A review by furythephoenix
Clive Barker's Hellraiser Vol. 1 by Christopher Monfette, Clive Barker

3.0

I enjoyed this continuation of the Hellraiser saga, how it tied into the first two films with some references by none other than Kirsty Cotton herself. However, the story seemed to leap all over the place and at times, much as I loved the graphic telling of the tale, it was often incoherent. The dialogue between the human characters could at times be quite cringey, too. There was, however, a beautifully dark poeticism to much of the prose, especially Pinhead's dialogue and introspection, which to me was the classic Clive Barker I know and love. Funnily enough, I can see this tying into Barker's latest book "The Scarlet Gospels", which I shelved recently for much the same criticisms as in this review, albeit magnified threefold in that book's case. I wonder if perhaps by reading this comic series, maybe I'll be better prepared for the Scarlet Gospels later down the track.
In my opinion, not Barker's best work by a long, long shot, but still decent. I'm going to give the next volume a try in good faith.