Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Hellraiser: The Toll
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 12/29/1981
WEBSITE: http://www.markalanmiller.com/
CITY: Hollywood
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
Vice President of Seraphim, Inc., Clive Barker’s production company; http://www.seraphiminc.com/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born December 29, 1981.
EDUCATION:Chapman University, B.F.A., 2005.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. OC Weekly, columnist, 2008-10; Seraphim Inc., vice president, 2010–; BOOM! Studios, editor and writer, 2011–; Dark Horse Comics, 2015–. Producer of animated shorts with the comedy troupe Superego for Nerdist Channel. Features in podcasts, including Nerdist, Bizarre States, Dork Forest, Nerdist Writers Panel, and Todd Glass Show.
WRITINGS
Has written for the comics Hellraiser, Hellraiser: Bestiary, Next Testament, two volumes of Hellraiser: Anthology, and The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down.
SIDELIGHTS
After obtaining a B.F.A. in film production from Chapman University, Mark Alan Chapman went on to work as freelance writer at OC Weekly, a publication covering arts, entertainment, and news of Orange County and Long Beach, California. This job served as a launching site for his career in writing. He soon became assistant editor to writer, film director, and visual artist Clive Barker for his horror novel Abarat: Absolute Midnight. He then worked on the director’s cut of Barker’s cult classic film Nightbreed.
In 2011, Miller began work for BOOM! Studios, where he is both editor and writer for Clive Barker’s Hellraiser comic series. He has written for various comics, including Hellraiser, Hellraiser: Bestiary, Next Testament, two volumes of Hellraiser: Anthology, and The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down. He has also produced a series of animated shorts with the comedy troupe Superego for the Nerdist Channel and can be heard on various Nerdist channel podcasts, including The Nerdist, Bizarre States, The Dork Forest, The Nerdist Writers Panel, and The Todd Glass Show. As vice president of Barker’s production company Seraphim, Miller writes, produces, and directs original content.
In 2018 Martin released Hellraiser: The Toll in collaboration with Barker. The novella concerns an infamous character in the Barker horror Hellraiser canon—the Cold Man, or Pinhead (a Cenobite). His story plays out over the course of thirty years, beginning with The Hellhound Heart (1986) and ending in The Scarlet Gospels (2015). This novella follows the story of Kirsty Singer, who has been running and hiding from the Cenobites for three decades. She is persuaded by her former theology professor to go to a remote island, where she faces the Cold Man at last.
A Publishers Weekly reviewer praised the “vivid imagery,” which “intensifies its atmosphere of dread.” The critic went on to describe Hellraiser as a “mood piece whose infernal main character has grown Mephistophelian and tragic.” Online at Cemetery Dance, Blu Gilliand noted that over the course of the tales in this canon, the “mythology has become something of a hash.” Serving as a”bridge” between the first and last books, Hellraiser “could theoretically streamline the messy Hellraiser mythos.” Gilliand found Miller’s story an “entertaining piece of the Hellraiser puzzle” and Miller himself “as conscientious a steward of Barker’s properties as we could ask for.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, October 9, 2017, review of Hellraiser: The Toll, p. 48.
ONLINE
Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews, http://www.cedarhollowhorrorreviews.com/ (November 4, 2017), review of Hellraiser.
Cemetery Dance, http://www.cemeterydance.com/ (February 5, 2018), Blu Gilliand, review of Hellraiser.
The Clive Barker Podcast, http://www.clivebarkercast.com (October 3, 2017 ), José Armando Leitão, review of Hellraiser.
Dread Central, http://www.dreadcentral.com/ (October 6, 2017), Steve Dillon, review of Hellraiser.
Mark Alan Miller Website, http://www.markalanmiller.com (March 13, 2018).
Seraphim Inc. Website, http://www.seraphiminc.com/ (March 13, 2018), author profile.
