Clive Barker’s Next Testament by Mark Alan Miller
Based on the BOOM! Studios graphic novels by Mark Alan Miller and Clive Barker
Earthling Publications, 2017
ISBN-13: Not Available
Available: Limited, Deluxe, and Lettered versions (direct order from Earthling Publications here)

Is there truly a God? If there is, what is he like?  Why would he put up with the hell on earth for the past millennia, and what would he think of what humanity has become? Clive Barker and Mark Miller have posited these questions in The Next Testament, and answer them in a fascinating tale.

Clive Barker’s Next Testament is a novelization of  BOOM! Studio’s graphic novel series of the same name. While Miller has written the actual novel, Barker’s touch is everywhere here: he drew the artwork both for the cover and interior, which is typically disturbing and splendid. With an introduction by the iconic F. Paul Wilson, readers are in for a special experience.

The story itself is horrific and bombastic, bleeding weird imagination all over the place. In the scorching desolation of the desert, billionaire Julian Desmond is driven to uncover a truth that has eluded humanity for ages, something he doesn’t quite understand himself.  Desmond digs up a strange structure in the middle of nowhere, falling into a darkness that feels like nothing he’s ever imagined. There he meets Wick, a man covered in myriad colors, but not in tattoos; a true illustrated man. Wick claims that he is God, the one true being who sculpted the world, and that he needs to witness what has happened to his creation.

Readers may wonder why he needed to be released from this structure and who locked him up… but not for long.  When Wick is introduced to the modern world, he is enraged, and his actions are those of an Old Testament deity. Julian’s son Tristan and Tristan’s fiance Elspeth may be the only ones with a chance of stopping this destructive god.

Miller and Barker’s creation is brutal, in the fashion of Barker’s classics, such as Books of Blood and Hellraiser. The Next Testament is bloody, unflinching, and unhinged in its free-flowing swath of “hell-on-earth”. This is classic hardcore horror with a philosophic bend to it that will draw Barker’s faithful, but introduce many more to the talents of Miller. The Next Testament is a welcome, and recommended, return to the horror that readers have been craving.

Contains: graphic gore, extreme violence

Reviewed by David Simms