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Thankfully for those of us who were buying comics in the early 1970's the task was handed to Roy Thomas himself, a task he stayed with for 115 issues. The artwork for the first few years was handed to Barry Smith and it is plain in these first 8 issues that he was still developing his style, they may not be to everyone's taste but they look far better in the enhanced colours that are used here.
There is a decent mixture of new tales along with others based on Howard's original stories. Roy Thomas' first issue scene setter is an original tale introducing Conan as a young Cimmerian sword for hire who soon finds himself fighting against wizards, demons and beast-men and rescuing maidens in peril along the way. The covers of the comics, also by Barry Smith and sadly not re-printed here, promised so much, and by and large they delivered. It is thanks to the comic genius of Stan Lee that he spotted a worrying trend on the covers and his advice to Roy Thomas helped steer the title from declining sales to become one of Marvel's flagship titles.
A few of Robert E. Howard's tales are used here, "Twilight of the Grim Grey God", the brilliant "Tower of The Elephant" with its moving ending and "The God in The Bowl" re-named as "The Lurker Within", "Zukala's Daughter" is based on one of Howard's poems.
Of Thomas' own tales the first two introductory issues were great but "Devil Wings over Shadizar" stood out for me. He skilfully kept the stories flowing between issues, linking some of Howard's best loved tales together with some of his own best writing. Conan The Barbarian was one of my must-have's in my early comic collecting days and thanks to these reprints I am catching up on half remembered tales, as well as working my way through Howard's original stories.
I just wish the original covers could have been reprinted here but I guess there are copyright issues involved that unfortunately not even a sword wielding, demon-slaying, wild-eyed Cimmerian could help solve.
The key in these first eight issues of "Conan the Barbarian" are when Thomas and Windsor-Smith work from some of Robert E. Howard's original stories. Issue #4, "Tower of the Elephant" is prominent in the title of this collection because it is the first classic "Conan" comic book, but the adaptations of "The Grey God Passes" (#3), the poem "Zuakal's Hour" (#5), "The God in the Bowl" (#7), and a synopsis by Howard that Thomas uncovered (#8), were all crucial in helping the team find their voice and look in these comics. Just as the writing by Thomas becomes more than standard comic book fare, so does the artwork by Windsor-Smith because more stylized. Sal Buscema's inking of Windsor-Smith's pencils clearly defines this period, but I like the pages done by Dan Atkins a little better. Frank Giacoia's inks were just too different, but the final story, inked by Tom Sutton and Tom Palmer, hints at what we would see when Windsor-Smith would ink himself (did I mention I have the splash page of issue #8 as a black light poster?).
I have been happy to pick up the Marvel black and white reprint collections in the Essential series, but Conan is the exception to the rule. I do not want to take my comic books out of their bags, but with the remastered color of these comic books these reprints look a whole lot better than the originals. With its exotic locales, strange creatures, and gaudily dressed characters, "Conan" is a comic that especially benefits from remastered color. The results are extremely impressive.
Both Thomas and Windsor-Smith continue to make great improvements over the next dozen issues of "Conan the Barbarian," so I look forward to Volume 2 of "the Chronicles of Conan." Hopefully Dark Horse can reprint Thomas and Windsor-Smith's black and white Conan stories that they did in "The Savage Sword of Conan," especially "Red Nails," the splash page of which I had blown up on a giant poster board and colored in myself. I treasure that almost as much as the Windsor-Smith print we have in our bedroom that is signed and enscribed with our names and the date we got married.
For a good example of what has gone wrong see issue #6. The original comic has some imaginative, moody effects with dark reds and blues when Conan enters the shadowy temple. Here it is all rendered in bright colours, spoiling what was a very effective palette which added to the story. The new colouring on later issues of the Chronicles series gets better, but this one doesn't get the final star because of it.
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