10 Things Clive Barker Fans Shouldn’t Do
I’m a person that gets annoyed a lot, and having followed Clive Barker for a long time (like probably most everyone reading this has) there are patterns and things that I notice.
1) Unrelated comments asking about the Scarlet Gospels.
Let’s say there’s a post or an announcement about a piece of art, Abarat 4 or some other news Clive Barker was kind enough to share with us. Don’t be the troll that says, “I don’t care about that! Where is the Scarlet Gospels?!” It’s a really insensitive. As an aside, don’t say, “Do you know how long I have been waiting for the Scarlet Gospels?” That “I” says, at least to me, that you aren’t really acknowledging that there are other fans out there that have known about TSG for just as long, if not longer. Does your impatience carry more weight? Is Clive Barker going to stop and say, “Well stop everything, I’m not going to sleep or eat until Joe Boogabot gets his copy of The Scarlet Gospels.”
Neil Gaiman put this really beautifully in a blog post May 12, 2009 .
“George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.” The same goes for Clive Barker. While you may come out of one of his novels wanting more, Clive is a free spirit, and writes where his inspiration takes him. There are many projects on the back-burner for decades. My advice is to enjoy what comes.
Now we know when the book is coming out (Winter 2015 by St. Martins Press), maybe this will stop.
2) Buy all the Hellraiser sequels.
So I put this in as an ideal. I haven’t followed this either, but we vote with our wallets. Maybe the best way to show the Weinstein Company that we want any future Hellraiser projects to have at least input by Clive Barker is to not by the crappy ones they put out. Or maybe they should just stop. For me, the next Hellraiser movie, the only hope for a good Hellraiser movie is The Scarlet Gospels.
3) Where do you get your ideas from?
As a person who has flown all over the country to go to Clive’s signings, I’ve heard people ask this question so many times. How would you like it if someone asks this of you? Variations are, do you take drugs to get your crazy ideas? And his answer has been the Dali quote, “I am a drug. Take me.”
4) Create a petition for something that doesn’t have Support from Clive and his team.
Why make a petition to support someone that makes them do something they are not capable of, or would be against their best wishes? Let’s let Clive Barker relax and get well.
5) Ask when is [movie adaptation of a story] coming out.
This one’s not really rude, especially, but if he had an answer, Mr. Barker would give it to us. Movie projects are particularly susceptible to studio interference budget and production problems, and there have been more Clive Barker-related projects that were almost made than those that have. Don’t jinx it!
6) Giving credit to Clive for projects he had nothing to do with…
Ignorance is the root of these comments. Like the person who commented, “Write the sequel to Kujo” or the people that hint that Clive Barker did a bad job making Hellraiser 9 or whatever. Do some research or ask the people around you before you say something stupid. We’ve all said dumb things–it happens–but There is lots and lots of information to tell you what he’s worked on and what he hasn’t. Most of the Hellraiser Sequels were made without Clive Barker’s input or blessing, and it shows.
Tapping The Vein #1 A series of short story adaptations
7) Make assumptions about Clive Barker’s health.
Sometimes there are comments that Clive Barker has aids or throat cancer. Knock it off, that’s not cool. Like the internet obituaries that said Steve Jobs was dead when he was clearly alive, these are false, in poor taste, and the worst kind of gossip-mongering.
8) Ask, when are you coming to [Insert town or Country here]?
Even when he wasn’t recovering from a toxic-shock coma, Clive’s appearances were not frequent. He spends a lot of time writing. Now he’s recovering, and making up for his lack of signing appearances by keeping us up to date on Facebook and Twitter. This is how you can keep in contact with Clive Barker for now. He reads stuff on his wall, unlike other celebrities.
9) Insult the Author by trying to convince everyone on his page that he’s a fake.
Not much to say here. This has happened a few times over the past couple of years. If you’re not sure that it’s really Clive Barker, ask, or better yet ask someone who would know. If you know your stuff, you’ll also know the people in Clive Barker’s inner circle, and they would announce to the world if a certain profile is fake. Clive’s assistant, Alex devotes time to making sure people aren’t trying to rip off Mr. Barker.
