Thursday, July 31, 2014

Four Ages of Conan by Barry Smith









Each plate is first shown in original b&w publ. (please embiggen) then the hand-colored version, and the very last is the best example of Kenneth Smith's (no relation-but Ken was a great fan artist w/self publ. Phantasmagoria) colorization.  If you wanna be a completist with this wunnerful quartet, somewhere else on here is ANOTHER colorization from The Studio coffee table book (also by Barry, I presume, but not as subdude as these), and if you really need to, somewhere is Ken's other colorizations.  I don't know about you, but look'n at these, I feel Barry could have said, "Poke me with a fork, I think I'm done."  There may have been a fifth age-Conan the Thief- but if there was, I haveta assume it was stolen

2 comments:

  1. I was on board from the first issue of Phantasmagoria, one of the highlights of the era of lush fanzines. Did you see the issue where he "collaborated" (pencilled on top of already extant art) with Kaluta, Frazetta, Bok, etc?

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  2. Love that first ish! Didn't catch the collaborations you mentioned, but Mr. Doortree has em all over at Golden Age

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