Mark has been working as a writer since 2005 when he started as a columnist for OCWeekly. It was this that landed him the position of assistant editor on the novel Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker, for which he also directed the Promotional Trailer For the same author, he subsequently edited the New York Times best belling book The Scarlet Gospels
In 2009, Miller began shepherding the release of the director's cut of the 90's cult horror film Nightbreed. After 6 years of Miller's campaigning, tracking down the footage, and assembling a film closer to the director's original vision, he produced a 120 minute Director's Cut which was released on Blu-Ray by Scream Factory. The film since has won best vintage release at the 41st annual Saturn Awards (where Mark accepted the award in person). This release garnered worldwide interest, and was featured in publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Fangoria,and Empire magazine, and was named Total Film's 14th best extended cut of all time. In 2018, Mark oversaw the Blu-Ray release of an extended 140 minute version called Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut
Mark's work as a producer is not limited to horror, however, and in early 2014 he produced a series of animated shorts with the comedy troupe Superego for Nerdist Channel. He can also be heard on various Nerdist channel podcasts, including The Nerdist, Bizarre States, The Dork Forest, The Nerdist Writers Panel, and The Todd Glass Show.
His comic writing can be seen in the bestselling Boom! Studios comic books, Hellraiser, Hellraiser: Bestiary, and the critically acclaimed Next Testament, as well as Seraphim Comics' Hellraiser: Anthology Vol 1 & 2, and The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down released by Dark Horse from a story by Joe R. Lansdale. He has released two books, Next Testament published by Earthling, and Hellraiser: The Toll due to be published by Subterranean Press in Spring 2018. Mark has recently directed a Blood Drive PSA for Women in Horror Month 9, called The Coming Dawn Ministry, which shall be released in February.
MARK MILLER
As the Vice President of Seraphim, Mark Alan Miller writes, produces, and directs original content alongside master of horror Clive Barker.
Mark has been working as a writer since 2005 when he started as a columnist for OCWeekly. It was this that landed him the position of assistant editor on Barker's novel Abarat: Absolute Midnight, for which he also directed the Promotional Trailer.
In 2009, Miller began shepherding the release of the director's cut of Barker's classic film Nightbreed. After 6 years of Miller's campaigning, tracking down the footage, and assembling the film, Barker's long-thought-lost vision was released on Blu-Ray Scream Factory and the film won best vintage release at the 41st annual Saturn Awards. Miller was there to accept the award in person. The project has garnered worldwide interest, and been featured in publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Fangoria,and Empire magazine, and was named Total Film's 14th best extended cut of all time.
Mark's work as a producer is not limited to horror, however, and in early 2014 he produced a series of animated shorts with the comedy troupe Superego for Nerdist Channel. He can also be heard on various Nerdist channel podcasts, including The Nerdist, Bizarre States, The Dork Forest, The Nerdist Writers Panel, and The Todd Glass Show.
Currently, he is adapting the works of Clive Barker as well as Joe R. Lansdale for various projects. His work can also be seen in the bestselling Boom! Studios comic books, Hellraiser, the ongoing Hellraiser: Bestiary, the critically acclaimed Next Testament, as we all the soon to be released Dark Horse Title, The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down.
Experience
Dark Horse Comics
Freelance Writer
Company NameDark Horse Comics
Dates EmployedSep 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 7 mos
Seraphim Inc
Vice President
Company NameSeraphim Inc
Dates Employed2010 – Present Employment Duration8 yrs
LocationBeverly Hills
As the Vice President of Seraphim, Mark Alan Miller writes, produces, and directs original content alongside master of horror Clive Barker.
Mark has been working as a writer since 2005 when he started as a columnist for OCWeekly. It was this that landed him the position of assistant editor on Barker's novel Abarat: Absolute Midnight, for which he also directed the promotional trailer.
