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Clive Barker

 
Writer: Clive Barker
 
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Oct 05, 1952 in Liverpool, England
  • Occupation: Writer, Director
  • Active: '80s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Horror
  • Career Highlights: Gods and Monsters, Candyman, Hellraiser
  • First Major Screen Credit: Clive Barker's Salome & The Forbidden (1973)

Biography

Clive Barker is one of the premiere contemporary writers of horror novels. Born, raised and educated in England, Barker started out as founder, playwright and director of a small theater group in London that staged such interestingly titled plays as Frankenstein in Love and The History of the Devil. When not working at the theater, Barker began writing short horror stories. He didn't think there was much of a market for them, but he was wrong, and his work began appearing in magazines. Eventually his stories were published as a three volume set and titled The Books of Blood. They became quite popular and enabled Barker to begin writing and directing horror films; he also worked as executive producer on some of his films. As a filmmaker, Barker attempts to create serious, non-campy horror films. He debuted as a director in 1987 with Hellraiser, which is based on one of his novellas and features a character Barker calls "the Noel Coward of the lower depths," but who audiences more affectionately refer to as "Pinhead." The film was a critical and box-office success. Barker went on to produce two sequels and to occasionally act in films. More recently, he has moved towards writing fantasy fiction. In 1992, he wrote and illustrated a children's book, The Thief of Always. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
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Quotes By: Clive Barker
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"To you who have never died, may I say: Welcome to the world!"

 
Wikipedia: Clive Barker
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For the South African football (soccer) coach, see Clive Barker (soccer).
For the English pop artist and sculptor, see Clive Barker (artist).
Clive Barker

Clive Barker in 2007
Born 5 October 1952 (1952-10-05) (age 56)
Liverpool, England, U.K.
Occupation Author, film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, playwright, painter, illustrator & visual artist
Nationality British
Genres Horror, Fantasy
Domestic partner(s) David Armstrong
Official website

Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both metaphysical fantasy and horror fiction.

Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works, and his fiction has been adapted into motion pictures, notably the Hellraiser series.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Barker was born in Liverpool, England, the son of Joan Rubie (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm.[1][2] Educated at the same schools as John Lennon: Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and philosophy at Liverpool University. Barker lives in Los Angeles, California.

In 2003, Clive Barker received The Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards. This award is presented "to an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individual who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for any of those communities".[3] While Barker is critical of organized religion, he has stated that he is a believer in both God and the Bible, and that the Christian message influences his work.[4]

Clive Barker had said, "I want to be remembered as an imaginer, someone who used his imagination as a way to journey beyond the limits of self, beyond the limits of flesh and blood, beyond the limits of even perhaps life itself, in order to discover some sense of order in what appears to be a disordered universe. I'm using my imagination to find meaning, both for myself and, I hope, for my readers."

Writing career

Barker is one of the leading authors of contemporary horror/fantasy, writing in the horror genre 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), bringing in the deeper, richer concepts of reality, the nature of the mind and dreams, and the power of words and memories. His most recent novel (2007) is Mister B. Gone.

Barker's distinctive style is characterized by the notion of hidden fantastical worlds coexisting with our own, the role of sexuality in the supernatural and the construction of coherent, complex and detailed universes. Barker has referred to this style as "dark fantasy" or the "fantastique". His stories are notable for a deliberate blurring of the distinction between binary opposites such as hell and heaven, or pleasure and pain (the latter particularly so in 'The Hellbound Heart').

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, his name is Clive Barker."[5] A critical analysis of Barker's work appears in S. T. Joshi's The Modern Weird Tale. (2001)

Film work

Barker has a keen interest in movie production, although his films have received mixed receptions. He wrote the screenplays for Underworld (aka Transmutations - 1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou and matched with little critical success.[6]. Displeased by how his material was handled, he moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. His early movies, the shorts The Forbidden and Salome, are experimental art movies with surrealist elements, which have been re-released together to moderate critical acclaim. After his film Nightbreed (Cabal), which was widely considered to be a flop, Barker returned to write and direct Lord of Illusions. Barker was an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters, which received major critical acclaim. He had been working on a series of movie adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under Disney's management, but has admitted that because of creative differences, this project will not go ahead. He is also developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys.

In October 2006, Barker announced through his official website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser movie.[7][8]

A short story titled "The Forbidden", from Barker's Books of Blood, provided the basis for the film Candyman and its two sequels.

Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura directed the 2008 film Midnight Meat Train from Jeff Buhler's screenplay based on Barker's short story of the same name for Lakeshore Entertainment and Lionsgate.

A movie is planned of his 'Book of Blood' short story, to be filmed in 2007.[9] Also he will write and produce upcoming films Born, The Thief of Always and other future projects.

Visual art and plays

Barker is a prolific visual artist working in a variety of media, 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 Nineties, as well on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations (1995) and Forms of Heaven (1996), as well as on the second printing of the original UK publications of his Books of Blood series. His artwork is currently exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles, CA, and in the past has also been shown 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. The most complete selection of Clive Barker's paintings and drawings are available to view in a gallery setting on the website Clive Barker Imaginer. Clive's official site has an extensive online gallery of his artwork including exclusive sketches, the Imagining Man project and unpublished work-in-progress. He also worked on the creative side of a horror computer game, Clive Barker's Undying, providing the voice for the character Ambrose. Undying was developed by DreamWorks Interactive and released in 2001. Barker also provided the artwork for his young adult novel The Thief of Always (1992) as well as the Abarat series. Barker announced in July 2006 that he has returned to the video game industry, working on Clive Barker's Jericho for Codemasters which was released in late 2007.[10]

Comic books

A longtime comics fan, Barker achieved his dream of publishing his own superhero books when Marvel Comics launched the Razorline imprint in 1993. Based on detailed premises, titles and lead characters he created specifically for this, the four interrelated titles — set outside the Marvel universe — were Ectokid (written first by James Robinson, then by future Matrix co-creator Larry Wachowski, with art by Steve Skroce), Hokum & Hex (written by Frank Lovece, art by Anthony Williams), Hyperkind (written by Fred Burke, art by Paris Cullins and Bob Petrecca) and Saint Sinner (written by Elaine Lee, art by Max Douglas). A 2002 Barker telefilm titled Saint Sinner bore no relation to the comic.

Barker horror adaptations and spin-offs in comics include the Marvel/Epic 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. In addition, Clive Barker also 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 also currently 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.[11]

Bibliography

Novels

Collections

  • (1984-1985) Books of Blood (vols. 1 through 6 were released between 1984 and 1985. vols. 4 through 6 were published in the U.S. as The Inhuman Condition (volume 4), In the Flesh (volume 5), and Cabal (volume 6, though the title novella is original to this edition).)
  • (1985) Cabal (titular novella was also published as a Nightbreed mass market paperback)
  • (1987) The Inhuman Condition
  • (1987) In the Flesh
  • (1990) Clive Barker, Illustrator
  • (1992) Illustrator II: The Art of Clive Barker
  • (1995) Incarnations: Three Plays
  • (1996) Forms of Heaven: Three Plays
  • (2000) The Essential Clive Barker: Selected Fiction
  • (2005) Visions of Heaven and Hell
  • (2010) Black Is the Devil's Rainbow: Tales of a Journeyman

Biographies

  • (1991) Cliver Barker's Shadows in Eden A collection of essays written by multiple authors and friends of Barker's discussing production on his movies and interspersed with early sketches and drawings, along with snippets from various interviews. Edited by Stephen Jones.
  • (2002) Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic by Douglas E. Winter
  • (2009) Memory, Prophecy and Fantasy: The World and Works of Clive Barker - Volume 1. A retrospective look at the background to Barker's published work from his earliest creative years. It includes many otherwise unpublished texts, artwork and photographic pieces alongside a detailed study of his fringe theatre work, written by Phil and Sarah Stokes who run his official website, Revelations.

Nonfiction

Filmography

Directed

Produced

Written

Computer games

See also

References

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Clive Barker
  1. ^ Clive Barker Biography (1952-age 58)
  2. ^ Clive Barker Biography - Yahoo! Movies
  3. ^ The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Web Site
  4. ^ The Official Clive Barker Resource-Revelations-Barker on Spirituality
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ The Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090233/
  7. ^ The Official Clive Barker Resource - Revelations - Exclusive Interviews 15
  8. ^ Clive Barker remaking Hellraiser - Fangoria news, 20 October 2006
  9. ^ Revelations - official site interview 7 September 2007
  10. ^ Clive Barker Returns To Games - TotalGaming.net news, 19 July 2006
  11. ^ The Official Clive Barker Resource - Revelations - Uncompleted Other Projects - B

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Writer. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
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Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Clive Barker".  Read more

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