10) Use Clive’s Facebook or Twitter as a platform to be a troll biggot.
I don’t know why this needs to be said. He’s an adult with his own point of view, and if it makes you uncomfortable, don’t read it. There are people out there that just want him to be a writer, and don’t talk about personal things. I can tell you, reading Clive Barker books doesn’t make you gay–I don’t think. Seriously. Just enjoy his candid attitude and his wisdom, and if you have some kind of problem with his politics, attitude, or what people he’s attracted to, that’s really your problem, not his. You should be judging yourself instead.
Great post. Sad it has to be written though.
I’m glad you wrote this up.
A lot should go without saying, but some people need things spelled out for them.
Yep, yep, and… I totally agree with everything said. I also agree with the comments by John von Pey and Roger. The fans do not own Clive in any way, let him create as he sees fit…
Excellent!!!
Thanks for all the positive words on this! I’ve been stewing on it for about a month or so.
All but 10 … If you’re going to put your beliefs online for the world to read … especially when much if the basis if your philosophy is opening our minds to different views … it’s hypocritical to say “you can’t disagree with me” or only allow posts that agree with you. That’s censorship which us surprising from anyone who would support Clive Barker! Are we really open minded or just simply counter culture sheep?
I think censorship would be if I could actually control what you say. Me, a fan, saying you probably shouldn’t post trollish stuff on Clive Barker’s Facebook isn’t censorship. If he finds his Facebook or Twitter to be stressful or not fun, it wouldn’t be that hard for him to give it up, and that would be bad for the fans.
Semantics, you’re asking for people to self censor … it’s kind of like “I didn’t pull the trigger, I just strongly suggest they kill themselves.”
If Barker or anyone doesn’t put their world view out in public, that’s one thing. But if you DO make it a public issue to say what you like and hate about people, places and ideas … then you’re pretty much opening yourself up to others saying the same about you.
Guess we’ll agree to disagree here.
Right, asking people to be decent and respectful is censorship. And he was asking for it by having a Facebook page.
If you post something on your wall, and someone puts a bunch of shitty comments on there, then you ask them to stop, that’s censorship?
The poster is saying don’t be a troll, not that you can’t disagree.
Telling people to “judge themselves” … that statement in itself is kind of hypocritical anyway … if they disagree with a public figure’s public views on a public webpage sounds a bit anti-open minded. Sure, you can’t physically censor their speech, but you’re encouraging them to NOT disagree and NOT participate if they do.
That’s something the Autarch Sartori would advocate.
Be open minded and express yourself freely, just don’t be an asshole (troll) about it. We should encourage different thought, especially with an artist like Barker who’s fans should be more about open thought and conversation than adhering to a single doctrine.
Judge themselves means rather than judging Clive Barker. You’re determined to call me hypocritical, I guess.
Asking people to be open-minded to hate and bigotry sounds like an oxymoron to me.
I agree that there is a major difference between being inspired by someone’s work (which, if done right, can be a great complement to an artist’s influence) and basically taking someone’s idea and pretending that you were the creative mind behind it. As far as trying to tell someone to be creative by following the specifics that you (fan/publisher/etc.) present to them, shunning other works and berating an artist when he/she doesn’t follow YOUR directions…..well that’s just ignorant. If Barker was not a talented creative individual, he would not have had such world-wide success. Personally I love his short stories, since I don’t have much time to read such lengthy novels and still give them the attention they deserve, but I am not going to TELL him to write more. A writer writes (Stephen King) and they write what chooses them not the other way around.
Thank you so much for whacking my nose with that newspaper. I don’t know how I get along in the world without people like you.
And thank you for responding to this three-year old blog post I did. Your comment and others like it are keeping people aware of our site and our podcast.
As to the continued relevance of this topic, for some of these things, the damage is done. You will notice, Clive Barker seldom, if ever, posts directly on Facebook or Twitter anymore. Public posts are now made by his Seraphim Films employees.
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