In 2009, Miller began shepherding the release of the director's cut of Barker's classic film Nightbreed. After 6 years of Miller's campaigning, tracking down the footage, and assembling the film, Barker's long-thought-lost vision was released on Blu-Ray Scream Factory and the film won best vintage release at the 41st annual Saturn Awards. Miller was there to accept the award in person. The project has garnered worldwide interest, and been featured in publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Fangoria,and Empire magazine, and was named Total Film's 14th best extended cut of all time.
Mark's work as a producer is not limited to horror, however, and in early 2014 he produced a series of animated shorts with the comedy troupe Superego for Nerdist Channel. He can also be heard on various Nerdist channel podcasts, including The Nerdist, Bizarre States, The Dork Forest, The Nerdist Writers Panel, and The Todd Glass Show.
Currently, he is adapting the works of Clive Barker as well as Joe R. Lansdale for various projects. His work can also be seen in the bestselling Boom! Studios comic books, Hellraiser, the ongoing Hellraiser: Bestiary, the critically acclaimed Next Testament, as we all the soon to be released Dark Horse Title, The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down.
BOOM! Studios
Writer
Company NameBOOM! Studios
Dates EmployedDec 2011 – Present Employment Duration6 yrs 4 mos
Mark started as an editor on the Hellraiser comic and was soon promoted to writer. He co-wrote 10 original issues alongside Clive Barker.
Recently finished the 12 issue Next Testament.
Currently writing Hellraiser: Bestiary
OC Weekly
Writer
Company NameOC Weekly
Dates Employed2008 – 2010 Employment Duration2 yrs
As a freelance contributor to OC Weekly, Mark covered everything from Sporting Events to Midnight Movie Screenings.
Education
Chapman University
Chapman University
Degree NameBachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Field Of StudyFilm Production
Dates attended or expected graduation 2003 – 2005
Hellraiser: The Toll
Publishers Weekly. 264.41 (Oct. 9, 2017): p48.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Hellraiser: The Toll
Clive Barkerand Mark Alan Miller.
Subterranean, $40 (96p) ISBN 978-1-59606849-0
One of the most notorious characters in Barker's horror canon, the demonic Cenobite known as the Cold Man or Pinhead, returns in this collaborative novella that bridges his first appearance in The Hellhound Heart (1986) and his spectacular swan song in The Scarlet Gospels (2015). Kirsty barely escaped abduction by the Cenobites, and has been on the run from them for the 30 years since. Finally she answers a summons to the former Devil's Island penal colony to serve as the Cold Man's first witness to what he calls his "great working": an exposure of the world to "the Great Absence which is God." This is less a story than a mood piece whose infernal main character has grown Mephistophelian and tragic over the years. Barker and Miller (Clive Barker's Next Testament) suffuse the tale with vivid imagery that intensifies its atmosphere of dread ("The two orbs in his noble skull were black as the night, with a silvery glint, and contained only the sentiment of decay"). Fans who have followed Pinhead's exploits in fiction and the Hellraiser films will find this book a must, in part for Barker's artwork sprinkled throughout. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Hellraiser: The Toll." Publishers Weekly, 9 Oct. 2017, p. 48. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293324/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1f23518f. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A511293324
Review: Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on February 5, 2018Categories ReviewsTags Blu Gilliand, Clive Barker, Hellraiser: The Toll, Mark Alan Miller, Reviews, Subterranean Press
Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller
Subterranean Press (February 28, 2018)
96 pages; $40 hardcover
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand
Over the years, the Hellraiser mythology has become something of a hash, combining elements of Clive Barker’s original novella The Hellbound Heart with bits from the Hellraiser movies (mainly the first two in the franchise: Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II). Nowhere is this more evident than in The Scarlet Gospels. In Barker’s 2015 novel, the cenobite known as Pinhead (but not to his face; no, never to his face) was a sometimes confusing mix of the elegant sadist from Hellbound Heart and a bloodthirsty, Hollywood-style slasher.
