Redartz: Quite recently I was taking a leisurely tour through some comics websites and happened to see something that grabbed my attention. It seemed Barry Windsor Smith's decades-awaited book "Monsters" was being released by Fantagraphics. Out of curiosity I looked into the availability of a signed edition, and lo, there it was; a signed vellum page included in this special edition. Essentially forty dollars more than the standard edition. Well, I decided to think about it a bit. Next morning, I logged back in to pull the trigger on it, and discovered it was no longer available. The entire signed edition had sold out overnight.!Ah well, so then I ordered the regular edition . I'm currently about 100 pages into it and am most impressed. Long story made short: Barry's newest work prompted the decision to open a discussion of his career and art in general.
Before we look at his more familiar work, here's a few pages from "Monsters"; just to give you a sample. I don't see the 'art deco' styling we know from his "Conan" work, However, Barry's trademark detail and intricate linework is evidenced everywhere. Literally, everywhere across 365 pages of fully illustrated story. Oh, and sorry for the skew images, this book is impossible to fit into a scanner...
Now, here's a sampling of Barry's black/white work. Personally, I enjoy his art in this format more than in color, but it's a visual treat either way. Not many can render with the finesse that he can, and still maintain solid storytelling quality. And aside from the pen work, his sense of basic design and dramatic highlighting is superb. I could look at this print all day...
Then there's this incredible page from "Worms of the Earth" as presented in Savage Sword of Conan 16-17. Man, wish I'd kept those.
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| Inks by Tim Conrad |
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| Inks by Frank Giacoia |
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| Inks by Dan Adkins |
15 comments:
Quick lunchtime feedback, here---!
The first book I have with Barry (just) Smith's art is Avengers #66-- as part of a personal BEST RUN OF ALL TIME: Avengers #56-67, where he was right in there with John Buscema and Gene Colan. His style for those latter two issues was a darned cool, engagingly trippy amalgam of Kirby and Steranko. And even though it hardly hinted at what his "final form" would be (like, only two and a half years later?), I thought he was already terrific at that time. When he came back onto the book after the Kree/Skrull War-- and ESPECIALLY with issue 100-- it was hard to believe this was the same fella holding the pencil.
I probably prefer his Conan to John Buscema's-- except the change in styles works so well for Conan's broader narrative, as he gets older and more rugged and battle-worn. Windsor-Smith's Conan looked like he had yet to see his 30th birthday; Buscema's Conan looked like must've spanned at least the next 15 years, all told. But no one can capture that visual sense of antiquity quite like BWS.
Something I didn't particularly care for? The "Weapon X" feature in MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS. Such a huge fanfare about it. . . and I vaguely recall it looking nice enough. . . but I have NO sense of what the writing was like at all. The feature itself was so unmemorable that it's tough to even muster a "meh" opinion about it. . .
I do wonder if he's an artist with a big ol' reputation for deadline trouble? (I don't follow the industry scuttlebutt to know, really-) You look at that double-splash for WORMS OF THE EARTH, and he has drawn EVERY FLIPPIN' BLADE of saw-grass there! All over the place!! It's, like, "Welp, THAT was a week well-spent! Now let me draw some people. . . "
HB
Funny that HB mentioned preferring Smith's Conan to Buscema's. At this point, I think Buscema's version is the definitive visual representation of Conan, but back when I was a little kid in the late '70s, I thought Conan looked mean and ugly and so I never got the comics. Then I picked came upon the color pocketbook Conan reprints that featured stories from early in the run - that was the first time I'd seen Barry Smith's art and I loved it and initially preferred his version of Conan as well. After reading those stories, I warmed up to Conan in general.
So yeah, I very much like Smith's work.
By the way, Red, I think Smith's styling in some of his best known work is better described as Art Nouveau rather than Art Deco (just do a search for, say, artwork by Alfons Mucha and you'll see what I mean).
I do feel like somewhere between issues 24 and 25 our Barbarian got his nose broken at least a couple of times. . .
HB
Ole Charlie does not have a great depth of exposure to BWS outside those earliest Marvel superhero and Conan issues.
But what he saw he liked! A lot!
Regarding the King Size Conan $.35 you have both B&W and Color, I have to go with the color.
Reason being that the darker blue sky conveys a tremendous amount of context and excitement that the art simply can’t.
To me, the dark blue sky indicates dusk. The dead bodies indicate that Conan has been fighting throughout the day and now faces the added challenge of fighting at night b/c his weapons are drawn!
I’ve always had that impression from the color cover since I first saw that issue when I was like 12 years old.
And, 50 years later, having done stuff at night in the military and knowing how surreal it can be, the cover of Conan fighting at night is much more emotive.
HB- much as I love Big John's Conan, I too prefer Barry's. His version seems, well, perhaps individualized. And I'd also agree with your observation about BWS' rendering of the ancient world. Think of the Stegosaurus from "Red Nails". Who else could have matched that? Ok, Frazetta or Kubert, perhaps...
Edo- oy, you got me! You're quite right about " Art Nouveau ". I even nearly referenced Mucha; how embarrassing!
The color pocketbooks you mentioned: were those similar to the Marvel Spider-Man paperbacks that reprinted the Ditko era?
Charlie- nice commentary about that Annual cover. If you like the atmosphere that offers, you would probably also like Conan 12; phenomenal opening splash page of our Barbarian doing some night fighting...
