BWS

[andrew]

What's his story? I mean, he did all the Conan and Marvel stuff, then fell off in the 80's, right? Any reasons why? Then after Valiant, Malibu, and the Storyteller stuff, he's fallen off again, right? Sorry, I don't know nearly enough about the comic industry, but I love looking at his work.

[Chuck]

Hey, Zeph wanna take this?

[andrew]

Yeah, that's who I was hoping for, but I didn't want to exclude anyone.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

What's his story? I mean, he did all the Conan and Marvel stuff, then fell off in the 80's, right? Any reasons why? Then after Valiant, Malibu, and the Storyteller stuff, he's fallen off again, right? Sorry, I don't know nearly enough about the comic industry, but I love looking at his work.

Well.

It's a bit complicated, but it goes something like this:

Barry is British.

He started at Marvel in the very late 60's, as a Kirby clone. VERY kirby-esque artwork.

Then, after a year or two, developed his own incredible style, which saw it's zenith in Conan #'s 13-24. Those are, without a doubt, head and shoulders above anything being published concurrently. MAYBE Neal Adams, MAYBE....but the last issues of Conan that Barry did were a labor of love, and you can tell that.

Barry did a LOT of Marvel work in the early 70's, notably Amazing Adventures, Astonishing Tales, Avengers, Marvel Premiere, etc. Mostly fill in issues, here and there.

The only SERIES he ever did was Conan.

In the mid 70's, he got tired of the grind, and turned to his own studio work. He is, after all, a very accomplished classical artist in his own right, and loves to paint.

More to come....

[x-omatic]

I really liked his Machine Man mini series.

[Ryan]

I always kind of got the impression that Barry sees himself as an 'fine artist', and finds comics a bit degrading. But I love his stuff, he's still putting out the Storyteller hardcovers now and on his website it says he's going to do a Monster mini-series for Vertigo which looks awesome.

[andrew]

More to come....

?

Thanks so far.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

...ok, so in the mid 70's, BWS got tired of the grind, wanted to do paintings and whatnot, found his Gorblimey studios....and did just that. He specialized (of course) in Fantasy work, and stayed completely out of mainstream comics for close to 10 years.

Then, in 1983, Jim Shooter got BWS to pencil the (84) Machine Man mini-series, which was a tour de force, and the first appearance of the artwork known as 'modern' Windsor-Smith. He then continued to work on fill-ins here and there for the next couple of years, most notably X-Men (starting with #186), DD covers (#217) and interiors (#236), as well as various covers for Marvel (ex FF #296) and pinups in anniversary issues.

He continued to work sparingly in the late 80's, but was coaxed back into 'series' work with a MEGA hit series in Marvel Comics Presents doing Wolverine's origin, which ran from #72-#84. Unfortunately, that 'origin' has been pretty much retconned.

Then, of course, there was Valiant.

After that, there was Rune, and then Storyteller.

And that pretty much brings us to the present.

Not a VAST body of work, like a Byrne or a Kirby, but enough to be considered one of the finest artists in the entire medium.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Who is Barry Windsor Smith ? Isnt he one of the Bee Gees ?

Yeah, him and Andy Helfer.

[andrew]

All right, thanks. I'll have to pick up that Conan stuff if it's collected.

[Ryan]

All right, thanks. I'll have to pick up that Conan stuff if it's collected.

It's all just been collected by Dark Horse in the last year. Good stuff