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Tapping the Vein #1
Tapping the Vein: Book One
Clive Barker's nightmarish vision has changed the face of horror forever. Now barker does for comics what he's already done for film, stage, and fiction--stretching the very boundaries of the medium itself to bring forth the lyrical and the brutal.
56 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
4 people are currently reading
382 people want to read
About the author
Clive Barker
706 books15.2k followersClive 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,
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,
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 7, 2019
Horror done in true Clive Barker style. Sex, beliefs and humanity all come into question in these 5 graphic novels.
There are two stories / graphic novel and each story is not only different in content but also in art style. Essentially it's like reading 12 different comic books with the same writer. It's almost like reading an animated Books of Blood. And just like the Books of Blood some stories are better than others, nevertheless, Barker definitely has a handle on the short story format. And in book 3 we get to see one of his tried and true stories "Midnight Meat Train" come to life in true graphic novel form.
As always he is a fabulous writer and the artwork just accentuates his amazing writing. I do wish however that Clive Barker would have done some of the illustrations himself as he is a brilliant artist and some of his sketches are completely out of this world! I think it would have been nice to see a few of his sketches within these books. Perhaps at least on the covers.
All things considered these books definitely have my heart. ❤️ Clive Barker's work. Do recommend!
There are two stories / graphic novel and each story is not only different in content but also in art style. Essentially it's like reading 12 different comic books with the same writer. It's almost like reading an animated Books of Blood. And just like the Books of Blood some stories are better than others, nevertheless, Barker definitely has a handle on the short story format. And in book 3 we get to see one of his tried and true stories "Midnight Meat Train" come to life in true graphic novel form.
As always he is a fabulous writer and the artwork just accentuates his amazing writing. I do wish however that Clive Barker would have done some of the illustrations himself as he is a brilliant artist and some of his sketches are completely out of this world! I think it would have been nice to see a few of his sketches within these books. Perhaps at least on the covers.
All things considered these books definitely have my heart. ❤️ Clive Barker's work. Do recommend!
January 19, 2022
Two of my favorite Clive Barker stories turned comic book. P Craig Russell does a great job adapting "Human Remains," a tale of a beautiful rent boy and his menacing doppelganger, and Scott Hampton's paintings confirm "Pig Blood Blues" as one of the scariest things I've ever read.
November 29, 2015
The first story, HUMAN REMAINS, must be the scariest, creepiest story about Doppelgangers ever written. It's a total creepfest.
The second story, PIG BLOOD BLUES, is familiar to me, I've read it in the first volume of The Books of Blood. Still, that was a long time ago, it was nice to see that story of angsty rebellion rendered into Graphic Novel medium.
Both tales are disturbing in their eloquent imagination.
The second story, PIG BLOOD BLUES, is familiar to me, I've read it in the first volume of The Books of Blood. Still, that was a long time ago, it was nice to see that story of angsty rebellion rendered into Graphic Novel medium.
Both tales are disturbing in their eloquent imagination.
March 26, 2012
"I am a thing without a proper name," it pronounced...
"I am a wound in the flank of the world. "
( "Human Remains," by Clive Barker)
Clive Barker is ten years older than me, and I've read so many of his stories and compared them against the work of other writers, that I've declared him to be my favorite writer. While I've never aspired to BE exactly like Barker, I do hope that one day I will produce a piece of work that reads with the fluidity and animalistic self assurance that he so flawlessly exudes.
I'd be interested to know when CB wrote this short story. It seems like a much later piece. (Shades of Imajica.) I've read Barker's ideological struggles on Twitter in the past, his musings over male on male relationships and so on and I noticed a couple of years ago his Twitter messages were much like what is in this short story.
I love that Barker created a new monster with this piece. Two new monsters really, and he does an excellent job of highlighting a few of the monsters we see every day. In some ways, the monster he creates is similar to the vampire and in other ways vastly different. I was immediately drawn into the beginning of the story of the young good-looking 'bumboy' and his material ambitions. Barker is a master craftsman of language. He teases the worst terrors imaginable from his brain and sets them down like a bear-trap on a waiting page, and then before you know it the steel jaws of his concocted nightmares spring up and grab you in a merciless death-shake. Amazing.
