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Rating: 
Summary: Smith's artwork disappears behind digital colorization
Review: The main subject of my review is the impact of the heavy handed colorization on Barry Smith's artwork. I purchased the first four volumes of these Dark Horse reprints and I've never been happy with the color treatment imposed on Smith's art. I guess that I kept hoping that some how, some way Dark Horse might come to their senses and as Smith's drawing became more detailed they'd apply the color more appropriately. They did the opposite in volume four which reprints issues 23 through 26 of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (issues 23 contained "The Shadow of the Vulture", and 24 contained "The Song of Red Sonja" and were Smith's last work for this title) and "Red Nails" which appeared in black and white in issues two and three of SAVAGE TALES. "The Song of Red Sonja" and "Red Nails" show Smith as his most polished and are drawn in a highly decorative style with his extremely detailed brush and ink technique. But you won't be able to really see this in this book, because the overpowering digital color not only fails to assist Smith's exquisite line work, it obscures his drawing and makes it subservient to the color. Smith's beautifully rendered transitions from light to dark disappear under heavy applications of dark color, his carefully spotted blacks are swallowed up in digitized modelling and his dynamic panel to panel compositions become calcified bas reliefs. ~~ This may not bother some readers of this book, but Barry Smith's art is the ONLY reason I bought it. Much preferable is the black and white treatment his work received in the first nine issues of THE CONAN SAGA published by Marvel in 1987 and 1988. Not only can one enjoy the full glory of Smith's drawing in black and white, these magazines have the bonus of having covers that were drawn and colored by Smith himself. So, if the reason you're considering buying the first four volumes of Dark Horse's CHRONICLES OF CONAN is for the art, you'll find a better presentation in issues one through nine of this magazine; they're still pretty inexpensive too. ~~ I really hate giving this book one measley star, but Smith's art is vandalize in its pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Barry Windsor-Smith's final and greatest Conan stories
Review: The one substantive complaint about these reprints of the "Conan the Barbarian" comic books that Dark Horse has been reprinting as a prelude to launching their own version of Robert E. Howard's brawling barbarian has been that the original covers drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel Comics have been omitted. That omission is mitigated somewhat by Volume 4 of "The Chronicles of Conan," which has the splash page from "Red Nails" as the cover. I have a strong affection for this particular piece of Windsor-Smith art because my college debate partner took the original black & white drawing from "Savage Tales" and blew it up on a 6-foot board that I have colored in and which has dominated my "office" for about half my life. This collection has issues #23-26 of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian" and the acclaimed "Red Nails" (For those concerned with continuity #22 is omitted because it was a reprint of #1) Of those two issues, all of which were written by Roy Thomas, Windsor-Smith drew the first two and John Buscema, who would be Conan's artist for most of the rest of its original run, took over as penciler on the last two. The second of those was inked by Ernie Chua (later Ernie Chan), who would be Buscema's primary inker on the comic book (the way Alfredo P. Alcala tended to do the inking over Buscema's pencils in the black & white magazine "The Savage Sword of Conan"). However, the chief attraction here is Windsor-Smith's final work on Conan. Issue #22 "The Shadow of the Vulture," freely adapted from a Howard short story, is inked by Sal Buscema, Dan Adkins, and Chic Stone. The Vulture is Prince Yezdigerd's right-hand sword, who is sent to dispatch Conan. However, the story is more noted because this is the first Conan adventure with Red Sonja. This sets up #23 "The Song of Red Sonja," which Windsor-Smith inked himself (be sure to read Thomas' reflections in the back of the volume that cover some of the changes the Comics Code forced them to make with the artwork). When you compare how far Windsor-Smith came from the first issue of "Conan," let alone the infamous "X-Men" #53 that he drew on a New York City park bench, it is amazing how far he came as an artist. "Red Nails" has more scope and Thomas and Windsor-Smith are unfettered by the Comics Code, but all things considered "The Song of Red Sonja" is the best of their joint efforts. This explains why it gets to be the title for this final volume. The Buscema issues are included, rather than whatever odds and ends Smith ever did of Conan and Howard related stories, because they finish the siege of Makkalet story line. Issue #25 "The Mirrors of Kharam Akkad," inked by Sal Buscema and John Severin (the latter does the King Kull flashback pages in a nice touch), is inspired in part by Howard's "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" story, another one of those stories where a sorcerer tries to get the better of Conan. In #26 "The Hour of the Griffin" the city finally falls and Conan tries to save Queen Melissandra. Conan's big fight is with a giant rat, which is not exactly a big thrill, but he does get to see the face of the one true Tarim, the reason for the war. Buscema's Conan is a larger, more muscular version of the barbarian than what we saw with Windsor-Smith's art, which I always read as representing the fact he was a more mature character at that point. One of the interesting aspects of this final collection of early Conan stories is that the remastered color better suits the Windsor-Smith artwork. I know that part of why this works is that these stories are reprinted on much better quality paper in these volumes and that another key part is that this sort of thing is now done with computers, but Windsor-Smith's attention to detail in his drawings really gives the colorist something with which to work. Just look at the intricate lines on the shield on that great cover. Besides, now that we have this four-volume set of "The Chronicles of Conan" we can enjoy these classic comic books without having to take them out of the plastic that is keeping them safe for posterity.
