Barry Windsor-Smith

Biography

Barry Windsor-Smith (born May 25, 1949) is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best-known work has been produced in the United States. He attained note for 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. His other noted Marvel work included a 1984 "Thing" story in Marvel Fanfare, the "Lifedeath" and "Lifedeath II" stories with writer Chris Claremont that focused on the de-powered Storm in The Uncanny X-Men, as well as the 1984 Machine Man limited series with Herb Trimpe and Tom DeFalco. After leaving Marvel, Windsor-Smith became the creative director and lead artist at Valiant Comics, where he illustrated the company's revival of the 1960s Gold Key Comics character Solar and created the original characters Archer and Armstrong. He was also the chief designer of the "Unity" crossover storyline. After leaving Valiant in 1993, Windsor-Smith did work through a number of publishers, including co-creating the vampiric character Rune with Chris Ulm, which was published as part of Malibu Comics' Ultraverse. Rune's adventures included a crossover with Conan that Windsor-Smith wrote and illustrated. He also provided art for the WildStorm Productions/Image Comics storyline "Wildstorm Rising,"  though he later came to regret that work. He subsequently created an oversized anthology series, Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller, through Dark Horse Comics, though it was cancelled after nine issues. 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. In 2022, Barry Windsor-Smith won the Eisner Awards for Best Graphic Novel, Best Letterer, and Best Writer/Artist for Monsters.