Three years after Gospels comes Hellraiser: The Toll, a new novella written by frequent Barker collaborator Mark Alan Miller with a “Story By” credit to Barker. This story acts as a bridge between The Hellbound Heart and Gospels, one that could theoretically streamline the messy Hellraiser mythos. It also marks the return of a character near and dear to the hellbound hearts of Hellraiser fans: Kirsty Singer.
Kirsty has been on the run ever since the events of The Hellbound Heart, assuming an ever-shifting series of identities and residences to hide her presence from the one she calls The Cold Man, a/k/a Pinhead. When we meet her in The Toll (after a promisingly foreboding prologue that takes place on a French island prison), she’s testing the “hiding in plain sight” theory by living a few blocks from her former home. A letter from a theology professor who has somehow tracked her down leads her first to her old residence, and then out to—you guessed it—a remote island that was once home to a French prison, but that may now be the site of a portal to Hell.
There’s some good, creepy stuff happening in The Toll, and it leads to a confrontation that I’m sure many Hellraiser fans have been hoping to see between Kirsty and The Cold Man.
(WARNING: I don’t usually drop a lot of spoilers in my reviews, but this time it’s necessary to go into some detail in order to spell out how I feel about the book. Turn back now if you wish to read The Toll unspoiled.)
Unfortunately, that confrontation is a rather anticlimactic one. It’s a physical confrontation, brutal and entertaining in its own right, and both Kirsty and The Cold Man come away from it with a deeper understanding of each other. But overall it’s a stalemate, ending with nothing truly resolved. Kirsty returns to her life, such as it is, and The Cold Man/Pinhead moves forth with the plan that plays out in The Scarlet Gospels.
In addition to the lack of advancement in the Kirsty/Cold Man relationship, little is done to bring Pinhead back to his roots. He’s still less “Lord of Darkness” and more well-spoken slasher; a more refined and erudite Freddy Krueger, if you will. Overall, the weakening of Pinhead as a character has been the biggest disappointment of all the continuations of The Hellbound Heart, and The Toll does little in the way of course correction where this is concerned.
The Hellbound Heart is one of my favorite novellas, and I regard the first Hellraiser as a classic horror film. Both of these are the work of a Clive Barker at the height of his creative and visionary powers. Circumstances beyond his and our control may prevent us from getting the full measure of Barker’s creativity ever again, but we can always be thankful for the gifts he’s already given us. Mark Alan Miller is a good writer, a student of Barker’s work and as conscientious a steward of Barker’s properties as we could ask for. In Hellraiser: The Toll, he’s given us an entertaining piece of the Hellraiser puzzle. Unfortunately, there’s only one man who can truly finish the big picture started in that first novella all those years ago, and there’s no way to know if or when we’ll get to see that happen.
“Hellraiser: The Toll” by Mark Miller [Review]
JOSÉ ARMANDO LEITÃO on October 3, 2017 at 5:41 pm
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DISCLAIMER: I TRIED MY BEST TO LIMIT THE PLOT ELEMENTS TO WHAT’S MENTIONED IN THE SUBTERRANEAN PRESS’ SYNOPSIS, BUT THERE MAY BE MINOR SPOILERS DURING THIS ADVANCE REVIEW.
Mark Miller brings us a new Hellraiser novella, based on a short story Clive Barker had partially written that kept bouncing around the office since at least 2010 called “Heaven’s Reply“. If you’ve been paying attention, you may have heard us talk about this story, and how it was used to make a Hellraiser Reboot script a couple of years ago involving Lemarchand and the French Guiana’s Devil’s Island prison. That movie never happened. In Ryan‘s spoiler-free review for The Toll, he added this quote from Mark Miller:
“It evolved from Heaven’s Reply. That’s how it began, as the short Story Heaven’s Reply. Clive didn’t know where to take it, and [we] had the idea that it could tie into The Scarlet Gospels. So I thought about how to do it, and then sort of backwards engineered it from there and made it my own.” – Mark Miller, via e-mail, 09.26.2017
So, rather than let this story die a dusty death inside a drawer, they went to work, and The Toll is the result.
