, Illustrator
- (1992) Illustrator II: The Art of Clive Barker
- (1995) Incarnations: Three Plays
- (1996) Forms of Heaven: Three Plays
- (2001) Tortured Souls
- (2005) Visions of Heaven and Hell
- (2009) Mr. Maximillian Bacchus And His Travelling Circus
- (2011) The Painter, the Creature and the Father of Lies
- (2014) Clive Barker: Imaginer
- (2015) Midian Unmade
Filmography
Video games
- Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Action Game (1990)
- Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Interactive Movie (1990)
- Clive Barker's Undying (2001)
- Clive Barker's Demonik (cancelled 2006)
- Clive Barker's Jericho (2007)
Personal life
In 2003, Barker received the Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards.
Barker has been critical of organized religion throughout his career, but in early interviews, he stated that the Bible influences his work and spirituality. In 2003, Barker stated that he was a Christian during an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher when Ann Coulter implied he was not.. He has, however, since stated on Facebook that he is not, in fact, a Christian.
Barker said in a December 2008 online interview (published in March 2009) that he had polyps in his throat which were so severe that a doctor told him he was taking in ten percent of the air he was supposed to have been getting. He has had two surgeries to remove them and believes his resultant voice is an improvement over how it was prior to the surgeries. He said he did not have cancer and has given up cigars.
As of 2015, he is a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum.
Relationships
In a 20 August 1996 appearance on the radio call-in show Loveline, Barker stated that during his teens he had several relationships with older women, and came to identify himself as homosexual by 18 or 19 years old. Barker has been openly gay since the early 1990s. His relationship with John Gregson lasted from 1975 until 1986. It was during this period, with the support that Gregson provided, that Barker was able to write the Books of Blood series and The Damnation Game.
He later spent thirteen years with photographer David Armstrong, described as his husband in the introduction to Coldheart Canyon; they separated in 2009.
Barker lives in Beverly Hills with his partner, Johnny Ray Raymond Jr.
Critical studies of Clive Barker's work
- Suzanne J. Barbieri, Clive Barker : Mythmaker for the Millennium. Stockport:British Fantasy Society, 1994, ISBN 0952415305.
- Gary Hoppenstand, Clive Barker's short stories : imagination as metaphor in the Books of blood and other works. (With a foreword by Clive Barker). Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 1994, ISBN 0899509843.
- Linda Badley, Writing Horror and The Body : the fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice. London : Greenwood Press, 1996, ISBN 0313297169.
- Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, (Ed.) Clive Barker - Dark imaginer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. 280pp. ISBN 9780719096921.
- Chris Morgan, "Barker, Clive", in David Pringle, ed., St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. London: St. James Press, 1998, ISBN 1558622063
- S. T. Joshi The Modern Weird Tale Jefferson, N.C. ; London : McFarland, 2001, ISBN 078640986X.
- K. A. Laity, "Clive Barker" in: Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003, ISBN 0684312506.
- Edwin F. Casebeer, "Clive Barker (1952- )" in: Darren Harris-Fain (ed.) British Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Since 1960. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale, 2002, ISBN 0787660051.
- Smith, Andrew. "Worlds that Creep upon You: Postmodern Illusions in the Work of Clive Barker." In Clive Bloom, ed, Creepers: British Horror and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. London and Boulder CO: Pluto Press, 1993, pp. 176-86.
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