Clive Barker

Clive Barker The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies Edited by Phil and Sarah Stokes Earthling Publications: 408 pp., $35

While most of us have Christmas on our minds, Universal Studios Hollywood is already planning for next Halloween. > Halloween Horror Nights 2011: Review | Photos | Celebrities   Universal has been conducting an online survey to gauge fan interest in 50 movie and television properties as potential haunted maze themes for Halloween Horror Nights 2012. The annual post-Halloween poll offers fans a glimpse into what could be on the horror horizon at Universal.

POP MUSIC L.A. Font The Echo Park four-piece tops a bill with Future Ghost, Kazai Rex and Two Guns. The Pavement-devoted band is headed by Danny Bobbe, an Alaskan with a penchant for spotlighting the grittiest, funniest details of his current surroundings and a frontman worth the admission cost alone. Silverlake Lounge , 2906 Sunset Blvd., L.A. 9 p.m. $8. foldsilverlake.com . ART Clive Barker The master of horror flicks and prolific visual artist presents a new series of oil paintings and ink drawings, many available for purchase.

BOOKS Clive Barker The horror virtuoso behind menacing film fare such as "Hellraiser" signs his new book, "Abarat: Absolute Midnight," the latest installment in his dark fantasy series where the world is in permanent darkness. Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 7 p.m. Free. http://www.Booksoup.com. The New Face of the Arctic Henry N. Pollack, a professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan, will discuss the rapid changes taking place in the Arctic, including thawing permafrost, diminishing sea ice and disrupted ecosystems, as well as their potential consequences.

"The Imagination of Clive Barker" is a coherent exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculptures that takes viewers on a spiritless journey into a nightmarish nether world crawling with one-eyed serpents, half-human mutants and crucifix-toting ghouls. At the Laguna Art Museum's satellite gallery at South Coast Plaza, flames fly from an arsonist's fiery eyes, hairless figures sprout pins, porcupine quills or tree branches, and giant spikes impale angelic creatures.

The four tales of horror in Clive Barker's "In the Flesh" are not made for fireside reading. These are disturbing tales that emerge from a profound sense of despair and desolation. Barker is a young English author, and "In the Flesh" is the fifth of a six-volume English collection, the "Books of Blood" (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Indeed, blood oozes, splatters, drips and gushes from these stories in great abundance. In the title story, Barker describes the result of a fight between two prisoners.

CLIVE BARKER wants to illustrate a point about the varied and unfettered nature of his painterly imagination, which at this moment has him surrounded as he sits in the Beverly Hills house he's turned into a do-it-yourself gallery. "Well, let's look. Here we go," says Barker, as he rises from the long wooden dining room table that appears to be the only surface -- kitchen counters included -- that isn't covered with paintings.

It wasn't enough that Universal Studios had a Halloween attraction last year loaded with some of Hollywood's best special effects. Universal officials figured there had to be a way to top it for the park's second annual Halloween haunt, which opens Friday night. "We brought in the greatest mind in horror to create what will truly be the most interesting haunted experience ever," said Norm Kahn, Universal vice president of entertainment.

English horror-tale author Clive Barker clutches a coffee table in a white-knuckle grip, as if to keep it from attacking. "Is that table alive?" a guest asks politely. "Probably not," he answers, as if unsure. But he is sure that it could be, that things are never what they seem, that "everything--even a table--has imagination." Barker's own imagination is bloodcurdling.

Clive Barker knows a thing or two about scaring people. After all, who can forget that freaky pinhead guy from the "Hellraiser" series of horror flicks? So it naturally stands to reason that the newly released Clive Barker's Jericho would be the perfect Halloween video game, right? Give a master of horror the reins to create a creepy story and watch out: "Something wicked this way comes." Unfortunately, Jericho is wicked in all the wrong ways.

Abarat Absolute Midnight Clive Barker Joanna Cotler Books/HarperCollins: 573 pp., $24.99 ages 13 and older

In the opening scene of "Abarat: Absolute Midnight," the third installment in Clive Barker's lavish fantasy adventure series, a blind man is alone in his island home, intuiting the messages transmitted by tarot cards. The cards foretell that a war is coming, one that will remake the land — an archipelago of 25 islands, each of which stands at a given hour of the day and one mysterious island that represents "time out of time. " This conflict also will align the fortunes of the Card-Reader with the unlikely heroine of the story, one Candy Quackenbush from Chickentown, Minn., the resourceful young woman at the center of Barker's expansive tale.

Clive Barker The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies Edited by Phil and Sarah Stokes Earthling Publications: 408 pp., $35

A collection of a writer's prefaces and random prose pieces often feels like the mustard-stained bread crusts on a child's plate after lunch. Nutritive quality? Low. Value? Marginal. Overall response? Ugh. That verdict, fortunately, doesn't apply to all collections, especially one by Clive Barker, a writer perhaps best known for his "Hellraiser" story and "Abarat" saga. His thoughtful musings on horror and culture have been collected in "Clive Barker: The Painter, the Creature, and the Father of Lies.

Clive Barker knows a thing or two about scaring people. After all, who can forget that freaky pinhead guy from the "Hellraiser" series of horror flicks? So it naturally stands to reason that the newly released Clive Barker's Jericho would be the perfect Halloween video game, right? Give a master of horror the reins to create a creepy story and watch out: "Something wicked this way comes." Unfortunately, Jericho is wicked in all the wrong ways.

CLIVE BARKER wants to illustrate a point about the varied and unfettered nature of his painterly imagination, which at this moment has him surrounded as he sits in the Beverly Hills house he's turned into a do-it-yourself gallery. "Well, let's look. Here we go," says Barker, as he rises from the long wooden dining room table that appears to be the only surface -- kitchen counters included -- that isn't covered with paintings.

In the opening scene of "Abarat: Absolute Midnight," the third installment in Clive Barker's lavish fantasy adventure series, a blind man is alone in his island home, intuiting the messages transmitted by tarot cards. The cards foretell that a war is coming, one that will remake the land — an archipelago of 25 islands, each of which stands at a given hour of the day and one mysterious island that represents "time out of time. " This conflict also will align the fortunes of the Card-Reader with the unlikely heroine of the story, one Candy Quackenbush from Chickentown, Minn., the resourceful young woman at the center of Barker's expansive tale.

Clive Barker fans are legion. But those who have carefully shunned Barker's typical gore-fests, both cinematic and literary, might be happily surprised by Barker's "Crazyface," now receiving its West Coast premiere at the Sacred Fools Theater. Not that the play doesn't feature its share of the outre, including a sadistic angel and a trio of commedia-inspired clowns inflicting tortures on those who have fallen afoul of church and crown.