Episode 61 : Mark Miller, Seraphim inc.
In this, our final episode of the Clive Barker Podcast for 2013 (probably) Ryan and Jose talk with Mark Miller, Vice President of Clive Barker’s Seraphim Inc. Skype played a trick on us, in that Mark was experiencing about a 5 second delay after Jose and I would talk. We tried to cut out these pauses from the episode, but some of that awkwardness bleeds through. We’ve been trying to get Mark on the Podcast for a while now, and when we finally do, Skype acts like a jerk. Anyway, we talk about a lot of upcoming projects such as the Nightbreed Extended Cut by Shout! Factory, Hellraiser Comic, Next Testament, Thief of Always Movie. Don’t miss it!
Show Notes:
Transcript Below
DANHAUSER: Welcome to the Clive Barker podcast. This was episode 61, Mark Miller. Most of you probably know who Mark Miller is, but if you don’t, he co-heads Seraphim Inc, which is Clive Barker’s production company; they’re also his promotional company. They also started Seraphim Ink, their self-publishing company. Clive Barker’s First Tales is available for preorder right now. We talked with Mark Miller and you’re going to hear some awkwardness in this conversation because thanks to Skype there was a weird five-second delay between when Jose or I would talk and then when Mark would hear it. So you might still hear some of that awkwardness anyway. All that aside, it was a great conversation. If we didn’t have those problems, we probably would have talked longer and had an easier conversation. Mark’s a friend of mine, I’ve met up with him a lot of times. He and I traded Imajica cards for a long time until he completed his collection. Also, if you don’t know, Mark Miller is the one who for the first time found the Nightbreed tapes on the shelf while they were doing spring cleaning in Clive’s office. So, this was a great conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
DANHAUSER: So how’s it going?
MILLER: It’s going all right. How are you doing?
DANHAUSER: Pretty good. Pretty good.
LEITAO: Hello, this is me, Jose. Nice to meet you.
MILLER: Nice to finally meet you voice to voice.
LEITAO: So thanks. Thanks for the opportunity for us to ask you a few questions about Seraphim, this upcoming trove of Clive Barker books, The Next Testament comic book. And, you know, Hellraiser…
MILLER: Absolutely. It’s a pleasure. We love you guys.
DANHAUSER: Thanks. We have a couple of things in news. I thought if it’s okay to talk about with you here, ’cause you can shed it a little bit of light on them.
MILLER: I’ll shed as much light as I’m allowed.
DANHAUSER: Okay. So the unabridged audible Thief of Always just happened.
MILLER: That is correct.
DANHAUSER: Is that something that’s done by the publisher and you guys don’t have a whole lot of control?
MILLER: No, no that’s all us.
DANHAUSER: That’s all you guys.
MILLER: Yeah
DANHAUSER: So you set up who the reader is?
MILLER: We worked with a guy named David Wilson, who ran his own publishing company; like that’s his specialty, self-publish audio books and stuff. All the new Clive Barker audio books, that’s all been done through him. We just tell him, ‘Hey, we have the rights to this… go do it.’ And he does it, he picks the narrator, that’s his world: He picks the narrator. Sometimes Clive will give notes, like with the Books the Blood he wanted different storytellers for each book. So we’re were working on all six of those right now. And those are slow going obviously cause that’s a lot of narrators for one book. But yeah, we just found out Thief of Always is ours and there’s never been an unabridged version. So we said “Godspeed!” and he went and made it happen. There’s some other stuff coming down the pipeline too.
DANHAUSER: So there are certain things like the publishing companies only have the literary rights but not the audio rights? Is that why this is able to happen?
MILLER: Yeah. Sometimes Clive will retain everything, especially if it’s like a self-published thing and obviously everything belongs to him to begin with. But like with Scarlet Gospels, Clive will get maybe half. The split for an author is different case by case. But he’ll probably get a smaller percentage for the [Scarlet] Gospels audio book than he will for The Thief [Of Always] audio book because this came out 20 years ago; so the audio rights have reverted back to Clive. So he now owns the rights to do the audio book.
DANHAUSER: And there’s not as much hype about an older book. I can’t believe that’s 20 years ago now.
LEITAO: Yeah.
MILLER: It’s crazy, isn’t it?
DANHAUSER: Yeah. That was the second book signing I went to; it was for Thief of Always.