The main character, Gavin, is an odd protagonist. He is a nocturnal human making a living off of selling his body for other people's pleasure. I never really 'liked' him in the story, and I didn't ever feel sorry for him, even when he suffered at the goon hands of Preetorias (I'm guessing an adapted word-form of the Praetorian: a Roman bodyguard). It only took one slip-up of the night, one poor miscalculation of a pickup, and Gavin is led to the ending thread of his old life and ushered into a bizarre and twisted world of the new. The beautiful man who once used his looks to get what he needed/wanted out of life suddenly loses his physical perfection, his one claim to fame and perhaps he truly loses his soul. Perhaps he loses it to a spirit once encased (or created) inside an ancient artifact. Or maybe it's simply an exchange of the heart.
There's not a lot I can say that would do justice to this story. I loved the innuendos, and the subtle meanings woven throughout this piece. And the macabre play on words was priceless. Christian. Not Christian. Crime of Fashion. Barker's prose holds disturbingly endearing and dementedly engrossing passages woven into a short story filled with prickly precision and an 'in your face' punch. All of it revealed under the flicker of a golden light jumping up from the flame of a well-timed match. Which reminds me to say that this story brought my thoughts back to the famous lines in Macbeth:
"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more." (~Macbeth. Shakespeare)
And Barker's tale reaches out and brings death to our door, unveiling the Reaper who always wants more...
~Factum Est
http://wieldingpenandsword.blogspot.c...
"I am a wound in the flank of the world. "
( "Human Remains," by Clive Barker)
Clive Barker is ten years older than me, and I've read so many of his stories and compared them against the work of other writers, that I've declared him to be my favorite writer. While I've never aspired to BE exactly like Barker, I do hope that one day I will produce a piece of work that reads with the fluidity and animalistic self assurance that he so flawlessly exudes.
I'd be interested to know when CB wrote this short story. It seems like a much later piece. (Shades of Imajica.) I've read Barker's ideological struggles on Twitter in the past, his musings over male on male relationships and so on and I noticed a couple of years ago his Twitter messages were much like what is in this short story.
I love that Barker created a new monster with this piece. Two new monsters really, and he does an excellent job of highlighting a few of the monsters we see every day. In some ways, the monster he creates is similar to the vampire and in other ways vastly different. I was immediately drawn into the beginning of the story of the young good-looking 'bumboy' and his material ambitions. Barker is a master craftsman of language. He teases the worst terrors imaginable from his brain and sets them down like a bear-trap on a waiting page, and then before you know it the steel jaws of his concocted nightmares spring up and grab you in a merciless death-shake. Amazing.
The main character, Gavin, is an odd protagonist. He is a nocturnal human making a living off of selling his body for other people's pleasure. I never really 'liked' him in the story, and I didn't ever feel sorry for him, even when he suffered at the goon hands of Preetorias (I'm guessing an adapted word-form of the Praetorian: a Roman bodyguard). It only took one slip-up of the night, one poor miscalculation of a pickup, and Gavin is led to the ending thread of his old life and ushered into a bizarre and twisted world of the new. The beautiful man who once used his looks to get what he needed/wanted out of life suddenly loses his physical perfection, his one claim to fame and perhaps he truly loses his soul. Perhaps he loses it to a spirit once encased (or created) inside an ancient artifact. Or maybe it's simply an exchange of the heart.
There's not a lot I can say that would do justice to this story. I loved the innuendos, and the subtle meanings woven throughout this piece. And the macabre play on words was priceless. Christian. Not Christian. Crime of Fashion. Barker's prose holds disturbingly endearing and dementedly engrossing passages woven into a short story filled with prickly precision and an 'in your face' punch. All of it revealed under the flicker of a golden light jumping up from the flame of a well-timed match. Which reminds me to say that this story brought my thoughts back to the famous lines in Macbeth:
"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more." (~Macbeth. Shakespeare)
And Barker's tale reaches out and brings death to our door, unveiling the Reaper who always wants more...
