Recent Additions to the Archive

Time for a catch-up on some of the latest things to find their way onto the archive shelves!

Spanning items dating from 1986 to 2023, the earliest here is an August ’86 sketch that Clive drew inside a copy of the US first edition of The Inhuman Condition.  Other titles here by Clive include new US editions of Weaveworld and The Damnation Game, as well as the Hulu tie-in cover for Book of Blood volume 1.

Large glossy books include Sideshow’s Fine Art Prints, Volume 1 from 2020 (with the Hell Priestess by Ian MacDonald inside) and Rick Jones’s 2022 Portraits of Horror, which has a wealth of horror portrait photography.  These sit alongside Howard Berger and Marshall Julius’s glorious Masters of Make-Up Effects from 2022, which draws back the curtain on a myriad of legends from big screen and small. 

Clive noted in the 2012 art book by Chet Zar (who contributed a wonderful afterword to Imaginer volume 3) that his “extraordinary paintings open an elevator shaft that delivers us down into a world of the purest mystery and dread”. 

In the back row are the 1999 Italian edition of Revelations (with Clive’s Chiliad), Phantasmagoria Press’s 2022 tribute to Fantasy Tales and we’ve happily laid hands on a copy of The Pandoric Maker’s Magnum Opus – with thanks to Eric Gross. Darkside Books in Brazil continues its fabulous run of hardback editions of The Books of Blood with this third volume from 2022 – with the other three scheduled to follow.

There are DVDs and Blu-rays of Candyman and Candyman 2 from France, Candyman and Hellraiser together (France), Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (France, and a UK steelbook), Hellraiser: Inferno (Japan), and Lord of Illusions and Cabal (Nightbreed) both from Germany.

Clive’s poetry is featured in Multiverses (2023), Out Of The Ruins (2021) and Sorbet Magazine (2019) while other people’s poetry is in the 2015 French edition of Now We Are Sick from Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones.  Peter Atkins features twice in the pile of books – with a copy of his new All Our Hearts Are Ghosts short story collection that he handed to us over a wonderful lunch together in Los Angeles earlier this year, alongside his Hellraiser: Bloodline screenplay from Encyclopocalypse (2022).   Hellraiser: Hell On Earth is represented by Danny Stewart’s 2021 making of book, War Is Hell.

Two Funko Pop! Figures for the latest Candyman film sit alongside Suntup Editions’s lavish limited Imajica, and a bag with ‘H is for Hellraiser’ in the horror film alphabet.

In magazines, Hellraiser has had a swathe of recent coverage and Undying is also represented here on the cover of Italy’s Games Machine from 2001. Clive’s artwork is featured inside Hi-Fructose along with an interview we did for our 2022 release of Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds.

Ephemera includes (with thanks to Paul Doble) Weaveworld in a 1988 World Books Review, a flyer for a 1994 signing at Forbidden Planet in London, and a Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights II flyer from 1998 featuring Clive’s Freakz maze.  The German Candyman flyer was for press preview screenings in 1992.  The Hulu Books of Blood image was used by Mad Movies in France in 2020 and there are two film festival brochures – for Clive introducing The Director’s Cut of Nightbreed at Outfest 40 in Los Angeles in 2022 and for our on-stage introductions of both Hellraiser and the Director’s Cut of Nightbreed at the BFI Southbank in London in 2022 in the In Dreams Are Monsters season.

More to follow!  

Clive Barker's Dark Worlds

You’ve created a mirror for me to look into, and it’s a bit of a mindblower, frankly, in the best possible way.

Clive Barker

We're delighted to announce that Abrams Books is set to publish Clive Barker's Dark Worlds, a wide-ranging book covering Clive's decades of creative work, as he celebrates his 70th birthday in October 2022.
Assembled with Clive's full input and assistance, drawing on his archive and covering all aspects of his work, this richly illustrated volume showcases a creative life unconstrained by genre or medium.

Phil & Sarah : "We were approached by an editor at Abrams back in the summer of 2020 who wanted to explore the idea of a monograph that covered every aspect of Clive's work. That's quite a tall order but we’ve thoroughly enjoyed drawing on the archive to give new insight (we hope!) into the thoughts and processes behind Clive's creations in a wealth of different media. All in just 300 pages... In the end we had to stretch that to just over 350 pages and at last count we got to over 350 images as well, so hopefully it strikes the right balance between showing and describing just what makes Clive's creations resonate with such a wide audience."

