Clive Barker Omnibus

by Clive Barker, Gabriel Hernández Walta

Master storyteller Clive Barker is no stranger to graphic novel adaptations of his work, and this massive omnibus collects three of his IDW projects! This volume starts off with The Thief of Always, moves on to the epic twelve-part The Great and Secret Show, and ends with Seduth, all illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez. With no shortage of sprawling high-concept, spine-chilling thrills, and inspired art, the Clive Barker Omnibus is a great launching point into his dark universe.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Clive 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. Educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University and his picture now hangs in the entrance hallway to the Philosophy Department. It was in Liverpool in 1975 that he met his first partner, John Gregson, with whom he lived until 1986. Barker's second long-term relationship, with photographer David Armstrong, ended in 2009.

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". While Barker is critical of organized religion, he has stated that he is a believer in both God and the afterlife, and that the Bible influences his work.

Fans have noticed of late that Barker's voice has become gravelly and coarse. He says in a December 2008 online interview that this is due to 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. On August 27, 2010, Barker underwent surgery yet again to remove new polyp growths from his throat. In early February 2012 Barker fell into a coma after a dentist visit led to blood poisoning. Barker remained in a coma for eleven days but eventually came out of it. Fans were notified on his Twitter page about some of the experience and that Barker was recovering after the ordeal, but left with many strange visions.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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,

Reviews

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume included three Clive Barker comic adaptations in one massive volume. I haven't read the original books they were based on, aso I can't compare the novels to the comic stories, but here's my take on them:

THE THIEF OF ALWAYS: 5 stars

This was my favorite of the 3 stories. It reminded me of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, and also of Neil Gaiman. Overall a really good story with great art.

THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW: 3.5 stars.

This was by far the longest story in the volume. I liked it, but honestly parts of it totally confused me. Overall, it was very interesting though, as even when I was a bit lost it still made for compelling reading. The art managed to be both cartoonish and sexy at the same time. Nice creepy tale, and for those of you that like far out stories you'll really enjoy this one.

SEDUTH: 2.5 stars

There wasn't much to this one. It was very short and honestly I have no idea what it was about or what was going on. It did look cool visually, but otherwise this was lost on me.

Overall a good volume, and a must for Clive Barker fans. If you like Barker, you'll probably like this.

[Isto R. Eipäs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories, out of which the two first are book adaptations. Feels like the medium was perfect for them!

Clive Barker's worlds are a mix of the ordinary and 1980s fantasy, his forté being phantasmic and unique worlds with unexpected premises and character connections, despite his strong concepts being plagued by characters with cardboard observer-itis and feeling like the author is making stuff up on the spot. The latter is presumably a tradeoff in making the worlds bigger than the characters habiting them, which makes it tricky to weave plot points of which all resonate with theme and rhythm, yet are surprising and acceptable in the boundaries of the story.

Speaking of flat characters: this is a quality-quantity issue by the otherwise ingenious way Barker juggles and introduces a wealth of characters as if it was nothing. Many characters have a textbook noticeable trait as an anchor and experience wonders of the fantasy that ensues, yet character development is exclusive to only the key characters (who -to be fair- are also aplenty). Intuitively it feels very much like 80s-/90s fiction I remember to have read, the characters are maybe a bit too paragon-y. I haven't really read the original book, perhaps it has more time and depth since the implementation of character revelations and traits into the visual medium needs a lot of skill and time.

As if by accident, the second story is Part 1 of the Books of the art trilogy (yet to be concluded, as Clive has a tendency to do, 2023). Nearly untranslatable elements like telepathy and summoning were visualized with simple yet compelling solutions in digital drawing/software, with effects like background layer blur akin to photoshop and speech bubble color, transparency and form.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stories in one.
1. The Thief of Always
Pretty short, loved it. The way the mood slipped from boredom to curiosity to... suspicion. The family controlling the house was delightfully disturbing. Altogether, a wonderful short story.

2. The Great and Secret Show
This is the bulk of the book. Apparently it is the first book of the Art. The "Art" was like this mystical power that let a few people travel at will to this peaceful paradise called Quiddity. It starts off with the Jaff, but he's not called that yet. The Jaff learns about the Art and obsessively seeks to control it himself. He recruits Fletcher to help him. Fletcher figures out this drug to bring out the powers of the Art and accidentally gets some on himself. The Jaff is furious and takes some for himself. But this is still the beginning of the story. And now Fletcher (good) and the Jaff (evil) are locked in this never-ending battle that spans decades.
Overall this story was incredibly interesting, but felt too rushed. There were way too many characters coming from all different places and it was difficult to keep everyone's motives straight. It felt more like hurtling through the story instead of reading through it... I think if it were stretched out more, it would have been better. The whole book could have just been this story.

3. Seduth
Could not get into this very, very short story at all. It felt tacked on at the end. Seduth is like this demon trapped in a diamond and this guy obsesses and kills over it. He sleeps with this weird demon lady and she dies having his baby. This creepy baby comes out grown to look like a 6 year old. Apparently the baby is Seduth and he takes the man to see the Architect. I think Seduth wants the man to choose to end the world and the Architect says it's the man's choice so he takes apart Seduth and basically shows the man that everything is part of everything. The man realizes he was like a cancer to everything so he kills himself. The Architect forgives him because "existence... persists" and the diamond appears for someone else to find.
Really, going through and writing out the plot line helped me understand it more, but it took a few reads. This story does sound more like "Hellraiser", which Barker is of course more known for, minus some of the graphic horror. It feels out of place in this book.

[Phil Zimmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This omnibus contains three unrelated stories written by Clive Barker. The first two are based on novels and the third is an original story.

Thief of Always 1-3, 2005
The Great and Secret Show 1-12, 2006-2007
Seduth One-Shot, 2009

Thief of Always - This was my favorite adaptation in the collection. The story is well told in comic book form and the whimsical painting style of the art work is amazing. Clive Barker's first foray into the childrens tale is not to be missed.

The Great and Secret Show - I love the Art books, but have not read them in about 20 years. I think i reread would have benefited me here. This is a complicated tale that has way too many characters and plot points for a 12 issue series. I found myself confused on character motive. The art is amazing I just wish the adaptation was a little better. This story is the reason I bought this book, so I was a little let down.

Seduth - This one-shot story reads like an experiment in comic book art. The art is unreal and very interesting. I found myself staring at each page for a long time. The story on the other hand, seem to be there to give Gabriel Rodriguez the frame needed to do some amazing artwork. An interesting project.

Overall - An interesting book made slightly disappointing by the adaptation of the Great and Secret Show. The book is self is heavy due to the high quality pages. It could be a little bigger, it is about 10% smaller than an standard graphic novel. The text is sometimes small but never unreadable.

[Tate Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, what a long graphic novel. This is by far the longest most complicated graphic novel I have read thus far. I would of given 2.5 stars but had to round up to three.

The first story - is a bit mild that is probably more suited to a younger audience.

The second and massive story of - The Great and Secret Show is a way out there fantasy/ supernatural story. It is a complicated and a bit tiresome with too many things going on at once. I quickly got tired of the crazy dialogue and how it just kept going on and on. However what pulled me through was the attractive artwork by the same artist of Locke & Key (It is identical artwork). The very attractive characters spread throughout the story was probably another reason I kept on reading.

The omnibus picks up with the very good 'Seduth'. Short and sweet as most comics/ graphic novels should be, pulls you in quickly and spits you before you know what has hit you.

[Mscout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh, too much left out, much better in the original written form. Pretty, though...

[J. Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started out good and then seemed to never end! The artwork is fantastic! That 's the only thing that kept me going towards to end.