The comic books and sequels must have a seriousness of intent. But after you made these things, you’ve sort of got to let the children totter off on their own and see what happens. How does Barker feel about others who carry on his work, particularly film sequels? “I’ve got very mixed feelings,” he said. “Hellraiser III,” with him as executive producer is scheduled to begin shooting today in North Carolina. As for the rest of his empire, work on 12 different comic books continues apace. “I laugh at the words, cry while I’m writing sad parts, I get hot while I’m doing the sexual scenes.”īarker obviously enjoys talking about “Imajica” and he will continue to do so for the next six weeks through most of the Western world on a whirlwind press tour.

“I get very involved when I’m writing,” he said, leaning across the table. How did Barker bring this complex tale to its fevered pitch? “But men who’ve read it think of it as masculine. “Women always think Pie is feminine,” said Barker. Its sex depends upon the eye of the beholder. This ambiguous, transforming sexuality is also central to “Imajica.” The Christo’s companion and lover, the mysterious assassin, Pie “oh” Pah, first appears initially as a man, but then a woman in Gentle’s bed. Deeper into the story the reader finds that Abelove was once a man, killed by one of Barker’s metaphysical monsters and thrown into the In Ovo for eternity. Tossed onto a lesser character as a means of torture, Abelove and its prisoner reach a disturbed, womb-like sexual union. “This shouldn’t come off as pretentious, but with ‘Imajica’ I was ready to take it on … I had always been fascinated with the idea of the Son of God in a story, and he doesn’t know who he is!”īarker said it took him 14-16 months, working 12-14 hours a day, to complete “Imajica.” The book reveals itself in rich detail there is almost nothing in the tale - no matter how insignificant - that goes unexplained, even if the explanation doesn’t crop up until 600 pages later.įor example, fans will enjoy the appearance of Abelove, a jellyfish-like parasite fished from a hellish Barkerian limbo known as the In Ovo. “I would have never dreamed of writing a story around the son of God right after ‘The Books of Blood.’ I wouldn’t have dreamed of it! Upon closer interrogation, Barker admits that he wasn’t capable of this 10 years ago. In the course of “Imajica,” it falls to him to regain his past, gather his lost disciples and journey through alternate dominions of human and non-human existence, Imajica, in a journey to find his Father: Hepaxemendios, The Unbeheld - “God.”Īnd then Gentle has to decide whether to kill him. But this Christo, shamed and plagued by memories of The Fall, has erased his past and become a weak, wenching counterfeiter of paintings named Gentle.

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