The Hyborian Page (RE: Barry Smith)

Excerpted From ...

A response to a letter from
Paul Watson
Champaign, IL

As to Barry's (Smith) reasons for leaving the Conan strip: I'm afraid that, while I've always been one of the pros most in favor of keeping comics fans informed of behind-the-scenes activity, I personally and unequivocally reject the contention that they have the right to know everything that passes between artist, writer, and editor; I'll have no part of reducing comic-books to the sorry state of movie magazines....

Barry left Conan after issue #24 for several reasons, too complex to go into - not the least of which was the difficulty he had in producing twenty pages of Conan a month. The major reason, though, was that, since he put more work into the strip than we could afford to pay him for, he wanted his original artwork back. Since Marvel and all comics companies buy the art and story outright, Stan (Lee) felt he couldn't return Barry's work until and unless a general policy was worked out - something which is now in progress, even as these words are being typed. Meanwhile, he agreed that Barry - na dother artists who did both penciling and inking on their strips - could arrange to get that artwork back if they so desired. But of course Barry could never manage both to pencil and ink Conan on a regular monthly basis.

Accordingly, Barry - though still on friendly terms with both Stan and Roy (Thomas), who've been two of his biggest fans from the days when some now-overly-avid supporters looked on him as a poor man's Jack Kirby - decided he would finish "The Song of Red Sonja" and then leave the strip.As announced at that time, however, he and Roy planned to work on several special projects for Marvel, which Barry would both pencil and ink.

One of these quickly became the "The Red Nails" story (see ST #02 and ST #03) which served as the basis for the new revived Savage Tales Magazine.