Clive Barker pens 'Next Testament' of biblical horror

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

With his Next Testament, Clive Barker is going Old Testament.

The horror guru creates his first original work in comics with the 12-issue Boom! Studios miniseries, debuting Wednesday and exploring what would happen if God came back to Earth and didn't like what we've done with the place.

"It has elements of dark fantasy and horror, it's intelligent, and sophisticated and like all of Clive's work it has something to say," says Matt Gagnon, editor in chief at Boom!

The first issue introduces Julian Demond, a 60-year-old captain of industry with a drug-addicted wife and a mission into the desert to find the Almighty. In this sandy wasteland he discovers a sacred monument and also somebody very powerful: the omnipotent Wick.

The story originated with a photography session that Barker and co-writer Mark Miller did together.

Barker, who brought his Hellraiser franchise to Boom!, paints models and then photographs them in various landscapes, according to Miller, and one setup in particular inspired Next Testament.

"Head to toe, I was painted in tribal-looking blue and red and yellow and all these earth-tone paints," Miller says. "We're standing there and Clive was just free associating these paintings.

"When he finished, we both stepped back and said, 'Who is this guy? He needs a story.' "

Adds Gagnon: "It was almost like stained glass what he painted."

The writers named him Wick, Miller wondered if he might be a god, "and Clive said what if he was part of the original trinity and he'd been banished and the other two were still out there free and this guy is like God and the devil rolled up in one," Miller says. "It's a way-out-there story."

He and Barker bonded initially over a love of story, but also watching in "more movies than most people would consider healthy," says Miller, adding that Next Testament will be filled with all sorts of the terrible biblical things that happened in Genesis.

"As far as other narratives or other stories, I don't think there's anything else like it."