MILLER: No kidding. What was the first one?
DANHAUSER: Imajica. I hadn’t even started my collection when I went to the Imajica one, though. So I just grabbed…
MILLER: And it started all for you?
DANHAUSER: Yeah. Well, Nightbreed did, so I had a paperback copy of Cabal and I grabbed a paperback copy of the Books of Blood volume one. So then I would have a second thing for Clive to sign at the bookstore there.
LEITAO: It’s pretty cool.
MILLER: Impromptu.
DANHAUSER: Yeah.
MILLER: Do you still have it?
DANHAUSER: Yes, I do still have that.
MILLER: You should post a picture of it online or something.
DANHAUSER: Oh I definitely will.
LEITAO: And just to remind the listeners of the podcast, there’s also a feature film being developed for the Thief of Always by Oliver Parker. Right?
MILLER: Oliver parker. Yeah. You know, he’s Peloquin. We’re working on that at the moment. There’s legal and paperwork and all that stuff and so we’re talking it through right now. Oliver did write a draft that we love, but as far as, you know, I mean, there’s no production happening at the moment. It’s all just being discussed and hopefully something beautiful will come of it.
DANHAUSER: And this would be in live action versus the animated? Not an animated one…
MILLER: Definitely a live action.
DANHAUSER: Cool. I’d be happy either way.
MILLER: Yeah, same here.
DANHAUSER: Yeah. And Next Testament number six is coming out on December 18th, we just found that out today. Was that originally going to come out in November?
MILLER: Hell if I know, man, I can’t keep track of the release dates.
DANHAUSER: Have you finished writing them all?
MILLER: I just turned in issue eight.
DANHAUSER: Okay. So just a couple of issues.
MILLER: The story is completely fleshed out already. And I have the next four issues a sort of rough outlined. But things change from issue to issue in the writing process. And so I just turned in my official draft of issue eight. They’re illustrating issues seven now and I’ll get cracking on my second draft of issue nine whenever they’re ready for it.
LEITAO: It’s been amazing. I really enjoyed reading all the next testament comic books. The artwork by Haemi Jang is just amazing. It really complements the story.
MILLER: She’s amazing, isn’t she?
LEITAO: We were talking about it with Ben Mears on the last episode and yeah, it’s amazing. The storyline is pretty interesting the way it opens up. And Wick, the father of colors, he came from a body painting session that you were a part of, right?
MILLER: That is correct. At the time Clive was doing a lot of living canvas stuff and there was even an exhibition that he did in downtown Los Angeles where he had models lined up against a white wall and just went from left to right, just painting them and turning them into living canvases. And it was a really cool thing to see because it was essentially a…
LEITAO: Was that the Zoo Man exhibition?
MILLER: That might’ve been, that might’ve been the name of it. Yeah.
LEITAO: Yeah, because I remember he did something like that where there were a few models and he painted them all. I remember covering on my blog at the time it was called Zoo Man. I don’t know if that’s the same one, but that was the first time I saw Clive do body paintings.
MILLER: That’s gotta be the one. That’s fantastic. Nicely done, sir.
DANHAUSER: That’s cool. Would that have been like 2007 or 2008?
MILLER: Yeah, I would guess 2007…
LEITAO: I’m sorry. The Clive Barker Zoo Man was a live painting session that took place at the Burke Green Gallery on January 12, 2006.
MILLER: That’s the one. So that was a thing Clive was very much into at the time and I got to be a part of that; this sort of very transitional living canvas, not a thing that exists forever. You’re only a piece of art for a limited time and that was a cool thing to be a part of.
DANHAUSER: And you also posed for the cenobite that’s on the cover of Hellbound Hearts, right? The cenobite’s name is Vestimenti.
MILLER: Yeah, that is correct. How did you know that one?
DANHAUSER: You told me that when you were giving me the tour of the office.
MILLER: Ah, insider information!. That’s pretty funny, man. Yeah, that was me. I posed for The Hellbound Hearts cover and I posed for what ended up becoming Next Testament, but Hellbound Hearts was already a thing. There was no contribution there, but when the session that ended up becoming the story behind Next Testament was over that was just me and Clive staring at this creation going. “What the hell is this?” And we came up with Next Testament. He looked like a god to me. So…
DANHAUSER: That’s awesome.
