26 Facts About Barry Windsor-Smith

1.

Barry Windsor-Smith was born on Barry Smith, 25 May 1949 and is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best-known work has been produced in the United States.

2.

Barry Windsor-Smith attained note working on Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian from 1970 to 1973, and for his work on the character Wolverine, particularly the 1991 "Weapon X" story arc.

3.

Barry Windsor-Smith was the chief designer of the "Unity" crossover storyline.

4.

Rune's adventures included a crossover with Conan that Barry Windsor-Smith wrote and illustrated.

5.

Barry Windsor-Smith subsequently created an oversized anthology series, Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller through Dark Horse Comics, though it was cancelled after nine issues.

6.

Barry Windsor-Smith released his subsequent work through Fantagraphics, including the Storyteller spin-off Adastra in Africa, which had originally been conceived as a "Lifedeath III" story for Storm; two volumes of the retrospective hardcover art book Opus; and Monsters, a 360-page hardcover published in 2021 that had originally been conceived in the mid-1980s as a Hulk story.

7.

Barry Windsor-Smith was born Barry Smith on 25 May 1949 in Forest Gate, a working class area in the East End of London.

8.

Barry Windsor-Smith displayed artistic abilities at an early age, and his parents supported in pursuing an education in the arts.

9.

Barry Windsor-Smith attended East Ham Technical College for three years, earning degrees in Industrial Design and Illustration.

10.

Barry Windsor-Smith later called his early art "amateur and klutzy" and a "less than skillful" Kirby imitation, but Stan Lee liked it enough to give him more work.

11.

Barry Windsor-Smith 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.

12.

Thomas, a long-time fan of Robert E Howard's 1930 pulp-fiction character Conan the Barbarian, had Windsor-Smith provide art for a sword and sorcery story, "Starr the Slayer", in Chamber of Darkness No 4.

13.

In 1971, Barry Windsor-Smith moved to the United States, having been granted a work permit.

14.

At this point he changed his professional surname to Barry Windsor-Smith, adding his mother's surname to his own, and began to pursue a career in fine art.

15.

In 1976 Barry 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.

16.

Oddly enough, Barry Windsor-Smith was English, as was Michael, and they both have sandy blond hair.

17.

Barry Windsor-Smith illustrated "Lifedeath" a double-sized Storm story in The Uncanny X-Men No 186, and a four-issue Machine Man limited series, for which Windsor-Smith was artist and colorist over Herb Trimpe layouts for the first three issues, and drew and colored alone for the fourth.

18.

Barry Windsor-Smith was the chief designer of the "Unity" crossover storyline for Valiant Comics, and writer and artist for most of the first dozen issues of the title Archer and Armstrong.

19.

Since leaving Valiant, Barry Windsor-Smith has worked for a number of companies.

20.

Barry Windsor-Smith later said that he was talked into illustrating Wildstorm Rising, and regretted participating in it, stating that in reading the story and illustrating it, he could not understand the motivations of any of the characters, even when he read earlier Wildstorm books featuring the characters.

21.

Barry Windsor-Smith says he altered the plot in an attempt to improve it and his enthusiasm for it, later learning that writer James Robinson was not pleased with his doing so.

22.

Barry Windsor-Smith cancelled Storyteller after nine issues, even though a tenth issue had been completed; since then Fantagraphics Books has issued hardcover collections of "Young GODS" and "The Freebooters".

23.

Barry Windsor-Smith created a story called "UFO POV," an 11-page story in Streetwise, a trade paperback anthology published by TwoMorrows Publishing.

24.

In January 2006, Barry Windsor-Smith announced on the website Comic Book Galaxy that he was in negotiations to publish a graphic novel for Marvel Comics starring The Thing.

25.

Barry Windsor-Smith was working on a Superman story in 1999 that has not yet seen print.

26.

Barry Windsor-Smith describes the book as one that "explores the life and times of two disparate American families fatefully connected by an abandoned Nazi project in genetic engineering that has been covertly revived by the US government".