#abarat

[wyrmsfornerves]

Abarat sketches because I adored this series as a kid

[gwydpolls]

Lucian's Library 6

Feel free to suggest never written books you wish you could read.

Some items suggested by impatient readers for still living authors.

[danidoesartforschool]

book 3

ABSOLUTE MIDNIGHT

magic and chaos

[borninwinter81]

I've been rediscovering my love for Clive Barker this week due to finally managing to see The Ultimate Cabal Cut of Nightbreed (some kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube) and then re-reading Cabal, the book it was based on.

Cabal is amongst my favourite books ever written (though as a bibliophile that list is extremely long!) and one of my favourite movies. I originally saw it in the early 90s when I was probably far too young, and read the book not long after.

I backed the Occupy Midian campaign in 2012 when the lost footage was being searched for and reintegrated into the movie, and I attended a screening of one of the early edits where I met Nicholas Vince and Simon Bamford (Kinski and Ohnaka in Nightbreed, but better known as two of the Cenobites from Hellraiser). This led to the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release of The Directors Cut (which I got a physical copy of) and then The Ultimate Cabal Cut (which I didn’t, and which I haven't seen until now).

It's an oversimplification to call Barker's work horror, especially in Cabal/Nightbreed - this was the mistake the production company made when originally editing and marketing it.

Clive Barker's vision shows us the beauty of the weird, the macabre, the abnormal, and the supernatural, and the true horror in his work comes from the "normal".

In Cabal/Nightbreed his monsters are not evil, they're simply different - undead, mutants and supernatural beings, a metaphor for anyone who has ever felt othered by society. Midian is a place where they can live safely with no fear or judgement. The evil characters are "naturals", humans who hate and fear the monsters for being different even though they pose no threat, and ultimately try to destroy them.

As a member of the LGBT community it's easy to see where Barker's motivation for this metaphor came from, but it could equally apply to just about anyone who feels like they don't fit in. Certainly as a lonely, bullied, weird child when I first read/saw it, who then grew up into a reasonably weird adult, I'd love for the monsters to come and take me away to Midian.

Anyone seeing this who isn't familiar with the book/movie, I'd urge you to look them up, as well as others by Barker. More of my favourites by him are Imajica, Abarat and of course The Hellbound Heart, filmed as Hellraiser. The Forbidden from short story anthology The Books of Blood was also filmed as Candyman.

Below I've linked The Cabal Cut of Nightbreed. Even if you know and love the original theatrical release I'd still urge you to watch this (quick as you can in case its removed due to copyright!).

In addition to doubling the movie length from 1 hour 40 mins to 3 hours 20 mins, a number of the actors voices have been re-recorded as they were overdubbed in the theatrical version for some reason, notably those of Rachel, and Lylesberg, played by Doug Bradley. It was a crime to remove that man's beautiful voice and wonderful to hear it back where its meant to be.

Also, rather than being a standard horror movie heroine who seems to be there only to scream and be rescued, in this version Lori comes across as much stronger and more well-rounded character.

As it says in the opening text, although much of the footage was of good quality there are some sections where all they had available were degraded VHS tapes, some of which were without audio. This means the editing is also a little clunky in places. However the makers of this version wanted to include everything they possibly could in order to bring it in line with the original shooting script and Clive Barker's epic vision for the piece.

[mercuryislove]

[variousqueerthings]

clive barker: christopher carrion is a nasty looking man, he's a corpse-like creature with tubes sticking out of his head, nightmare goo swimming around his face, scarred lips, hairless pale weird pathetic fucking guy

me: ok ok he's hot I gotcha

[its-me-vixen]

GRAIL FIND AT THE THRIFT BOOKSTORE

Hardback baby!!! I refuse to let my partners read the paperback version of the first book I already have because Clive Barker's art is such an important part of the whole, having someone read it with just plain text feels like cutting off my arm and asking me to sign my name. I'm genuinely ecstatic, this is such a fantastic find!!