Rating:
Summary: Barry Windsor-Smith's final and greatest Conan stories
Review: The one substantive complaint about these reprints of the "Conan the Barbarian" comic books that Dark Horse has been reprinting as a prelude to launching their own version of Robert E. Howard's brawling barbarian has been that the original covers drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel Comics have been omitted. That omission is mitigated somewhat by Volume 4 of "The Chronicles of Conan," which has the splash page from "Red Nails" as the cover. I have a strong affection for this particular piece of Windsor-Smith art because my college debate partner took the original black & white drawing from "Savage Tales" and blew it up on a 6-foot board that I have colored in and which has dominated my "office" for about half my life. This collection has issues #23-26 of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian" and the acclaimed "Red Nails" (For those concerned with continuity #22 is omitted because it was a reprint of #1) Of those two issues, all of which were written by Roy Thomas, Windsor-Smith drew the first two and John Buscema, who would be Conan's artist for most of the rest of its original run, took over as penciler on the last two. The second of those was inked by Ernie Chua (later Ernie Chan), who would be Buscema's primary inker on the comic book (the way Alfredo P. Alcala tended to do the inking over Buscema's pencils in the black & white magazine "The Savage Sword of Conan"). However, the chief attraction here is Windsor-Smith's final work on Conan. Issue #22 "The Shadow of the Vulture," freely adapted from a Howard short story, is inked by Sal Buscema, Dan Adkins, and Chic Stone. The Vulture is Prince Yezdigerd's right-hand sword, who is sent to dispatch Conan. However, the story is more noted because this is the first Conan adventure with Red Sonja. This sets up #23 "The Song of Red Sonja," which Windsor-Smith inked himself (be sure to read Thomas' reflections in the back of the volume that cover some of the changes the Comics Code forced them to make with the artwork). When you compare how far Windsor-Smith came from the first issue of "Conan," let alone the infamous "X-Men" #53 that he drew on a New York City park bench, it is amazing how far he came as an artist. "Red Nails" has more scope and Thomas and Windsor-Smith are unfettered by the Comics Code, but all things considered "The Song of Red Sonja" is the best of their joint efforts. This explains why it gets to be the title for this final volume. The Buscema issues are included, rather than whatever odds and ends Smith ever did of Conan and Howard related stories, because they finish the siege of Makkalet story line. Issue #25 "The Mirrors of Kharam Akkad," inked by Sal Buscema and John Severin (the latter does the King Kull flashback pages in a nice touch), is inspired in part by Howard's "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" story, another one of those stories where a sorcerer tries to get the better of Conan. In #26 "The Hour of the Griffin" the city finally falls and Conan tries to save Queen Melissandra. Conan's big fight is with a giant rat, which is not exactly a big thrill, but he does get to see the face of the one true Tarim, the reason for the war. Buscema's Conan is a larger, more muscular version of the barbarian than what we saw with Windsor-Smith's art, which I always read as representing the fact he was a more mature character at that point. One of the interesting aspects of this final collection of early Conan stories is that the remastered color better suits the Windsor-Smith artwork. I know that part of why this works is that these stories are reprinted on much better quality paper in these volumes and that another key part is that this sort of thing is now done with computers, but Windsor-Smith's attention to detail in his drawings really gives the colorist something with which to work. Just look at the intricate lines on the shield on that great cover. Besides, now that we have this four-volume set of "The Chronicles of Conan" we can enjoy these classic comic books without having to take them out of the plastic that is keeping them safe for posterity.
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