A DEEP DIVE INTO THE CREATIVE WORLD AND PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF MASTER OF HORROR CLIVE BARKER.

”I've seen the future of horror . . . and his name is Clive Barker.”
In the mid-eighties, Stephen King inducted a young novelist into the world of great genre writers, and since then, the genius creator has only continued to expand his field of activity, within and well beyond horror.
Created by his two closest collaborators and with the help of Barker himself, Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds spans his fantastical body of work, highlighting classic characters like Pinhead, an icon in the pantheon of horror cinema; the Hellraiser series; and cult films Nightbreed and Candyman. Barker’s anthology series Books of Blood and epic tales like Weaveworld, Abarat, The Thief of Always, and Imajica have made him a massive name in literature as well as film.
Barker has also created visual narratives for the worlds of comics, toys, and video games, while his art — his incredible paintings, drawings, and photographs, which fill these pages — has been exhibited in galleries all over the world.

Clive is partnering with Book Soup in Los Angeles to offer a limited number of copies signed by Clive. These are available for pre-order with worldwide shipping options now!

Pre-order at Book Soup

Dark Worlds is also available for pre-order from your local book store and via the following retailers:

You can read more of Clive’s thoughts on Dark Worlds, and his ongoing projects, in our latest interview with him on Revelations.

The Presence Of This Breath

Just a quick update from us on one of Clive’s ongoing projects…

Whilst speaking on the phone to Clive about his poetry a few days ago, he mentioned how much he’d like to share the sound of the poems as he hears them in his head with others, so we suggested simply recording the call then and there…

So, with apologies for the quality of an impromptu transatlantic call, occasional interruptions from Clive’s parrot Malingo, and the periodic background noise from a neighbour’s hedge-trimming (!), here’s Clive reading just a small selection of the poems which form part of his upcoming collection, The Presence of This Breath.

YouTube link

Phil & Sarah

Imaginer - Shipping Update

We’re busily shipping all the pre-orders of both Imaginer volumes 7 and 8 so copies will be arriving on doorsteps around the world very shortly now. Over the next few days you’ll be receiving tracking details and confirmation of shipments as we work through everyone’s orders, but it will take just a little while to fulfill them all, so please don’t worry if you’ve not received a note from us just yet…

Clive Barker : Imaginer Series

This means, of course, that many of you will soon have a complete Imaginer set on your shelves!

A huge ‘thank you’ from us and from Clive to everyone who has supported the project, from the first Kickstarter through all eight volumes. It couldn’t have been done without you, or without the efforts of James Kay at Transmission Atelier and our printer, GPSD.

Some of you have asked ‘what’s next?’ and we do have a number of projects ongoing - more news of those just as soon as we have safely shipped Imaginer copies to everyone. One thing we can share, though, is that we’re working on completing a slim index volume to sit next to your Imaginer collection and make it easier to locate your favourite pieces of Clive’s art.

We do hope you and your friends and loved ones enjoy your collection for many years to come - this is, we’re told, a highly unusual achievement for a modern artist, to have such a concerted collection documented in his lifetime, and we’re pleased as punch to have played our part in bringing this contemporary piece of art history to fruition.

Phil & Sarah

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Completing Imaginer!

We’re delighted to reveal the cover art for the eighth and final volume of the Imaginer Series!

Pre-orders are open now and these preferential pre-order prices will rise to retail prices on publication. As always, this volume is available in two editions:

• the regular edition (limited to 1,000 copies)

• the deluxe clamshell edition, signed by Clive (limited to 100 numbered copies)

Everyone who pre-orders a book will also receive an exclusive A5 art card featuring art from the Imaginer series, and all copies will also include an A4 mini-poster. We anticipate that we’ll be shipping these out in mid - late March 2020, hard on the heels of book 7, but we’ll update on both books before then.

A huge ‘thank you’ from us and Clive to everyone who’s followed the series to completion - you’ve helped to create a formidable set of books that chronicles a huge part of Clive’s diverse creative world and we hope you’ll enjoy the books for many years to come!

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Light, Wisdom and Sound

Working on projects with Clive, we spend as much time as we can with him in LA as there’s so much more you can achieve in person over a mug of tea than via video calls from here in London!

On our latest trip, we were delighted to uncover a work that had been feared lost in recent property moves…

In the summer of 1993, Clive was commissioned to travel to New York to create a huge painted backdrop in the space of just 48 hours for the opening of the Light, Wisdom and Sound nightclub on West 29th Street. As he says even now, ‘How could I refuse?!’

