Pinhead

Pinhead is a cenobite — a being transformed beyond humanity through extreme sensation — who serves as an emissary of a dark, extradimensional realm accessed via an ornate puzzle box. First appearing in Marvel's adaptation of Clive Barker's horror mythology, this figure embodies the blurred boundary between pleasure and pain.

Few icons of horror have made the leap from screen to page with such unsettling authority as Pinhead, who first materialized in comics in 1989's Clive Barker's Hellraiser #1 — brought to life on the page by the remarkable pairing of Jan Strnad and the legendary Bernie Wrightson. Born at the dawn of the Copper/Modern Age, this figure of dread found a home at Marvel across a remarkable fourteen-year span, haunting the pages of Clive Barker's Hellraiser, the self-titled Pinhead series, and Clive Barker's The Harrowers. Throughout those 39 catalogued appearances, Pinhead keeps extraordinarily dark company — sharing pages with the likes of Elliott Spencer, the infernal Leviathan, Balberith, and the Female Cenobite — a rogues' gallery that speaks to the rich, labyrinthine mythology surrounding this character. For fans of horror comics who want to trace the full arc of Clive Barker's nightmarish vision in sequential art, Pinhead's comic run is essential, haunting territory.