More Plays..!

We're delighted that the next two titles in the Clive Barker Playscripts series are now available in the store!

Hunters in the Snow is set in a medieval, Breughel-inspired landscape and features a character called The Dutchman - a dark, undead witchfinder, summoned by mysterious means - with traits that would later feed into Clive's Mamoulian and Pinhead characters.  Staged in the illustrious Everyman Theatre in Liverpool for just two nights in 1973, this text is a must-read for anyone interested in reading an early iteration of themes that would continue to infuse Clive's writing for many years.

Crazyface was written as a piece commissioned by The Cockpit Youth Theatre in London in 1982. The play follows the trials of a family of fools - particularly the path of Tyl Eulenspiegel as he becomes unwittingly embroiled in a frantic Europe-wide scramble for control of a secret for which nations will go to war... 

Hunters in the Snow and Crazyface are available now in the store.

• Hunters in the Snow: Paperback first edition with cover art by Clive Barker, 118 pages, $7 plus shipping
• Crazyface: Paperback edition with cover art by Clive Barker, 182 pages, $10 plus shipping

These two join The Magician and The History of the Devil as the first four of Clive's plays to be published by the Archive.  Further titles will become available over coming months!

"These plays are not finished things, they're invitations to collective work... These are blueprints, not houses. I am laying out the ground rules for a circus, and inviting wild beasts, clowns, and strippers on to parade themselves in any and every combination.
"What it comes down to is that these are texts which are meant to be starting places for very particular intellectual and artistic adventures. And they are particular to the group of people who have been gathered there to have the adventure. They are deliberately free-form. They are deliberately overpacked. They are deliberately ragged, unhoned, raw. I make no apology for any of that. They are intended to be, I hope, inspirational rather than repressive.
"They are ways to say to actors and directors and designers, 'Here are some ideas, here are some lines, here are some situations. Make masks, make dance, make music, make mime, make whatever you want to personalise this experience.'"

Clive Barker

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New Arrivals

Recent arrivals in the archive include various editions of Brian James Freeman's excellent Detours anthology which collects shorter pieces of writing which grew as offshoots of authors' current work. These include a lost first chapter of Michael Marshall's Smith's Spares, an abandoned fragment from Ray Bradbury, and Clive's A Night's Work - all fascinating..!

It's always great to come across editions from around the world - although we found these Chinese copies of The Books of Blood pretty close to home in England. The Lilja's Library collection, Shining in the Dark, (including Pidgin And Theresa) has been enjoying multiple translations, so we look forward to seeing more of these in days to come.

Scored to Death collects the thoughts of composers on the horror films they've written for, and includes interviews with Simon Boswell and Christopher Young, to say nothing of a host of other eminent composers! 

Idolos del cine is the Spanish edition of Graven Images, a fabulous collection of horror film posters with an essay by Clive in it, and the Death Head artwork poster is a new arrival in the store - in stock and shipping now! 

Oh - for those of you eagerly awaiting new titles in the Playscripts Series - we came across a number of handwritten amendments to the script for Hunters in the Snow which delayed us a little whilst we made edits. But we're full steam ahead on those and our next update will have a firm publication date!

In the meantime there are new additions to the Archive gallery, including some rather nice Hellraiser 2 lobby sheets from Spain, some soundtrack covers and the front page of the shooting draft screenplay for Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh - do take a look!

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Happy New Year!

As we get back to work this week after the Christmas break, we've got plenty to look forward to in 2018...

We're delighted to be continuing to release titles in the new series of Clive's play scripts as affordable paperbacks.  It's been great to hear all the positive comments about The Magician and The History of the Devil - a huge thank you to everyone who has ordered them (and we hope to see productions springing up worldwide!).

Our next two titles are Crazyface and Hunters in the Snow, set for publication in a few weeks' time.

Crazyface was written by Clive in 1982 for the Cockpit Youth Theatre in London and centres around the fool Tyl Eulenspiegel as he stumbles across a secret that nations are prepared to kill for.

