Tag: Barry Windsor-Smith

Conan the Barbarian (1970) #2

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It’s another issue where Thomas has a short present action (here a couple days) and makes it a full read. Well, actually, a couple days is only a short present action in the seventies and eighties.

Anyway… this issue Conan gets taken into bondage by some giants. Windsor-Smith draws them sort of as abominable snowmen. Their origin is in here too, but not the location of the story, an underground city. That element—feeling like one is in a world with an unknown history—is rather important. Because Thomas spends so much of the story on the action and unpleasantness (Conan eventually leads the human slaves to uprise), that implied history is what gets the reader’s imagination going.

Again, Windsor-Smith has some issues. It’s the ties. His eyes here are strange—the lines are all sharp, not round. But, also again, he has mostly wonderful panels.

Good stuff.

Conan the Barbarian (1970) #1

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Thomas and Windsor-Smith are off to a great start. Windsor-Smith’s art is, of course, not as finished as he’s become, but he does have some amazing panels. Oddly, when he’s at his lesser, he resembles an unintentional Mike Ploog (especially in the faces—but sharp compared to Ploog’s roundedness). It’s very strange.

The story introduces Conan but also gives the reader some sense of the world he’s in. Thomas has this sort of time machine device, which might not make any sense, but it does the job of placing the events.

It’s an action issue—the present action takes place over less than a day—and Thomas works in a number of scenes. It’s a full read, ending with Conan alone. It sort of starts with him alone, moves him into having companions and leaves him worse than he started.

There’s an energy and excitement to the book.