He's been a popular and successful author, penning short stories and novels that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and spawned a thriving and loyal fan base.

He's been a movie director, bringing his horrific, entirely unique creations to the screen and gathering a cult following of devoted fans in the process.

He's even been a driving force behind a successful (and frightening) video game.

He is Clive Barker, and by any measure he is one of the great modern masters of horror, a name arguably second only to Stephen King in the world of multimedia terror.

Barker recently appeared at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Secaucus, New Jersey, where he talked books, movies, Pinhead, painting, imagination, and why he wouldn't trade his homosexuality for the world.

The creator of the Hellraiser mythology has been away from Hollywood for a few years now, not because he doesn't have ideas – Barker rarely lacks for ideas – but because, well, Hollywood is frustrating.

“Hollywood has driven me nuts in the last few years. It's not an easy place to work right now,” Barker said. “You have to fight so hard to get (a) movie made that often you lose sight of why you wanted to make it in the first place.”

Worse still, the ever shifting world of rights, studios, and assorted legalese that comes with Hollywood means fans of his creation may never get the treat so many want: A Hellraiser boxed set. Barker said flat-out such a set was unlikely. The rights, he said, are scattered between different companies, making putting such a set together a legal puzzle not likely to be tackled anytime soon.

It was this muddying of film's creative waters that drove Barker away from shooting pictures and towards painting them. And painting them drove him back to where he began. Books.

Painting A New World
Somewhere along the line, taken by his constant need to create, Barker picked up a paintbrush and began painting. One painting. Then another. And another. Before long, dozens of paintings pouring from within him, paintings that seemed to have something in common: a world.

And so was born Arabat.
The first novel in the Books of Arabat series, called simply Arabat, introduces readers to the rich new world he has created. Arabat is a world – well, 25 worlds – separate from our own, each existing within one hour of the day, and the 25th existing beyond time. Within these worlds are the kind of vast and varying images, people and places fans of his work have come to expect. Two dozen and one fantasy worlds created ... with a paintbrush.

“In a way I seemed to be painting this world into existence,” Barker said.

The Arabat novels – the second is Arabat: Days of Magic, Nights of War - are marketed towards teen readers, but they certainly contain their share of subversive material, according to the author.

“A lot of the fans look at Arabat and say, 'My god, you're getting away with shit. Is this okay for kids?'” Barker smiled. “I want to give my younger readers a taste of the forbidden. We're really reaching out for a new audience. It's exciting.”

The books combine Barker's own brand of storytelling with dozens of paintings in each volume, the very paintings he created when the world of Arabat first sprang into existence.

“It's a synthesis of words and pictures that hopefully will be like nothing you have ever seen before,” Barker enthused.

Back To The Big Screen?
Words, paintings, those are things this horror grandmaster can control. Film? Not so much. Barker said he understands he can't control the film studios and what they do to his characters. All he can do is keep creating. “My duty right now is to paint and write and just get along with what I know I can do,” he said.

But that doesn't mean the end for Clive Barker and film. He is leading the formation of a new production company to be devoted to horror films, horror films like they used to be – films that don't toe the line in an effort to get a PG-13 rating. With a modest budget and a willingness to push the envelope, Barker figures he can help give horror fans more of what they are clamoring for. Shocks. Chills. And gore.

“I figured it was time to go back to the smaller scale horror films,” he said.

The first film from his studio will be called The Plague. The premise? All the children of the world one day mysteriously go to sleep ... and don't wake up for 10 years. When they do finally wake up, they are plagued with “strange appetites and desires.” Knowing Barker, their appetite is not going to be for a nice slice of apple pie.

Also on the film agenda is a title sure to make Barker fans frenzied with excitement: Midnight Meat Train. That's right, the fan favorite from his popular Books of Blood series is going to be made into a film. A film with some blood in it.

“Very, very gory,” he laughed. “I was surprised when I went back to read it. I said, 'Fuck me, how did they let me do this?'”

That feeling is something he wants to capture again. Shocking people. And, to the delight of his biggest fans, it may be something he does with his best-known character, in the way it all began for Barker – with the written word.

The Next Step For Pinhead
Clive Barker wants to make you squirm and shudder and think, 'What in the hell is this all about?' before going to take a bath and wash off the filth.

“When I made Hellraiser in my early 30s, I really wanted to shock people ... I've really gotten back to that idea of shocking the fuck out of people,” he laughed.

The shocking (and squirming and filth, no doubt) will come in his next project, a book to be called The Scarlet Gospels, and the idea is ... well, to kill off his best known character, Pinhead. Kill him dead.

“I think it's time he dies a dignified death, somewhere Dimension (Films, current holders of the Hellraiser property) can't reach him,” he said. “Not that they won't try.”

The book is poised to be one of the most over-the-top Barker works to date, full of gore and evil and horror and anything his twisted imagination can conjure. The steady stream of creating won't stop there. After The Scarlet Gospels, Barker plans to begin work on Absolute Midnight, the third book in the Arabat saga, a series he is excited to continue because it has drawn a whole new generation into his brand of imagination.

“We're living in a new post-Harry Potter world. We're living in a world where very young people are picking up books again,” he said.

And that couldn't make him happier. You see, for Barker, imagination stands above all.

Without Imagination, There Is Nothing
For Barker, imagination is life. It can open new worlds and change the way you think. Imagination, no matter what you imagine, can only be a good thing, he said. It's something he has believed – and lived - since childhood. As an overweight kid, a kid with glasses, a kid scorned by other children, his imagination gave him refuge, a place to escape from the real world.

“I had these secret friends as a child. I talked to them all the time and they were very real to me,” Barker said. “I believe our imaginations are tools for taking us on the next evolutionary level. The more I can feed my imagination ... into the collective consciousness, the happier I am. I feel as if it is my duty. God gave me this weird imagination.”

“If I can jumpstart people's imagination, that's an honor.”

Part of his active imagination comes from his always having felt different than the people around him. And part of the reason he has felt different, he said, is because he is homosexual. Barker spoke with great frankness about his sexuality (he has been openly gay for some years), saying it was a part of what made him “other”. And he liked that.

“My sexuality became part of my differentness,” he said. “I don't want straight culture to say, 'Okay, you're part of us, we're all the same.' Fuck that. I don't want that. No, I'm different.”

“I don't want to be part of the regular run of human beings,” Barker said. His imagination, his sexuality, his love for horror – it's what makes him who he is. “I like this stuff and I'm not going to make any apologizes for it. It's who I am.”

But then, he doesn't need to make any apologies. He's Clive Barker.