LEITAO: Fantastic.
DANHAUSER: Next Testament was it originally meant to be a novel?
MILLER: Yeah, that was the sort of a first idea for the incarnation of it. Clive and I, as I said, stepped back and said, “Who is this?” “Who is this character?” “What is it?” and we came up with this story and Clive said, “Let’s write it as a novel and we’ll illustrate it and we’ll take it to publishers” but nobody was interested in the literary world in that book. So, we decided it would make a pretty damn cool comic book. I mean, it’s based on an image, so why not use a form and a medium that is image-based.
DANHAUSER: So I know that this is only going 12 issues, right? So is there, I mean, and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but is there a chance that the novel you might self-publish it under Seraphim Ink, after the comic run has done its thing?
MILLER: That’s a possibility. We’re talking to a couple of people about it right now. We do definitely want to do a novelization of it. We’ll see how we end up doing that. You know, and it all depends on how First Tales does and how big of a splash we make in the self-publishing world.
DANHAUSER: Yeah. Have there been a lot of preorders so far for First Tales?
MILLER: So it’s been pretty damn successful. It’s pretty crazy. This was me and Christian Francis, who I’m pretty sure has been on the podcast as well. He helps with a lot of things, sort of a one man show. He and I spent many, many late nights over WhatsApp texting notes on the book, design notes that Clive would give me, and he’s like a master designer. He hates to be known as that, but is really phenomenal at design and I don’t care how he feels about it. The world needs to know.
LEITAO: Apparently, Christian Francis also designed the Occupy Midian website and a cool t-shirt that came out, which was kind of a replica for the t-shirts worn by Narcisse in Nightbreed. He’s been a part of a lot of stuff, a really cool artist. The poster is the one-sheet for the Occupy Midian, I mean the Cabal cut. So that’s awesome. That’s pretty cool stuff.
MILLER: Christian has done a ton of stuff: he’s designed all the new audio book covers you’ve seen; the cover for the Thief of Always; the new Books of Blood layout. He did everything with First Tales. It’s two stories in the book and, at first; we were just gonna release “The Candle in the Cloud.” Then we remembered that there was The “Wood on the Hill.” So, Christian’s work…I mean, there’s probably 45 iterations of First Tales on a hard drive somewhere, and that’s just Christian. Every night getting new notes and saying, ‘We want the story in front; we want this picture here; we want these pictures different.’ And Christian had never even opened In-Design, which is the program he used to build the book. Before we started work on this, he just opened the program, mastered it in a matter of moments and he’s built this gorgeous book, which you’ve seen the cover for and you’ll be able to see the actual book itself when it’s back from the printer. So, you know, we’re excited about it.
DANHAUSER: I preordered mine when it was midnight thanksgiving, right? That it was first available.
MILLER: That is correct.
DANHAUSER: Is there a certain limited run of those or are they kind of print on demand?
MILLER: No, that’s totally a limited run. There are only 26 lettered editions (a through z) and There’s 350 numbered editions. Then there’s only 2000 trade and even the trade edition is limited. There were some people online saying $45 for a trade seems kind of high, but I don’t think they realize that that’s also a limited edition. Plus, you know, this is our first self-published effort and we’re giving the audio book away for free. There are a lot of sales from that that we’re going to be missing out on. So we’re looking to try and balance, we have given the art away and we’re happy about that because we want everyone to be able to have it. But for the people who still want to hold that physical copy, we’ve made something available to them as well. I’m definitely part of that party.
DANHAUSER: And it’s a trade hardcover. It’s not a trade paperback. Right?
MILLER: Exactly. There’s not going to be a paperback.
DANHAUSER: Yeah. I didn’t think that $45 was unreasonable at all. I think that’s a great price… and “Hellraiser: The Dark Watch,” I guess there’s only two more issues of that and then it’s going to be switching to a new Hellraiser series that’ll continue on from “The Dark Watch”?
MILLER: That’s right.
DANHAUSER: Okay. Do you have oversight over it all or are you involved in it?
MILLER: Yeah, very much. We’re discussing what the new thing is going to be. And we pretty much we know what it is, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to discuss it at the moment. It’s awesome, I can tell you that. Ben and I will be contributing and when we already have some other authors in the comic book world and the literary world as well that we’re really excited about, it’s going to be a cool collection.
