Clive Barker

Barker was born in Liverpool, the son of Joan Ruby (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm.[2][3] He was educated at Dovedale Primary School, Quarry Bank High School and the University of Liverpool, where he studied English and Philosophy.[4]

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.[5]

Barker's involvement in live theater began while still in school with productions of Voodoo and Inferno in 1967. He collaborated on six plays with Theatre of the Imagination in 1974 and two more that he was the sole writer of, A Clowns' Sodom and Day of the Dog, for The Mute Pantomime Theatre in 1976 and 1977.[6]

He co-founded the avant-garde theatrical troupe The Dog Company in 1978 with former school friends and up and coming actors, many of which would go on to become key collaborators in Barker's film work. Doug Bradley would take on the iconic role of Pinhead in the Hellraiser series while Peter Atkins would write the scripts for the first three Hellraiser sequels.[7] Over the next five years Barker would write nine plays, often serving as director, including some of his most well-known stage productions, The History of The Devil, Frankenstein in Love, and The Secret Life of Cartoons.[6]

From 1982 to 1983, he also created three plays, including Crazyface, for the Cockpit Youth Theatre.[6]

His theatrical work would come to a close as he shifted focus to writing the Books of Blood.

Barker is an author of 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 toward 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 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."[8] As influences on his writing, Barker lists Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, William S. Burroughs, William Blake, and Jean Cocteau, among others.[9]

He is the writer of the best-selling Abarat series.

During his early years as a writer, he would occasionally work as a male prostitute when his writing didn't provide sufficient income.[10]

In 2003, Barker received the Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards.[11]

Barker is critical of organized religion, but has said that the Bible influences his work and spirituality.[12] In a 2003 appearance on Politically Incorrect, Barker stated that he was a Christian after Ann Coulter implied he was not,[13] although years later, he said he does not identify as a Christian via Facebook.[14]

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.[15]

In 2012, Barker went into coma for several days after having contracted toxic shock syndrome, triggered by a visit to the dentist which unloaded a spillage of poisonous bacteria into his bloodstream, almost claiming his life.[16] Realizing he might have just a short time left to live, he decided to put his personal concerns about the world and society into the upcoming novel Deep Hill, which he then thought could be his final book.[17]

As of 2015, he is a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum.[18]

Barker wrote the screenplays for Underworld (1985) 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. He had been working on a series of film adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under The Walt Disney Company's management,[20] but due to creative differences, the project was cancelled.[21]

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.[22]

In October 2006, Barker announced through his website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser film.[23][24] He is developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys.

In May 2015, Variety reported that Clive Barker was developing a television series adaptation of various creepypastas in partnership with Warner Brothers, to be called Clive Barker's Creepypastas, a feature arc based on Slender Man and Ben Drowned.[25] Barker was involved in a streaming service film adaptation of The Books of Blood in 2020,[26] and is developing a Nightbreed television series directed by Michael Dougherty and written by Josh Stolberg for SyFy.[27][28] In April 2020, HBO was announced to be developing a Hellraiser television series that would serve as "an elevated continuation and expansion" of its mythology with Mark Verheiden and Michael Dougherty writing the series and David Gordon Green directing several episodes. Verheiden, Dougherty and Green will also be executive producing the series with Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Brandon James and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment.[29]

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.[30][31]

Around 150 art works by Barker were used in the set of the Academy of the Unseen Arts for the Netflix TV series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.[32]

Barker published his Razorline imprint via Marvel Comics in 1993.

Barker horror adaptations and spin-offs 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.[33]

In October 2009, IDW published Seduth, co-written by Barker. The work was released with three variant covers.[34]

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.

• 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)[38]
• Clive Barker's Jericho (2007)

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Douglas E. Winter, Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic New York: Harper, 2002, ISBN 0066213924.
• 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.
• K. A. Laity, "Clive Barker" in: Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003, ISBN 0684312506.
• Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, (Ed.) Clive Barker - Dark imaginer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. 280pp. ISBN 9780719096921.

• Cenobite
• Lemarchand's box
• List of horror fiction writers
• Splatterpunk

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• Official website
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• WorldCat entry
• Clive Barker at Library of Congress Authorities – with 50 catalogue records