My first exposure to BWS was Marvel Treasury Edition #4. Red Nails just blew my 11 year old mind. Still one of the best comics experiences I ever had. When I saw it in B&W many years later, I was even more impressed.
His contributions to Worms of the Earth were even more impressive to me. While I loved Tim Conrad's art, I would have loved to have seen Smith draw the whole story.
I've had a chance to watch his work develop in those early issues of Conan and I wish we'd been able to see even more (even though I love Buscema's version, too).
I haven't seen much of his work beyond that. By the time he returned to Marvel, I had moved on from comics.
The BWS cover on the first CONAN TREASURY (especially the full-bleed, un-cropped version on the BACK cover) is my single favorite BWS image of all time. Simply breath-taking.
‘Twilight of the Grim Grey God’ from CTB #3 (especially as moodily re-colored by BWS himself when reprinted in GIANT-SIZE CONAN #1 and CONAN CLASSIC #3) is still my favorite BWS story art. I love it to pieces — yes, even more than ‘Red Nails’ or ‘Song of Red Sonja’.
I also dig his weird-ass early stuff in that insane ‘Kirby And Steranko Had A Baby While Tripping Balls’ style.
b.t.
I Agree with “Red Nails” was a stunning piece of comic book art from start to finish and has to be one of the best examples of the comic book genre and what it is capable of. The first piece of Barry Smith art I actually saw was probably back in the late 1960s when he drew several back page pin-ups in a Jack Kirby style for UK Odhams comics Marvel reprint comic “Fantastic” - although I was totally unaware of this at the time until I read Kid Robson’s blog post (link below). The first time I was aware on BWS and his art was in a half page advert in a Marvel comic book advertising the Conan comic , but I missed his run on Conan by two issues (my firs tissue of Conan had John Buscema art in issue 26). It wasn’t until Marvel UK reprinted the Conan strips in the weekly “Savage Sword of Conan” comic that I saw his full comic book art for the first time.
My favourite of his Conan strips was “Song of Red Sonja” in issue 24 (his last work on the monthly Conan). Other favourites comics with Barry’s art for me were Iron Man issue 232, Adastra in Africa (although I have only seen this online but the art looks great) and the lovely art job he did in Epic issue 16 (cover and story) for “The Beguiling” . Another strip of his that is worth seeking out which also shows his sense of humour was “Norman the Barbarian” that appeared in National Lampoon, a satire on the Barbarian comics of the time . Heck did he ever f do a bad comic he just seemed to churn on great to classic art on almost everything from Rune to Weapon X and Machine Man (inking Herb Trimpes pencils which ended up looking like an original BWS drawn strip).
Links
The song of red Sonja
http://beachbumcomics.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-song-of-red-sonja-from-conan.html
THE Beguiling Epic Illustrated 16
https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2014/05/epic-illustrated-16-barry-windsor-smith.html?m=0
Norman the Barbarian (National Lampoon)
https://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2016/10/norman-barbarian.html
FANTASTIC comic- pin-up page
http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2012/02/barry-smiths-thor.html
Adastra
https://m.comixology.fr/Adastra-in-Africa/bd-numerique/872316
Red, re: the Conan pocketbook reprints. Yep, they were the same format as the various pocketbooks reprinting early Spider-man, FF, Hulk, Dr. Strange, Capt. America and Spiderwoman issues. The only difference was that in the Conan books, there were only a few panels per page, unlike the superhero books which reprinted the complete pages shrunken down. So each book only had about 3 issues of the series, whereas the others had about 6-7 issues per book. I think there were five of the Conan books in all, but I only had two of them.
And yeah, I agree with b.t. about the cover to that Conan Treasury edition (which I used to have): notwithstanding what I said about Buscema as the definitive Conan artist, I think that's possibly the best single Conan image ever - I mean I think it tops even the legendary Frazetta paperback covers.
Just heard of the passing of David Anthony Kraft. Loved his run on Defenders. All my sympathies to his family and friends. And another name is added to that growing Bullpen in the Beyond...
Yep, multiple people are posting about DAK's passing on fb and at the Classic Comics Forum. Apparently due to Covid-related complications. Damn.
Also liked his Defenders run, and his Man-Wolf stories from the late '70s. RIP.
In 2019 Conan returned to Marvel after 15 years at Dark Horse Comics and Marvel launched Conan The Barbarian #1 and Savage Sword Of Conan #1. SSOC ended after 12 issues but the cover of #5 was a homage/pastiche of Barry Smith's cover for the Conan Treasury Edition featuring Red Nails.
That's sad news about DAK I don't think he was that old in the scheme of things either. Loved his Defenders and Man Wolf stories. And his Comic Interview magazine.
Coming a bit late to this one, but getting back to Barry Windsor-Smith...
My main thought is that Monsters is a staggering, phenomenally accomplished piece of work. Can we even imagine Neal Adams or Jim Steranko putting out an original graphic novel at this stage of the game?
While his contemporaries live on their reputation, revisiting their greatest hits with disappointing new Batman and Deadman comics or tweeting for Trump, Barry keeps pushing himself as an artist, and at the boundaries of what can be done.
-sean
Sean- thanks for your thoughts on "Monsters". It is a most impressive piece of work. I'm still working through it, about halfway there. Very powerful, frequently uncomfortable, but a great work.
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