Barry Windsor-Smith

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Barry Windsor-Smith : biography

25 May 1949 –

Despite this, Thomas assigned him issues #66 and #67 of The Avengers (July–Aug. 1969) after he had returned to the U.K., and he continued to work at a distance for Marvel, providing the art for a number of stories in the horror anthology titles Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. Thomas, a longtime fan of Robert E. Howard’s 1930 pulp-fiction character Conan the Barbarian fan, also had Windsor-Smith provide art for a sword and sorcery story, "Starr the Slayer", in Chamber of Darkness #4 (April 1970). Soon afterward, Thomas offered Windsor-Smith the job as penciller for Marvel’s adaptation of Conan, starting with Conan the Barbarian #1 (Oct. 1970). In 1971, Windsor-Smith moved to the United States, having been granted a work permit.

During his run on Conan the Barbarian, Windsor-Smith was involved in the writing as well. He and writer Roy Thomas adapted a number of R.E. Howard short stories, the aforementioned "The Frost-Giant’s Daughter", "Tower of the Elephant", "Rogues in the House", and "Red Nails", the last of which was issued as a very limited, pirated, A3-size black-and-white version on glossy paper in England in early 1974.Conan the Barbarian: Red Nails Unicorn Press, Brighton, England 1974. This was the second and last A3 comic issued by Unicorn Bookshop, the first being an also unauthorised reprint of Elric of Melnibone material first in Metal Hurlant by Philippe Druillet As well as the art and story contributions, Windsor-Smith provided the covers for most issues. They also worked on original adventures and characters based on R.E. Howard’s characters – most notably the flame-haired warrior-woman, Red Sonja – loosely based on a character from one of Howard’s non-Conan stories, who has now become a major comics character in her own right – in "The Song Of Red Sonja" in Conan the Barbarian #24 (March 1973), Windsor-Smith’s last issue of the title. By then he had worked on 21 of the first 24 issues of the series, missing only issues #17 and #18, and #22 (which was a reprint of issue #1), and both he and the title had won a number of awards. Windsor-Smith would later say that the reason he missed those issues was because he had quit the series a number of times as he was dissatisfied with the work and how the comics business worked, rather than the deadline problems Marvel quoted.

Windsor-Smith also provided the art for a number of other Marvel Comics titles, including the Ka-Zar stories in Astonishing Tales #3-#5 (December 1970-April 1971) and #10 (February 1972), three further issues of The Avengers (#98-100, April–June 1972) – about which he would later remember the nightmare of drawing "all those bloody characters that I didn’t give tuppence about", Iron Man #42 (June 1972), and Marvel Premiere #3-4 (July–September 1972), which featured Doctor Strange, both of which were apparently re-scripted by Stan Lee after being drawn to Lee’s original scripts. Windsor-Smith was by now becoming disillusioned with the comics industry and the way in which in his opinion the writers and artists were being exploited: "I needed to be free of constraints and policies that were imposed by the dictates of creating entertainment for children" Shortly thereafter, Windsor-Smith left comics for the first time, leaving only a couple of inventory items in the Marvel Comics vaults, both stories of R.E. Howard characters: Kull in "Exile of Atlantis" (Savage Sword of Conan #3, December 1974), and Bran Mak Morn in "Worms of the Earth" (Savage Sword of Conan #16, November 1975). Other than ten pages of inking of Jack Kirby pencil work for Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles (1976), at the Grand Comics Database a one-off oversize Marvel Comics Treasury Edition, he produced no more comics work until 1983.

At this point he changed his professional surname to Windsor-Smith, adding his mother’s surname to his own, and began to pursue a career in fine art. Granted residential status in the United States in 1974, Windsor-Smith, along with his partner Linda Lessman, set up Gorblimey Press, through which he released a small number of limited-edition prints of fantasy-based subjects that proved popular. In 1976 Windsor-Smith published The Gorblimey Press Catalogue, a high quality index to the work published by Gorblimey Press, with full-page reproductions of each piece. Prior to that, in 1975, together with Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson, he was one of four comic book artists-turned-fine-illustrator/painters who formed a small artist’s loft commune in Manhattan known as The Studio, with the aim of pursuing creative products outside the constraints of comic book commercialism. By 1979 they had produced enough material to issue an art book under the name The Studio, which was published by Dragon’s Dream (ISBN 9063325819).