Creator: Clive Barker
Editor: Marc McLaurin
Asst. Editor: Tom Daning
Consulting Editor: Malcolm Smith
Exec. Editor: Carl Potts
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
Designer: Joe Kaufman
Cover: Tristan Schane/Vito Incorvaia

Sorry for the late post today! You can blame Spore. The videogame has me hooked. What can I say???

As you all may know, I am obsessed with any and all things horror. So when I busted into my comic for today, I had high hopes as it’s created by Clive Barker. Too bad I didn’t realize it was just a preview issue!

Razorline: Superheros from the mind of Clive Barker, is an interesting preview into four separate comics including Hyperkind, Ectokid, Hokum & Hex, and Saint Sinner. It gives two to three pages of a few of the comics spurred from Barker’s demented imagination. In case you’re unfamiliar with Barker and his past work, he’s the creator of one of my all-time favorite movie series (and I can’t pick a particular one since they’re all awesome) HellRaiser.

Similar to HellRaiser, Barker creates his own universe within the comic (aptly dubbed the Barkerverse) which is never quite what it seems. Whether the character is bordering between the dead and the living worlds, or whether the character themselves is walking the fine line between reality and insanity, you’re always left in a bit of a dream-state.

This is so interesting to me though. I love the thought of reality being changeable and palpable. I like the idea that what we wake up to everyday may have more facets to it that we’re completely unaware of. It’s like psychedelic drugs. Now I have little to no experience in this department but I’ve read a lot about them. I’ve read Change Your Brain by Timothy Leary and I love the thought that mind-altering substances may ultimately open up new realities beyond the one that is ever present in our own world.

But because mind-altering drugs tend to freak me out, I turn to things like horror literature. And I’m ultimately pleased by Barker’s journey into the comic realm. One of the comics that interested me most in this preview was the one about Saint Sinner. Saint Sinner is a character who was born into a body that was inhabited by a demon. When the demon commanded the boy to kill his parents, the boy managed at the last moment to hush the demon and spared his parents. However the boy was so distraught that he threw himself into a river to kill himself. Eventually an angel saves the boy but the boy is so exhausted, he can’t fight off the commands of the demon who makes him kill the savior angel. As such, the angel is then burned into the boy’s soul as it dies, thus the boy is a house for both the demon and the angel.

Saint Sinner is then forced to walk through eternity, always battling the two halves of himself. Talk about an angel and a devil sitting on your shoulders, telling you what to do! In the preview, a guy summons the Saint Sinner and asks him to make him and his music famous. When Saint Sinner shows the guy tomorrow’s newspaper headline, the guys sees that he’s dead and through his death, his music survives and thrives. The guy freaks out and is like, “whoa, dude, I didn’t want to get famous and not be able to enjoy it!” Saint Sinner merely tells the guy to be careful what he asks for. Priceless. One of my favorites morals to a story: be careful what you wish for.

Anyways, I really enjoyed this preview and hopefully I can get my hands on the issues of the comics that came after this. I guess I’m left wondering whether or not anyone really believes in alternate realities and universes. I would love to think they exist. I hope that we’re not so self-centered to believe that this world and it’s confines are the only things that matter or are tangible.