I only picked up Clive Barker's Age of Desire because of name recognition - something that failed me earlier.

While I've never read the Clive Barker prose, this adaptation is stunning. P. Craig Russell's adaptation is blessed by being accompanied by the artwork of Timothy Bradstreet. Russell also adds in some added artwork himself within the pages of this graphic novel.

Age of Desire deals with an experiment gone awry. Blind Boy, Jerome is the center of a sexual study of a drug used to stimulate the sexual imagination, turning him into a rapist and killer. He kills one doctor after - or upon - raping her and seriously injures another. The latter doctor's only mission is to destroy all records of the failed experiment.

Police are after Jerome, hoping to catch him before he rapes and kills again. The story's climax is foretold before the final page, but its meaning lives on forever. In an age where desire is mimic through drugs - where even a blind boy can have vivid sexual fantasies - what part of us is left human? ( )

This adaptation had a troubled history, which is detailed in the afterwords by the two artists. It was originally Craig Russell's project; then the publisher took it away from him and gave it to Tim Bradstreet. Then the publisher went bankrupt and it sat in a file for nearly twenty years. As a result, it probably isn't as good as it might have been (Bradstreet's art then was very good; it's much better now.) It's not bad, but it's occasionally confusing, and didn't affect me the way the original prose story (which appears in Barker's 'The Inhuman Condition') did. ( )