We are treated to the return of a familiar character, but there are a few things to remember first. This is the Hellraiser literary universe, not the movie universe. This Kirsty is not Kirsty Cotton, and she’s not Larry Cotton’s daughter – she’s Rory’s friend from The Hellbound Heart (HBH). The rest of her story is the same in broad strokes— what she went through with Frank and the Cenobites. She isn’t very detailed in this novel as a character, and I think this is deliberate, because let’s face it: people reading this will be bringing the image of Ashley Laurence and Doug Bradley‘s characters into it. That’s their unavoidable baggage as Hellraiser fans that will shape these characters in particular. The “Hellpriest” of The Scarlet Gospels (SG) was already a slightly different character than HBH’s lead cenobite, transplanted from the movie series with his non-jeweled pins, for the purposes of being given a “good death” in a kind of catharsis in response to the franchise’s sequels like Hellraiser: Revelations, about which Clive once said:
I have NOTHING to do with the fuckin’ thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker,it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.
— Clive Barker (@RealCliveBarker) August 21, 2011
Apart from the different Kirsty and Rory, every other element referenced in this story that deals with the events of Lodovico Street are taken from the Hellraiser film, not HBH. In this story, Julia killed those men with a hammer instead of a knife, Kirsty summoned Pinhead in the hospital room after opening Lemarchand’s musical box, instead of the cenobite with “bells hanging from the flesh of his neck“, and she remembers holding a box with golden decorated panels when she did it, instead of the “six black lacquered faces” in HBH. I always told myself Carston Goode in SG could have had a different box in his house as a trap for D’Amour, other than the one in the familiar tragedy of HBH (I subscribe to the idea that several of Lemarchand boxes exist), but now Kirsty remembers the movie version of the box. I’m sure few people will notice this, however for some of you expecting the literary universe to be coherent between all three books, this may shake you out of the page at times and make you question whether the Mandela Effect is a real thing.
We were told writing this review that Clive approved these changes to the story of #55, Lodovico Street’s events to fit his own re-imagining for the original Hellraiser script (Clive will sign the $250 lettered edition of The Toll along with Mark Miller). Where that leaves HBH, it’s hard to say and I have a hard time discarding that version. I think The Hellbound Heart is a magnificent little novella, complex and innovative in its depiction of the archetypal Faustian tale. There’s a great elegance to it. If everything else is to be snapped to the film version wouldn’t it be easier to just make this Kirsty Cotton? Changing that character in this novella would be as easy as just changing the surname “Singer” to “Cotton”, as it would not affect the character in any meaningful way.
From Subterranean Press‘ order page for Hellraiser: the Toll, (which is still currently misspelling it ‘Hellrasier’ after almost 3 weeks) we can read: “With equal parts economy and eloquence, author Mark Alan Miller brings to life the beginning of the end as The Toll expands the Hellraiser universe, and shows that before Harry D’Amour’s adventures in The Scarlet Gospels, there was a first witness to Pinhead’s infernal plan.“
This novella is about 80 pages long out of the 96 that comprise the book, and is interspersed with several of Clive Barker’s sketches and little hand-drawn typographical elements here and there, especially at the beginning of chapters. I read this story through in 3 hours, that’s how long it took me, your experience may be different. The length of book chapters comes in some measure from the times when novels or stories were serialized in parts that would come out with every issue of a magazine or newspaper, and in modern books I think they still survive out of tradition and it is sometimes useful to structure story transitions, like the passing of time, changing the action from one character plotline to another, etc. For this story, which is very fast paced, it’s still divided in Prologue, Parts 1 and 2, several Chapters for each part and an Epilogue for 80 pages of storytelling. I didn’t notice any major breaks in the flow, but some parts did feel like they didn’t need a chapter break.
Going back to Subterranean’s blurb, The Toll “tells the story of what happened between Clive Barker’s iconic works The Hellbound Heart and its follow up, The Scarlet Gospels.” To me, it seemed to start at the beginning of the events of The Scarlet Gospels (SG), and end after them. So it’s more of a parallel companion story. Kirsty Singer is never really described physically or otherwise in The Toll, but if we are to compare her to the Kirsty of the HBH, then she originally was depicted as apologetic-sounding, perpetually defeated and dreamy, who can’t even brew a cup of coffee “without minor traumas“, but my brain kept bringing up Ashley Laurence and filling her spot in this story to fight the lack of information about her. However as you’ll find out, this Kirsty Singer does not act like that anymore. Three decades after her traumatic meeting with the forces of Hell, she’s unrecognizable from the HBH Kirsty. The synopsis continues: “Thirty years after Kirsty Singer escaped from the clutches of the Hell Priest, Pinhead, and lived to fight another day, her life has never been the same. Every few years she fashions a new name, a new identity, and a new home for herself; She is a woman who is running from her past at all costs, which is why it comes as such a surprise when she receives a mysterious letter in the mail, addressed to the woman she’s been running from over half her life.”
I was a bit taken aback with the complexity of her “secret agent” life, with safe houses around the world including Paris, passports under different names, etc. when we’re never given any insight on how she got to this point or what she’s been doing during those last 30 years to support this lifestyle, apart from being told she turned her escape from Hell into a full-time job. HBH’s Kirsty is 26 years old during the events at Lodovico Street, so this Kirsty should be a 56 year old woman in The Toll, and the story should reflect that.
“Answering the letter’s query, she begins a descent down a rabbit hole to the ultimate confrontation. Her actions stir something unnamable in the ether, and throw her into a game where nothing—not even what she sees in front of her very eyes—can be trusted.” This mysterious man Kirsty never meets affects her more than you’d imagine. She ends up throwing caution to the wind and decides to visit a certain house in London, a few chapters I felt were some of the best of the story; Kirsty comes to the realization that the world is full of illusions put in place by powers much greater than us, powers that change the world as they see fit without anyone realizing, when all people do is just look around without seeing. Kirsty sees it, and the illusion cracks. It takes her a week to decide to contact the author of that letter, and after a very brief phone conversation, within 40 hours she leaves London to reach Devil’s Island in the French Guiana, knowing full well that at the end of that trip “The Cold Man” will be waiting.
This isn’t the real Devil’s Island, however. Instead of a cruise ship destination for curious tourists, it’s described as a fantastic decaying empty place, complete with access by row boat. The story moves quickly from this point on, splattered here and there with violence and blood —then the jungle engulfs the rest of the story. The Penal Colony, ruined and covered in vines, inhabited by empty cells, holds a dark doorway in its deepest heart, and Kirsty finds that place and The Cold Man, as she meets him at the crossroads “between the real and the realer still” to quote HBH.
The tagline in the cover of this book reads: “Before the Gospels there was a first witness.” So you have an idea of Pinhead’s intentions for this Kirsty. Does it ever happen? I’m not entirely sure. To quote the God Entity in Futurama, “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” The final act wraps up in the last 10 pages, with plenty of references to the Scarlet Gospels and echoes of Pinhead and Hell’s final fate reaching Kirsty by third-party here and there, but it’s all offered as a quick narration in a few sentences. Does finding out about an event from third-party sources make you a witness to it? Personally, I remained unsure about what was Pinhead’s plan for Kirsty and where she’s left after the events of this story. There’s another layer revealed about Pinhead’s strategy that could get activated in the future, but after the cataclysmic events of The Scarlet Gospels, I don’t see where this can progress towards or exactly why this is revealed, unless Mark Miller plans to release more episodic Hellraiser novellas. If you’ve read The Scarlet Gospels, you know that the powers of Good and Evil have abandoned their fight.
Clive Barker wrote The Scarlet Gospels so he could ultimately dispatch Pinhead, as he’d grown weary of the character and increasingly bad movie sequels. He wanted to get rid of him on his own terms and send him off like a Viking funeral, in flaming glory. The Scarlet Gospels were marketed as “The last Pinhead story” in the promotional materials, and it may yet be – if you see this as a companion of sorts to the Gospels, an extra. Who knows what the future holds?
Hellraiser: The Toll (Book)Published 4 months ago on October 6, 2017 By Steve Dillon
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Story by Clive Barker. Written by Mark Alan Miller
Written by Clive Barker and Mark Alan Miller
Published by Subterranean Press
My advance review copy was digital, so I can’t comment on the quality of the printed product, but the cover art looks awesome, and very fitting for the story. Subterranean are renowned for their production standards, so yes, I too have pre-ordered a copy for my shelves. The interior artwork was part of the digital copy, and that was a bonus, to see fresh artwork from Clive.
Ignoring the movies and the comics and graphic novel story arcs—which I believe Clive Barker prefers to keep separate to the story arc in the books—Hellraiser: The Toll picks up after the events of the original story The Hellbound Heart. It marginally precedes the events of The Scarlet Gospels, although there is a light overlap which I won’t reveal, but references are made to things that happened in the prologue to TSG. I did notice some inconsistencies, though, where references from the movie have superseded lines from the original text. Frank’s last words to Kirsty, for example, come from the movie, and the Hell-Priest (here referred to as The Cold Man) has adornments of nails rather than pins as they’re described in the novella, but I’m splitting hairs instead of skulls, so…
The story is written by Clive’s friend and business colleague Mark Miller (Boom! Comics and Seraphim Inc.) and while the execution of the story is akin to The Scarlet Gospels, the voice is clearly Clive’s. And if, while reading it, you can imagine Clive’s husky American/ Liverpool voice reciting Hellraiser: The Toll at the fireside in his home while surrounded by cigar smoke, then I think you’ll agree it’s a great yarn which is told with an authoritative voice. A little shy of 17,000 words, I felt the story could have been longer, but at least it’s complete and internally consistent, although it does finish too soon and left me longing for more.
If, like me, you’ve been waiting years to find out what events took place in Kirsty’s world (remember she’s Cotton in the movies, but just plain old green-eyed Kirsty in The Hellbound Heart). after those in Lodovico Street, then this tale tells one chain. Those with a yearning for more of the lore surrounding the boxes and their maker LeMerchand will likewise be happy.
However, don’t be too disappointed to find that Harry D’Amour is barely mentioned in Hellraiser: The Toll. I suspect Clive and Mark Miller are planning another novella to bridge the gap between The Toll and The Scarlet Gospels, but that’s only supposition on my part.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller
Hellraiser returns in this novella of terror. Look at that beautiful cover! Hellraiser: The Toll fills us in on what happened between The Hellbound Heart and The Scarlet Gospels. Kirsty Cotton returns to the forefront along with Pinhead, or as she likes to call him the Cold Man.
By now you already know that Kirsty Cotton has eluded Pinhead for quite some time. This novella is set thirty years after The Hellbound Heart, so she is about 40 or 50 something years old. She has been on the run this entire time. Every couple years she changes her name and identity. She also moves quite frequently.
One day she receives a letter that is addressed to the woman she's been running from for half her life. It turns out that Kirsty Cotton is the first witness. She must play the game and confront Pinhead. It's an epic battle. The fight scene is brilliant. I just didn't know which one to cheer for. (I cheered for Pinhead. I mean, who wouldn't?) The ending was great. Clive Barker's art is scattered throughout this novella, which enhances the story as well.
If you like Clive Barker's work as much as I do, then you will enjoy this novella. It's not written by him, but it's in the same vein. I love the Hellraiser movies. Maybe this novella will get optioned for the big screen.
I highly recommend this novella to fans of horror!
5/5 stars!