LEITAO: I would just like to add something else to the Clive Barker’s First Tales bit of news that we were talking about. I think we mentioned this on the previous episode, which is the first time I read the story of The Wood on the Hill, I’d mentioned this on the episode about The Dark Fantastic by Douglas E. Winter. It’s really a very cool story that Clive Barker wrote when he was really young. He was just a teenager. We also discussed Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus, which is also pretty amazing. And I just want to repeat what I said on the last episode: the First Tales and the Maximillian Bacchus book, they will go very well if you get the other one because they will really complement each other.
MILLER: Thanks for that. They’re designed to look perfect side by side on a shelf. If you guys own that book, there were two versions of that. One is the limited version in the slip case and the other is just available without a slip case and no signature. We have some very special things lined up with the different editions of the book. Now, when we hang up, I’m going to get back online with the company that we’re talking to about the tray case that comes with the numbered version, which I’m actually designing. I mean, it’s going to be this big gorgeous thing. It will open beautifully, house the artwork…a work of art unto itself. The slip case will have the front embossed; a thing of beauty, really. You guys are going to be blown away and yes, they will look great side by side on a shelf. It’s going to your Barker collection like nobody’s business.
LEITAO: Wonderful. I’d like to ask you a few questions about The Scarlet Gospels. We know that there was kind of an auction thing to see which company would be interested in publishing The Scarlet Gospels and Saint Martin’s Press won that particular auction with their proposal. They have said that they will release this sometime in 2015. Any pinpointing that you can do for the 2015 date or is that really up to Saint Martin’s Press?
MILLER: No, that’s all up to Saint Martin’s Press. Scheduling and publication timelines, that’s outside of my purview. I know it takes a long time to get everything ready and get the promotion machine rolling. I’m actually surprised it’s going to be as early as 2015. I remember we turned in Abarat 3 I think in the summer of 2010. And then it didn’t even come out until the winter of 2011. So just knowing when it’s due, that’s a fast afterward and I’m happy about that. I can’t wait for this thing to see the light of day. I know people have been clamoring for it for years.
LEITAO: Yes, they have. It was a troubled story that, like 14 or 12 years ago, this book started up being a collection of short stories and it started to change. Some stories sprouted into novellas and ultimately it took over with the whole story of Harry D’amour and Pinhead. And, you know, for fans those are probably two of the most well-known and favorite characters from Barker’s work. So it’s understandable that people are crazy to see this crossover thing. I admit I’m one of the guys who is always like waiting to know, okay, when is the next Abarat coming out, but also when is Scarlet Gospels coming out. And I remember back in 2011 when you took over as editor of the manuscript…
MILLER: Yeah, it was that long ago, wasn’t it?
LEITAO: So how was that experience? I can imagine that it must’ve been a little daunting to be the editor of a Clive Barker manuscript and especially since he likes to do several handwritten drafts. So how was that experience?
MILLER: The word you used is the perfect word, it was daunting. When he handed me the thing, it was this gigantic manuscript and it came in like four different parts. He gave me a binder, which was one version of it that was typed up; he gave me a box, which was the whole book printed out with the version that was in the binder, but the version in the box had his notes on all the chapters. What he does is he’ll finish the draft, he’ll print it out double-spaced and then in between those lines he re-drafts. And that was the box version. No kidding. I had this redrafted version. Some of the chapters were left untouched, some just had notes… There would be redrafts for seven chapters and then it would end. There would just be; ‘Here I want to see this and there would be notes about possible directions it would go. I’d give my notes on which one was the best or even if it was best as it stood. It was a very long term – a very slow going process because at the same time we’re working on a dozen other things at any given moment and Clive’s primarily writing Abarat 4. I can’t take him out of the Abarat 4 frame of mind. It has to be an organic thing. If he’s not in it, that’s when it’s time to talk about a different project. If he’s in it, if he’s in the Abarat 4 frame of mind, then everything else has to wait. So, I know a lot of people who were getting upset with me as well. I received my fair share of irritated tweets saying ‘all right guy, you’ve this for two years now. When are you going to make good?’ But, it’s a process and we finally did it. It’s exciting.
DANHAUSER: Well, not to mention Clive’s toxic shock event that put him into a coma. That’s serious; held things back.
