As Pride Month comes to an end for another year, I thought I’d very loosely tie into it once more, with a comic featuring a ton of Clive Barker’s creations. Barker, who has identified as gay since he was a teenager, has always been a refreshing and unique voice in the realm of dark fantasy and horror art, with his unsettling creations in the realm of theatre, art, books and films terrifying generations of fans of the fantastique for decades.

In Hellraiser Nightbreed: Jihad #1, the Cenobites are ordered to wage war on the ‘Breed, given that they are making their presence too obvious after the destruction of their sanctuary, Midian. Nightbreed such as Peloquin are engaging in intimate contact with humans (aka ‘Naturals’), disrupting the established order of the world. Tensions flare between Pinhead and an upstart Cenobite, Alastor, with the latter all too eager to take down the Nightbreed, and Pinhead believing that waging the titular Jihad is against what Hell’s denizens are supposed to stand for.

First things first; the painted artwork by Paul Johnson is glorious. It’s not what I’d call beautiful, given the blood and viscera on many pages, but it is very well done. Some characters and likenesses are a bit inconsistent, especially Boone/Cabal, but that can be forgiven, with how strong the work is in general.

The same can’t be said for DG Chichester’s overwrought, pretentious dialogue and generally confusing script. It jumps from scene to scene in a very strange manner, with no sense of time or place in the Nightbreed scenes; characters (such as Narcisse) appear and disappear out of nowhere, and it’s not always clear what’s happening at all. Though some of that fault could easily be attributed to the scratchy, surreal and stylised art, it really feels as if Johnson has done his best with what he was given, and Chichester’s script is at fault.

Given that it’s only a two part story, it’ll have to go some way to wrap up satisfactorily; I’m not overly confident that it will, but watch this space. I have issue #2 to hand, so it’s only a matter of time before we revisit (and conclude) this clash between two of Clive Barker’s most beloved universes.

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