Hunters in the Snow has never before been published and is a play from 1973 inspired by the works of Breugel. It includes a character called The Dutchman, originally played by Doug Bradley, that Clive would later see echoes of in the dialogue and bearing of Hellraiser's lead cenobite, Pinhead.

And... we'll be adding many more images from the Archive to the gallery here, with a programme to add at least one new image each and every day this month! Leading off today is a double with an FX storyboard from Hellraiser: Bloodline and the cover of a US presskit for Galilee.

In the meantime, we continue to work with Clive on the Imaginer art books - we'll have a shipping update for Imaginer 5 later this month...

Here's to a great 2018!

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What's new..?

Recently arrived to add to the archive, here's a quick look at some of the things that have come our way!

First up, the fabulous original art for the cover of one of the first run Nightbreed comics (issue #12). Painted by John Rheaume, this representation of Rawhead Rex has superb attention to detail. This photo doesn't do justice to Matt Ryan Tobin's stunning art, shown here on the Arrow Hellraiser steelbook and Christopher Young's soundtrack on vinyl (it's also on a glorious Mondo poster which is currently heading to the framers!) 

Other movies here - a Spanish language VHS of Lord of Illusions is new to us and the new Kino Lorber Rawhead Rex Blu-ray was released last month. The Art of Horror Movies is Stephen Jones's latest offering from Applause - a fascinating walk through poster and press art from around the world (including work for Hellraiser sequels, Nightbreed, Lord of Illusions and Quicksilver Highway). Hugely insightful and definitely recommended.

Thanks to Cemetery Dance for advance copies of Detours (contains A Night's Work) and Reading Stephen King (with Clive's 2007 speech to the Canadian Booksellers Association), and to Steve Dillon for the Hellraiser-inspired Empath's Tale collection. Earthling Publications' beautiful lettered edition of The Scarlet Gospels is a great addition to its suite of CB publications.

Last, but not least, we love this Candyman figure! Sculpted in polymer clay, Clay Disarray produced this figure as a one-off to create a photographic poster for the movie and we're delighted to give it a home in the archive. (There's also a Clay Disarray Pinhead out there somewhere..!)

A quick reminder that we're turning around orders for the new Clive Barker Playscripts within 24 hours, so there's still time to get copies for you or your very best friends for Christmas!

Clive Barker Playscripts

For a long time we've wanted to share the texts of Clive's plays which are held here in the archive - so we're delighted to announce that as of November 2017 we'll be publishing a series of full scripts.

The first two titles - The Magician and The History of the Devil - are available now through the Archive store.

This is the first edition of The Magician - a one-act play in the Commedia dell' Arte tradition. Originally performed by The Dog Company in 1978, this first publication of the full script includes 14 photos of the original production, poster art and manuscript pages from the archive.

The History of the Devil is one of Clive's most successful plays, with productions continuing around the world long after it was first performed by The Dog Company in 1980. This new publication of the full script includes 7 photos of the original production, poster art and manuscript pages from the archive.

• The Magician: Paperback first edition with cover art by Clive Barker, 92 pages, $6 plus shipping

• The History of the Devil: Paperback edition with cover art by Clive Barker, 188 pages, $9 plus shipping

Further titles will become available over coming months!

"These plays are not finished things, they're invitations to collective work... These are blueprints, not houses. I am laying out the ground rules for a circus, and inviting wild beasts, clowns, and strippers on to parade themselves in any and every combination.
"What it comes down to is that these are texts which are meant to be starting places for very particular intellectual and artistic adventures. And they are particular to the group of people who have been gathered there to have the adventure. They are deliberately free-form. They are deliberately overpacked. They are deliberately ragged, unhoned, raw. I make no apology for any of that. They are intended to be, I hope, inspirational rather than repressive.
"They are ways to say to actors and directors and designers, 'Here are some ideas, here are some lines, here are some situations. Make masks, make dance, make music, make mime, make whatever you want to personalise this experience.'"

Clive Barker