[j-hawthorn]

Torturing myself by rereading the Abarat books by Clive Barker KNOWING IN MY BONES this series will never be finished

[ligbi]

[gh0stlycryptic]

i need Abarat by Clive Barker like i need life. i know he had some health issues recently, but i really hope he will be able to finish book 4 soon. he recently said that he won't be making that many physical appearances so he can focus on his writing, but he said he has like 30+ things he is working on, so i hope Kry Rising is one of them. i am going to be rereading the 3 that are out now, pining for the 4th.

i am also happy that Disney no longer has the rights to Abarat, and they are back in Clive's hands, because they would have ruined it for sure

also, please, please, PLEASE tell me if you are a part of this fandom. i have felt alone for most of my life.

basically, this is a Petition to revive the Abarat fandom and even rope more people in. force your friends to read it, read it to them if you have to. info dump about it, idc, just please, i can't stand feeling like the only one constantly thinking about these books

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"HE HAD BEEN BORN, FOR INSTANCE, WITH NOT ONE, BUT THREE MOUTHS, ALL LINED WITH BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the triple-mouthed Leeman Vol, plus initial concept art, from "Abarat" Book Two, a.k.a., "Days of Magic, Nights of War" (2004), artwork/ sketch art/ painting by Clive Barker.

"Nothing about Vol was pleasant or pretty. He did not like the company of his fellow bipeds much, preferring to enjoy the fellowship of insects. This in itself had gained him a measure of infamy around the islands, not least because he bore on his face more than a few mementos of that intimacy. He had lost his nose to a spider many years before, the creature having injected his proboscis with a toxin so powerful that it had mortified the skin and cartilage in a few agonising minutes, leaving Vol with two slimy holes in the middle of his face. He had fashioned a leather nose for himself, which effectively masked the mutilation but still made him the target of taunts and whispers. Not that the nose was the sole reason that people talked about him. There were other facts about Vol's appearance and personal habits that made him noteworthy.

He had been born, for instance, with not one but three mouths, all lined with bright yellow teeth that he had meticulously sharpened to pinprick points. When he spoke, the mingling and interwoven sounds of those three mouths was uncanny. Grown men had been known to block their ears and leave the room sobbing because the sound put them so much in mind of their childhood nightmares. Nor was this second grotesquerie all the vileness that Vol could boast. He had claimed from his childhood that he knew the secret language of insects and that his three mouths allowed him to speak it."

-- Extract from chapter "Darkness and Anticipation," from the 2004 fantasy novel "Days of Magic, Nights of War" (book two in the "ABARAT" series)

Sources: https://vintageandmodernbooks.com/products/horror-hardback-clive-barker-visions-of-heaven-and-hell-first-edition-printing & www.clivebarker.info/abaratevolution3.html.

[phyllidaluna]

Autism prince quivering and crying because he spilled his worms from quivering and crying

[deadbirdlife]

Life is short

And pleasures few

And holed the ship

And drowned the crew

But o! But o!

How very blue

The sea is.

- Clive Barker (Abarat)

[skeppsbrott]

Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover's work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good.

Clive Barker, Abarat

Ten years ago, I was in high school, doing an art-focused program. This was my response to the assignment of making a work of art based on a poem. I did not really engage with poetry at the time but I was a fan of Clive Barker's Abarat books, which featured poems he had written mostly within the universe of the story, including the first poem I ever memorised and also this one. I think it stuck with me for the easy structure, the sort of visual aspect of it.

Anyway, about a year ago, my basement was flooded. It happened while I was away and it was not discovered until many months of summer warmth had passed and things had started to get really nasty. That's the easy retelling; the full story is much more frustrating and infuriating. The end result remains the same - almost all of my art from 2018 and before was severely water damaged. I threw away what could not be saved and set myself to the exhausting task of drying out the remainder and beginning efforts to stabilise and sanitise it.

Most work from my high school years looks something like this. Usually worse. The pink and purple flecks are from pigment bleed of some printwork, the black is mostly mold. It was heartbreaking going through it all, so perhaps it is just the Stockholm syndrome speaking, but there is a sort of beauty in these stains.

I enjoy this work a lot. I look back at my teen self and think, man, you really did see something here. It is not the type of work I would do today - I have accepted that it is not my destiny to make the kind of clean and precise inkwork my teen self admired so much. But it is the type of work I still enjoy. I might frame it one of these days, but for now, I'll just leave it here on tumblr.

[electriccalypso]

I adore clive barker, he's a massive artistic inspiration to me, so here's some of my favourite pieces by him.