MILLER: Well, sure. That was one side effect, the project got held out; the biggest focus at that time, sure. The projects took a back seat for a while. I was put in charge and I had to set aside the creative things. It’s why I stepped down from Hellraiser and we just had to focus on Clive getting better and restructuring the business and deciding the best course of action to move forward from there. I think it was a hellish period, but Clive is doing better. He’s writing amazing words and every night I go next door and I see new paintings for Abarat 4. I’ve been doing this since 2007 and I still walk into his writing room and I see a new painting. Always my jaw hits the floor. I don’t know how he does it, it’s cooler than the last one I’ve seen. He’s a mad genius. There’s no other way to say it.
DANHAUSER: I remember when I was there and you were giving me the tour, I felt speechless. I felt like I didn’t belong there or like I shouldn’t be touching these things. Like I remember looking at the notebook for Black is the Devil’s Rainbow, paging through it, and now I can’t remember anything from it because in my mind it was like “I really shouldn’t be seeing this”. I do have to thank you. I think I thanked you then, but I think that moment and meeting with you and Clive in Texas Frightmare Weekend cemented in my mind that my fandom was above average; this love that I had for Clive’s work, I felt like I really needed an outlet to share it. And that was kind of the genesis for this podcast.
MILLER: Well that’s really cool. The way it all happened was kismet because I didn’t even know you were coming. And then, at the last minute, you said, hey, I’m going to be here for the signing and you’re staying in Anaheim for God’s sake! I mean, that’s an hour and 15 minutes away from here. And I just said, hey, if you’re going to be in the area, you might as well come a little earlier. The bookstores right down the street, come on out. You did and it was a blast. I’m glad you got to come up and it inspired you. That’s what being up here does. I’ve never been in another place that has the energy that this place has. People come up here and they leave saying, my God, I’m going to go home and write tonight.
LEITAO: Wow!
MILLER: If I had a dime for every time I heard that. I could retire.
LEITAO: We had once a video episode in the podcast where we showed our Barker collection stuff. We are obviously really huge fans. I even own some props from the movies that he’s done. But I haven’t met him or even went to a signing because I lived in Portugal and I had no way of meeting him. So one of my bucket list wishes is that one day I’ll be able to attend the signing for a Clive Barker book and get to know him because I would really love to be able to let him know just how much he has done for me growing up as a teenager and as an adult helped me change my view of the world. So, thanks for that, Clive.
MILLER: Same here. I understand that completely. Well, we’ll have to rectify that man.
LEITAO: Definitely, in the future there might be a chance of that.
MILLER: Yeah, that’d be cool. Beautiful.
LEITAO: If I could go back to 2011. I would like to ask you what happened to Clive Barker Presents The Sickness.
MILLER: Ah! It’s Hollywood, man. It’s a jungle out there. We’re still working on it. As a matter of fact, I sent the script out to someone today. You just got to keep plugging away. There’s no such thing as a sure thing. It’s funny too, because a lot of the things I’ve heard are “oh Zombie market is flooded right now, people are thinking there’s too many zombies.” Before that, before “The Walking Dead” came out, before World War Z was a $100 million movie, I was still trying to shop this around and people were saying, “Oh, well, zombies are dead right now. No one’s making anything with zombies.” So, you can’t really win. It’s just a matter of finding the person to which the project speaks to and knows how to have a squeeze a dollar. So, we’re still trying. In the meantime, there are a dozen other movies we’re also trying to get made. Some of them are further along than others. Some are very close to being done. And we’ll talk about that when I can say more.
LEITAO: Sure. We know that the American movie market was back in October, so there were a few news that we were expecting to come out of there, but we still have to push some buttons and find our sources, see if we can come up with anything about that. But if someone out there was not a backer of the Kickstarter for Clive Barker Presents The Sickness, Is there any way that they can get to see any images from the trailer that you made? I know that you have a filming reel that you put on the Seraphim channel, right?
MILLER: Yeah, I have a director’s reel that I’ve put on my website, markallenmiller.com, also built by Christian Francis, web designer extraordinaire. We also have a Seraphim Youtube account, which we’re looking into creating original content for, but at the moment you can find trailers for Clive’s films on there; interviews with Clive; behind the scenes footage, and also there’s this trailer for The Sickness. I think there are two different cuts and a bit of behind the scenes footage where the female antagonist killed a nurse and it was like this seven-minute long blood take and you know, we only had one chance to get it right. So we edit it down to this hilarious screaming blood spurting outtake, which is one of my favorite things. I encourage people to check that out.