~Factum Est
http://wieldingpenandsword.blogspot.c...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 5, 2012
I got into Clive Barker when he broke the American scene back in the 1980s, and was into comics not much later, so when these comic adaptations of Barker's Books of Blood short stories came out I was all over them. Not only do they do an admirable job of adapting Barker's prose, leaving very little of his rhythm and style out, but they got some of the top artists in the field at the time to illustrate them.
This first book chooses some lesser stories to begin: 'Human Remains,' about a curious sort of doppelganger meeting a rent boy, is adapted and illustrated perfectly by P. Craig Russell; 'Pig Blood Blues' is a ghost story the way only Barker's likely to craft, takes place at a boys' reform school that's just gotten a new worker, and it's smartly illustrated by Scott Hampton but adapted by project originator Chuck Wagner and editor Fred Burke. Not the stories I would have chosen to open the series, but very well handled.
Sadly, the silly and puzzling John Bolton cover as well as the strange neon splatter endpages sort of spoil what could have been a dignified collection.
This first book chooses some lesser stories to begin: 'Human Remains,' about a curious sort of doppelganger meeting a rent boy, is adapted and illustrated perfectly by P. Craig Russell; 'Pig Blood Blues' is a ghost story the way only Barker's likely to craft, takes place at a boys' reform school that's just gotten a new worker, and it's smartly illustrated by Scott Hampton but adapted by project originator Chuck Wagner and editor Fred Burke. Not the stories I would have chosen to open the series, but very well handled.
Sadly, the silly and puzzling John Bolton cover as well as the strange neon splatter endpages sort of spoil what could have been a dignified collection.
November 30, 2017
This first volume of Tapping the vein contains Human Remains and Pig Blood Blues from The Books of Blood.
Human Remains deals with a beautiful young hustler who encounters an evil doppelganger intent on taking over his life - Creepy for the most part but I found the ending just fizzled and Craig Russell's artwork didn't do much for me - although I have seen much worse.
Pig Blood Blues is for the most part supremely freaky - a new teacher at a reformatory 'prison' encounters a sow possessed by one of the former inmates - Scott Hampton's art nicely offsets this one as well.
Over all not a bad attempt at turning Barker's short stories into graphic form. Looking forward to subsequent volumes.
Human Remains deals with a beautiful young hustler who encounters an evil doppelganger intent on taking over his life - Creepy for the most part but I found the ending just fizzled and Craig Russell's artwork didn't do much for me - although I have seen much worse.
Pig Blood Blues is for the most part supremely freaky - a new teacher at a reformatory 'prison' encounters a sow possessed by one of the former inmates - Scott Hampton's art nicely offsets this one as well.
Over all not a bad attempt at turning Barker's short stories into graphic form. Looking forward to subsequent volumes.
Read
October 10, 2022"Human Remains" - A young gay prostitute is hired by an archeologist. During the course of night he stumbles into the bathroom to discover a Roman-esque statue of a man lying in the bath. Over the next few weeks he has the sense of being followed and being haunted by a doppelgänger. At the same time, his mind and body transforms; he becomes cold and lifeless, no longer needing to eat or sleep. He finally discovers his doppelganger, the statue from the bath, at his father's grave, crying in sorrow, while he is unmoved. It becomes clear that the doppelganger has become more convincing as a human than he is, and he wanders away, allowing it to continue living in his persona.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2020
Okay, Clive your graphic novels are good.
I am huge fan of your novels but these are trash.
I am huge fan of your novels but these are trash.
November 11, 2024
Great visualizations of two of Clive's short stories. I love how unique the artwork is.
September 4, 2015
I went to sleep after I was done reading it and woke up around 2 am feeling a bit queasy, normally once I sleep I don't wake up till the alarm goes off. Weird. The stories aren't all that eerie, but you will feel uneasy for a while. Gavin's doppelganger and the demonic sow are hard to forget, they are nowhere near as horrifying as some of the monsters Barker has created but like I said they will leave their imprint.
September 28, 2015
While I enjoyed this graphic novel, and the art was stunning, it feel below my expectations for Clive Barker's writing. I have not read the original stories so this opinion could be down to the adaption, I am not sure
July 31, 2019
beautiful collection
a must-have
a must-have
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews