The line work, by Akiel Guzman, is good, but the color suffers from the same odd, splotchy nature I recently noticed in the newest Nightbreed issue. Readers are likely to sympathize with the father at first, before eventually realizing that there’s some darkness to his motivation, but, whereas Hellraiser tales usually function in elevated dramatics, that darkness is very human. Ben Meares adds some intriguing subtlety to this segment.

As I’m sure you can imagine, things do not go well for father or son. In this instance, it’s simply because his father wants him to be kept occupied and quiet. The first of the three segments this month is “Puzzled.” Similarly to Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, “Puzzled” sees one of the Lemarchand boxes ending up in the hands of a child that happens to have an aptitude for such things. By taking Hellraiser back to an anthology format, the book allows for individual stories that feel in the vein of Clive Barker’s original novella while still allowing for some ongoing continuity in each issue. Hellraiser: Bestiary seems to be taking a big step back from that trend in a way that hasn’t been done since the early days of the Hellraiser comics, and, so far, it stands to be a good change of pace for the property. The problem with this is that it’s made the Cenobites and their world mundane. Instead, over the years it’s been the Hellraiser comics that have turned Pinhead into the protagonist. This absolutely happened within the Hellraiser film franchise, but not to the same degree. (This is how we end up with a run of Nightmare on Elm Street films in which Freddy Krueger becomes a standup comedian.) It always seems like a good idea at first, but the slasher always wears out their welcome before long. There’s a tendency with horror franchises, in any medium, to shift focus from the survivors/victims to the “slasher” themselves as time goes on.

Written by: Ben Meares, Ed Brisson, & Mark MillerĪrt by: Akiel Guzman, Alexis Ziritt, & Carlos Magno

Clive barkers hellraiser