LEITAO: All right.
DANHAUSER: Clive had announced a couple of months back that he was in talks with the Weinsteins about doing a Hellraiser remake. We had also recently been talking to the people behind Hellraiser Origins and there was some concern there because now they are competing with Clive Barker to make a Hellraiser movie. Is there any chance of collaboration on that, is this something really preliminary or is it at this point not going to happen?
MILLER: Yeah, it’s all still pretty preliminary. Clive did announce on his Facebook that he had a conversation with Bob Weinstein where they essentially agreed that Clive should write the remake. And that is how we’re proceeding at the moment.
LEITAO: Well I remember that something similar to this happened back in, I think it was 2008 and Clive Barker actually wrote a treatment for this and then they shopped around teams of directors and writers, including people like Patrick Lussier. Yeah. People who did the movie, Inside. And also that guy who did the movie Drive Angry 3D and Todd Farmer. So, hopefully this time Bob Weinstein will have a little more of love for the project and not try to shop around to the cheapest teams. As a fan, I was really frustrated back when I was reading this.
MILLER: The thing is Bob Weinstein came up to the office and he said to us that it’s not a lack of love for the project. He’s put out a lot of remakes because he wants to get this one right. To his credit, that’s fantastic. But he said he’s heard more pitches than you could imagine and none of them have been the thing. That’s why he came to Clive and he said “Look, this is your world. Explain it to me.” So, they’ve been talking a lot and it’s been a lot of fun. But the backlash on remakes is so terrible that we want to make something that lasts.
LEITAO: That’s more encouraging. Because people usually only have like two or three facts they read on Facebook or twitter and then they try to piece things together and often they’re just being pessimistic when it comes to remakes. So thanks for clearing that up.
DANHAUSER: And the common thread on the previous sequels has been “we need Pinhead; We need a puzzle box and we need hell and all the rest of it doesn’t matter.”
LEITAO: Oh, yeah. Gosh. You remember Hellraiser 9 Revelations, that thing was terrible. I mean, Clive Barker actually tweeted “the new Hellraiser is not from the mind of Clive Barker. It’s not even from my butthole.” That’s verbatim from his tweets.
MILLER: I do remember that tweet.
DANHAUSER: And Mark you’ve posted a picture at one time where Clive had kind of sharp teeth like glasses and back teeth on the Pinhead, on the cover of that Hellraiser Revelations.
LEITAO: Yeah, that was funny.
MILLER: That was fun. Yeah. I still display that proudly on my DVD case.
DANHAUSER: Well, about Nightbreed, you’d posted not too long ago that you had just turned over all of the VHS tapes to Shout Factory.
MILLER: Yes.
DANHAUSER: Is there anything you can tell us about the restoration process? I mean, we’ve had a lot of talks with Russell Cherrington about what he would like to see done, but we don’t know what the final kind of verdict is. Are they going to be backing the tapes? Is Danny Elfman going to be involved in redoing the soundtrack or is that all stuff that’s up to Shout Factory?
MILLER: I’m not sure. You know, I think it’s up to a lot of different factors. Shout Factory now owns, the distribution for the film. I’ve been in touch with them and we’re talking pretty regularly. This is what they do: They don’t take things and run off with them. They collaborate with the creator. We’re going to be involved during the entire process. And I think right now the plan is to, we were, they were going to bake them or digitize them this month, but the holidays are sort of getting away from us. We’re going to reengage in January and they’re working on some concept art right now. And we’re soon going to start the digitization and the cleanup process and go over the edits and it’s going to be fun. This is like the hands-on stuff. This is the stuff that I love. I can’t wait.
DANHAUSER: Do you think that they’re going to be using original film elements from the theatrical cut mixed in with the VHS, like the Cabal cut or will it be 100% all work print footage?
MILLER: No, ’cause I don’t know if all of that footage is available from the VHS tapes. So, I think it would be the same sort of thing like what Anchor Bay did with the Wicker Man and Army of Darkness. It’s going to be sourced from the film and then where the film elements are missing is where they’re going to put the VHS footage.
