Clive Barker's Hellraiser #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeClive Barker's Hellraiser #2 marks the first interior comic-book appearances of Pinhead (Elliott Spencer) and the Female Cenobite (Sister Nikoletta), who had been confined to cover and pin-up duty in the debut issue — making this the book where the film franchise's signature Cenobites finally stepped onto the printed page as active story participants. The issue also showcases the anthology format at its most ambitious, recruiting a roster of rising talent that included the future founder of Milestone Comics, Dwayne McDuffie, demonstrating that Epic's Hellraiser was a genuine creative incubator rather than a simple film tie-in. As part of a series that expanded the Cenobite mythology far beyond the four figures seen in the early films, issue #2 helped establish the anthology's reputation for imaginative, creator-driven horror at a moment when mature-readers comics were actively redefining what the medium could do.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The series was born out of the commercial momentum of Clive Barker's first two Hellraiser films and was shepherded at Epic by editor Margaret Clark, with Dan Chichester as consulting editor, Carl Potts as executive editor, and Tom DeFalco as editor-in-chief — all working under Barker's active creative consultancy. Because Barker was deep into his novels at the time and not scripting the stories himself, the editorial team recruited a wide pool of freelance writers and artists for each quarterly anthology issue, giving the book a genuinely varied creative voice across its run. Issue #2, which went on sale March 6, 1990, collected five complete short stories and a gallery of pin-ups, reinforcing the prestige-format packaging that distinguished the series from the standard monthly pamphlet.
Trivia · 8 facts
- On-sale date: March 6, 1990; cover-dated May 1990; published by Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel, under Clive Barker's creative consultancy.
- Cover art by Simon Bisley; 64 pages in prestige format.
- First interior comic-book appearances of Pinhead (Elliott Spencer) and the Female Cenobite (Sister Nikoletta), both appearing in the closing story 'The Pleasures of Deception,' written by Philip Nutman with art by Bill Koeb — Pinhead had previously appeared only on the cover and in a pin-up in issue #1.
- Stapleface appears in the issue (mask only), per the Grand Comics Database.
- Five short stories in the issue: 'The Vault' (Marc McLaurin/Jorge Zaffino), 'Divers Hands' (James Robert Smith/Mike Hoffman), 'Writer's Lament' (Dwayne McDuffie/Kevin O'Neill), 'The Threshold' (Mark Kneece/Scott Hampton), and 'The Pleasures of Deception' (Philip Nutman/Bill Koeb).
- 'Writer's Lament' was written by Dwayne McDuffie — later the co-founder of Milestone Comics and creator of Static Shock and Icon — with art by Kevin O'Neill, co-creator of Marshal Law.
- Interior pin-ups contributed by Jon J. Muth, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Mike Mignola.
- Material from this issue was reprinted in the Graphitti Designs Hellraiser #1 (1990) and again in Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best #2 (Checker, 2003).
Cast · 10 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Clive Barker's Hellraiser #1 (1990), USA magazine #50 (1990), USA magazine #51 (1990), Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Posterbook #1 (1991), Hellraiser #2 (1991), Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best #2 (2003), Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best #3 (2004), Bastei Comic Edition #72553
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