Together with some helping hands mixing colours for him, he painted Shaman: The Metaphysics of Light, Wisdom and Sound, a huge loose canvas which was hung as a backdrop against the walls of the club. At the opening event Allen Ginsberg blessed the painting with an invocation on its midnight unveiling (see Jill Abrams’s footage here!)

Clive’s clear memories of meeting the great beat poet and a host of interesting characters that night are married with the frenzy of painting something so large in such a short space of time – all of which came to the fore as we unearthed the canvas and unfurled it for the first time in fourteen years, since its appearance at the Zoomen event at the Bert Green Galley in Los Angeles.

Neighbours stopped on the street as we unrolled it, startled by its sheer size and by the vivid colours which have not been dimmed by time, and Clive got to re-visit his painting, astonished by its clarity and the imagery which has followed on into works which he has made many years later.

(with thanks to Roman for clambering up on the garden wall to get the best angles for photographs!)

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Your Name In Imaginer 8

As we approach the end of the eight-book Imaginer series, we’re going to do something a little different and we’re offering the opportunity for your name to be included within the book…

The final Imaginer volume, set for publication in 2020

We’ve previously only offered a chance to include your name in the book to those purchasing deluxe editions but, for this final volume, we’re extending the offer to everyone, at a (lower) price of $100. If you would like to be thanked by name in all copies (both limited and deluxe) of the final Imaginer volume, please head to the store (link below) to purchase this option.

 Please note: - this is only for your name to be printed in all editions of Volume 8- ordering this option does not include a copy of the book (which will need to be purchased closer to publication in the usual way)

This final volume is set for publication in late Spring of 2020. However, our print schedule demands that this option will only be available until 3 December 2019.

Pre-orders for Imaginer 8 itself will begin in the New Year and pre-orders for Book 7 (at a reduced pre-publication price) continue to be available now, whilst it is safely in the hands of our printers!

P&S

More about the Imaginer Series - Volumes 1 to 7

September Update - Imaginer

We’re conscious that we’ve been a little quiet in recent months about timings for the next volume of the Imaginer series, but we’ve been working hard behind the scenes!

Happily, all of the images and all of the text are now firmly in the hands of our pre-press guru, James, and we’ll be opening pre-orders for Imaginer 7 in two weeks’ time, on 1 October.

We’ve sat with Clive for many hours at his home in Los Angeles and, over the course of several cups of tea and amid some passionate debate, we’ve together selected another wonderful gallery of artwork for Imaginer 7…

…and we’ve completed the selection for Imaginer 8 too…

So the good news is that most of the content for Imaginer 8 is also being prepped and preened so that it can go to print right behind Imaginer 7.  We’ll hold fire on taking pre-orders for that just until we’re sure that everything is in order for that final volume.

That said, if you’re keen to have your name included in the ‘with thanks’ section of the last Imaginer book, be aware that we may have a quick turnaround time to get those names in, and for pre-orders in general, so please make sure you’re signed up to the newsletter (link below) as we'll send a note out ahead of time.

With the print schedules involved in delivering these beautiful books, we don’t expect Imaginer 7 in hand until after Christmas but – all being well – the New Year should bring two volumes and complete the series!

More about the Imaginer Series - Volumes 1 to 6

Auction Of Original Art

Mater Motley’s Grande Aunt

Just a quick update post: The Archive is hosting an online auction of 18 pieces of original art, each one personally selected by Clive directly from his studio space. Each piece is named and signed by Clive.

Now accepting bids!

Head to the Archive site to view the artwork and place your bid

• Starts: now!

• Ends: Saturday, May 11 2019 at 12 Noon PDT

• All the details are on the auction page, but any questions, just let us know...

Good luck!
Phil & Sarah

Sign up to the Archive newsletter here to make sure you always get the earliest news of Archive publications and additions to the store!

Original art for sale!

Hopefully you’ll have received our recent newsletter which carries the news that Clive has personally selected a number of pieces to be made available for sale through the Archive store.

The first selection is a collection of 21 studio sketches which are now available. These sketches offer a direct insight into Clive's development of characters for Abarat, Deep Hill and other ongoing projects. Own an original piece for your walls!

All pieces are signed by Clive and come with a certificate of provenance from The Clive Barker Archive.

Sign up to the Archive newsletter here to make sure you always get the earliest news of Archive publications and additions to the store!