LEITAO: That makes sense. It’s going to be the Director’s cut of Nightbreed, which is produced by Seraphim and Clive Barker. Right?
MILLER: Yeah.
LEITAO: Just to clarify that for people out there that the Cabal Cut is one thing, and this will be a Director’s Cut, which will be similar to the Cabal Cut, but it’s going to be actually done with Clive Barker and Seraphim.
MILLER: Yeah. The Cabal Cut was, but we didn’t have all the tools that Shout Factory has. The Cabal cut was made with Russell and Jimmy Johnson pouring over the footage and digitizing with the elements they have and adding a sound mix with the limited resources they have and they created the everything but the kitchen sink version. Even in the interview that I gave for Rue Morgue said, there was one cut where Eigermann even dies twice; even the reshoots were included. So the Cabal Cut is the extended mall hours version, if you will. And the Director’s Cut is going to be what we can accomplish with a restoration budget, proper programs, proper sound engineers. It’s going to be tighter, more frightening, but still packed with monsters, it’s gonna be the thing that Clive intended it to be.
DANHAUSER: There’s a couple of rumors about this that I wanted to ask you about: there’s going to be Clive Barker’s artwork on the cover?
MILLER: Yeah, at this point is just a rumor. Not because it’s not going to happen, but we haven’t even had that conversation with Shout Factory yet. I think it would be very fitting to have Clive’s artwork, but at Shout Factory they make incredible covers. I think they’re going to come to us with a couple of different ideas and we’ll see what happens from there. But I’m excited to see what it’s going to look like.
DANHAUSER: The second one was that there is a rights issue that prevents you from being able to include an HD version of the Theatrical Cut in with the extended cut.
MILLER: I don’t know. I don’t know about all that.
LEITAO: I was just like to mention that I haven’t had the chance to thank you in person for all the work that you did and especially for finding the tapes. So, from the bottom of my heart, I guess I’m speaking for a lot of Nightbreed fans out there that fateful day when you guys were doing the spring cleaning and Seraphim and found the tapes and you mailed them to Phil and Sarah, that was probably one of the best news that came out back in 2009 I think. Reading the story of how you came across them on the annotated edition of Cabal. That was really interesting, so thank you for that.
MILLER: Thank you. That was a hell of a day.
DANHAUSER: It’s amazing, Jose and I got swept up in it because of that first screening at a Mad Monster Party that you and Russell did. The name “Occupy Midian” came up then and it’s been and it’s been an amazing ride.
MILLER: It really has. Thanks for being a part of it, guys.
LEITAO: Our pleasure. I would like to go back to Hellraiser stuff. There’s some pretty crazy things coming up. How long has it been since Hellraiser? It was back in 1987 and I just found the other day an interview with Floyd Hughes, who was the artist who made the storyboards for Hellraiser and I saw pictures of his original designs for the Puzzle Guardian Dragon that appears at the end of a Hellraiser. It came out in this website called The Labyrinth. That’s amazing. There’s an interview there with the Floyd Hughes, the guy who made the storyboards and designed the puzzle Guardian, so that’s really cool.
MILLER: That’s news to me. That’s really cool.
LEITAO: We’ll, put that in the show notes at the end of the episode. So I think it’s really interesting for Hellraiser fans out there to see the artwork from Floyd Hughes, which is really, really mind blowing.
MILLER: That’d be awesome. Please do.
DANHAUSER: It seems like there’s been a lot of literary things that are all coming out in 2014.
MILLER: There are indeed. We’re intent on keeping the written word a big part of our output: we have some special editions coming out; we have the self-published thing out; a print of “Chiliad” and some other awesome anniversary edition books. It’s very exciting primarily because I get a copy of each for free. That’s all I care about [laughs].
DANHAUSER: “Tortured Souls” too, right?
MILLER: Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff in the pipeline.
LEITAO: I got the “Chiliad” on preorder right now and I’m working on doing the preorder for the First Tales too. Hopefully after Christmas I’ll be able to do that.
DANHAUSER: And then there’s that Dolly story that’s in, “Turn Out The Lights” or “Turn Down the Lights”, I forget.
MILLER: That’s going to be a good one. That’s one of my favorite stories.
DANHAUSER: Did this all happen because you had said, ‘Hey, you know, there’s a goldmine of stories and things here that have just been sitting in drawers and we should get these out there and publish them’?
MILLER: Yeah. A lot of it is just redirection. Clive and I sat and said, we’re going to have to figure out how to make this work. And he’s writing away and I take what he writes, I find a place for it and that seems to be working pretty well so far.
DANHAUSER: Well, I think 2014 is going to be a good year to be a Clive Barker fan.
MILLER: I think so too.
LEITAO: That’s pretty cool news. Anytime that you have anything new, please let us know. We would love to break out news on the podcast, so it would be our pleasure to have you as many times as you are willing to come on our show.
MILLER: Yeah. I’m sorry it took us this long to do it. I promised Ryan I’d do it the last time I saw him in person. Things keep picking up, but I’ll make time for you guys when it’s there.
LEITAO: Thank you very much.
DANHAUSER: Yeah man. You guys for everything. We’ve just one comment from Facebook, but it’s kind of sarcastic. Michael Plumides says “tell him I’ve been digging him as Harker on NBCS Dracula.”
MILLER: That guy is awesome. (Laughter.) 2014 is going to be a good year. Keep your eyes peeled. We got movies, we got art shows, there’s all kinds of good stuff coming.
LEITAO: Oh yeah and check out the Clive Barker’s store at realclivebarker.com. You have books. You can have them signed by Clive Barker. So yeah, realclivebarker.com. That’s the Clive Barker store.
DANHAUSER: And of course of First Tales there’s only 2000 of the trade edition. So the ones those are gone. I guess that’s it.
MILLER: Indeed. Yeah. And that’s realclivebarker.com slash First Tales and you can go there and download the free audio book. We’d love for that to happen too.
LEITAO: Well, thank you very much again for being a part of the podcast and for taking the time to talk to us again. Thank you for all the work you’ve been doing and we’re looking forward to new stuff from Clive Barker.
DANHAUSER: And Next Testament also. I just subscribed to do it from boom.
MILLER: Awesome. Thanks guys. This was a lot of fun.
LEITAO: All right, well that’s another episode.
DANHAUSER: Yeah. Thanks so much Mark.
MILLER: Happy Holidays everyone.
LEITAO: Happy holidays to quote Camera Head, “That’s a Wrap!”
MILLER: Well done.
LEITAO: Yeah, I couldn’t help it. Well this was Mark Miller, a vice president of Seraphim films and thanks again, guys for joining us and keep watching the Seraphim website, RealCliveBarker.com and @MarkAlanMiller on Twitter.
MILLER: That’s me. And of course, filling realclivebarker.info for Phil and Sarah. There’s a site and news and the Occupy Midian facebook page.
DANHAUSER: Yeah. Thank you. Phil and Sarah, that’s where we get most of our news from.
MILLER: Yeah. They’re the best.
LEITAO: All right guys.
DANHAUSER: All right, thanks Mark.
MILLER: My pleasure. Talk to you later guys.
LEITAO: Yeah. All right. Talk to you later. Thank you again. Bye.
MILLER: Bye. Bye.
DANHAUSER: All right, well like Jose said just a few minutes ago, you can reach Mark Allen Miller via twitter, @MarkAlanMiller and go to the Real Clive Barker store. That’s realclivebarker.com. Clivebarker.info is the official Clive Barker news website. So those are all great places you can reach us on the web at www.clivebarkercast.com. We’re on iTunes, Podomatic and xbox music store or Zune music store, Tune-in Radio, Stitcher, Doubletwist, Blackberry and Pocketcast. We have a Facebook page, so com like us on Facebook, join the Occupy Midian group on Facebook, on Twitter, we’re a@BarkerCast and @OccupyMidian. The forum is CliveBarkerFans.com/forum and theme is by Colin Lakativa. Bandwidth for this episode was provided by Ryan Danhauser of REMAX Associates of Fairbanks. If you know somebody that’s looking to buy or sell a house in Fairbanks, Alaska, have them give me a call or have them get in touch with me. I would be really happy to work with Clive Barker fans especially. Okay. Well that’s it for this episode. Have a good day.
[…] BOOM! Studios 12-issue series “Next Testament”, created and written by Clive Barker and Mark Miller, who was a guest of the podcast previously, on episode #61. We do address spoilers about the story, so if you haven’t read it yet, go pick it up from […]
Th’ats the best answer of all time! JMHO