To my amazement, one day (circa 1989) at the comic shop I saw a copy of Clive Barker's Hellraiser #1 on the new release wall. This was an anthology comic published by Epic, Marvel's "serious" imprint. The comic was deluxe for the era: perfect bound, thick paper, and chock full of painted art. I was in love.
I've managed to get a full collection of the Epic Hellraiser comics over the years, and now it's time to re-read them and give a full reevaluation. Are they a worthy addition to the "Hellraiser Mythos"? Or were they a cash-in that will ring hollow now that my days of youthful enthusiasm are at an end? Here's what the first issue summoned forth:
Erik Saltzgaber, John Bolton, Bill Oakley
"The Canons of Pain"
Things kick off with an extremely strong start with "The Canons of Pain." I am a sucker for Hellraiser stories with a historical gloss, and "The Canons of Pain" takes place during the Crusades. Our virtuous knight brings a Lament Configuration back from the Holy Land, but that's not the only burden he carries--it's clear that in this story the puzzle box is a metaphor for his war-induced post-traumatic stress. I also love the gimmick in play--once the puzzle is solved and the Cenobite is summoned, the medieval characters try their damnedest to fit its existence into their Catholic framework of demons, hell, and the justice of God. Overall, it's a banger of an opening story and I adore that you can still see the canvas grain in the art, just beautiful texture.
Sholly Fisch, Dan Spiegle, Carrie Spiegle, Sherilyn van Valkenburgh
"Dead Man's Hand"
"The Canons of Pain" isn't the only historical drag the first issue of Hellraiser has to offer: "Dead Man's Hand" gives us a slice of the Wild West. It's a classic premise--a stranger comes to town, looking to play some high-stakes poker, with a man's soul on the line. The stranger antes up a Lament Configuration, which everyone thinks is the big prize. It's not, of course. When his intended victim emerges as the winner of the card game, he gets the real prize--the stranger takes the box with him and rides out of town. It's a slight story, especially after the vicious tangle of the first tale, but it's a fun diversion nonetheless.
Jan Strnad, Bernie Wrightson, Bill Wray, Michael Heisler
"The Warm Red"
"The Warm Red" is a story that has really stuck with me over the years; it's easily my favorite of the tales in the first issue. A manipulative real estate mogul gets a tip that some ailing farmland is going to be virtually priceless once Disney moves in and makes a new theme park nearby, so she swoops in ahead of the other vultures to buy the place off the dimwitted yokel who owns it. She not above using sex to blind him to the swindle, and one of the things I love about this story is that they resisted the temptation to make her a typical "sexy comic woman" of pneumatic proportions and instead portray her as older, oddly angular, but still seductive and real.
Of course, little does our swindler know that the dimwitted yokel has been cast from the Ed Gein mold--he's a sadist who was tortured at the hands of his pious mother, the perfect recipe for a beast to fall into the hands of a Cenobite. The Cenobite in this story is worth mentioning; his name is Face, due to the mask of skin stapled over the blood and muscle of his head, and this won't be his only appearance over the comic's run.
Our yokel turns the tables on the businesswoman, drugging her into unconsciousness so her can cut her up and give her over to Hell's dominion.
When she awakes, mostly nude and tied spread-eagled to a gore-soaked mattress, the pain is about to begin. But remember, she's a wheeler and dealer--she makes Face an offer that feels like a true bargain. As she explains to the Cenobite, yon yokel only feeds a trickle of souls to Leviathan--and just think how the yield could be increased if someone savvy were at the helm! And so, our yokel and our manipulative femme fatale trade places; at the story's close, he's the one strapped down, fearfully awaiting the cruel application of the knife.
Ted McKeever, "Dance of the Fetus"
"Dance of the Fetus" is a mostly wordless story about a woman who has summoned a demon seemingly to give her the strength to commit suicide. Ted McKeever's idiosyncratic art style is a great fit for the themes of the piece; it's moody, glum, and frankly depressive. Once the demon slips inside the woman, he discovers a spanner in the works--the woman is pregnant. It is, apparently, against regulations for Hell to claim an innocent in the bargain, so the fetus is taken outside of the woman's body, where it floats up into the firmament to become a star. This is a great piece of comic work, but I have one caveat with it: it just doesn't feel like a Hellraiser story! And that's what makes it interesting within the context of the first issue--you can see how the team involved is feeling out the territory, finding the limits of what a comic called Clive Barker's Hellraiser can do without becoming alienated from itself.
