Cliver Barker - His Story...becomes ours (from "Book 1") "The extraordinary thing is this: that the moment you make a story or create an image that finds favour with an audience, you've effectively lost it. It toddles off, the little bastard; it becomes the property of the fans. It's they who create around it their own mythologies; who make sequels and prequels in their imagination; who point out the inconsistencies in your plotting. I can envisage no greater compliment. What more could a writer or film maker ever ask, than that their fiction be embraced and become part of the dream-lives of people who it's likely he'll never even meet? HELLRAISER, and to a lesser extent the novella upon which it's based, The Hellbound Heart, were pieces of work that elicited these welcome responses from their first appearance on the page and screen. That the Lament Configuation and the Cenobites its solving summons -- Pinhead especially, of course -- be taken to the hearts and imaginations of so many healthily perverse folks around the world was both surprising and reassuring to me. The former because the film had been made very cheaply -- as much to prove to myself and the overlords of Hollywood that I could turn a modest amount of money into a marketable film; the latter because the images and ideas in the picture were extremely dark, and I was delighted that there was a sizeable audience for a horror film that didn't dice adolescents in the shower, or have it's tongue buried so deeply in it's cheek it could lick out it's ear from the inside. But back to what I was saying about the work being possessed by others. After HELLRAISER came HELLBOUND, HELLRAISER II, in which writer Peter Atkins and director Tony Randel took the open threads of the first movie and wove their own sequel. It wasn't the movie I would have made, but it was immensely interesting to see how other minds and other talents dealt with the ideas; exploring avenues I hadn't even contemplated when I first set pen to paper. Which brings me on to the comic book in your hands, the first of what I hope will be many such little monsters. It's twin godfathers are Archie Goodwin and Dan Chichester, and it's many parents are listed in the pages that follow. Though my name's on the cover I am, you see, just a bystander at this baptism. But I'm proud nevertheless. Not just that so many fine creators were sufficiently attracted by the conceits of HELLRAISER to expand it's fictional world with tales of their own, but because -- lo and behold! - the little bastard movie I made's got a life of it's own. Who'd have thought it? Who'd have ever thought?" - Clive Barker