Three days ago, I received Barry Windsor Smith’s “Monsters”
on my front porch from Amazon. It has
taken me that long to finish reading it. Here is my review.
I suspect that many of us was hoping that Barry Windsor Smith’s final entry into comics would be something akin to either heroic fantasy due to the crux of his work being primarily either Greek Mythology, Howard’s Conan or something ethereal like “The Beguiled.” Many of us, like myself, who followed his early days on Robert E. Howard’s Conan and later when he teamed with Bernie Wrightson, Catherine Jeffry Jones and Michael Wm Kaluta and formed the Studio saw Barry’s work as a rekindling of the works of the pre-Raphaelites. But that would ignore his later works in comics such as “Weapon X” or the Iron Man story where Tony Stark dealt with his alcoholism. Both written and drawn by Barry.
Later would come the short lived “Storyteller” series and then his work on Valiant comics. After which Barry seemed to go into seclusion leaving his devotees wondering what project he was working on. Some of us expecting perhaps a series of prints and posters such as what he created during Gorblimey Press would suddenly start trickling out.
But leave it to Barry to do something not only unexpected, but also, and I don’t say this lightly and even though it may sound trite, profound.
“Monsters” may have not been what we secretly craved, it’s better than what we could have hoped for.
The book weighs in at 365 pages. As I stated earlier it took me three days to read it. You don’t read this like you would a regular graphic novel, you read this like a book. It is dialogue driven. And that is the mastery of it.
Never once did I get bored, but I had to set it down and
walk away from it just to digest what I had just read. It’s scripted so well,
so human, that it plays with deep emotions. Amazingly the art and the dialogue
accent one another is such a way that Barry’s style of graphic narrative flows seamlessly
in a such a manner that the characters become the focal point. This is old
school black and white comics at its best. The cross hatching, use of shadows,
expressions and even environments riddled in detail don’t distract, it accentuates
the narrative. Art and story don’t compete, they flow. That’s how much of a master of the medium Barry Windsor Smith is. Something he really doesn’t get enough
credit for is his writing skill because his art has always been the first thing that comes to peoples’
minds. “Monsters” is Barry at the top of
his game. It is not only a mature work, it is something that many will re-read just to see exactly how all the threads came together.
Even the excerpts from the journal so humanly done, words
scratched out due to either the author regathering their thoughts or misspelled
a word. Entries accompanied by artwork rendered beautifully of the environment the
entry was written it adds the personal touch of its author.
Then there is the story itself. About Bobby Bailey, a victim,
about those seeking redemption through attrition and the subtilty of the synchronicity
of fate. It’s a story of abuse that hits on an emotional chord deep within all of
us. The outcome of those who neglect and cast off the broken and how those
responsible for abandonment make amends. As I stated earlier, at times I had to
put it down, shake it off, then pick it up again.
The story shifts in time like memories. Bobby goes to join the military, like his father. He shows up a homeless vagabond hoping for refuge in the service but being maimed in one eye makes recruitment doubtful. Instead he is chosen for a secret project, Prometheus. A project that requires a subject that no one would miss and come looking for. The Prometheus Project transforms Bobby into a misshapen abomination through the science of Nazi engineering. As characters' memories and backstories are explored we go back decades to the fall of Germany during WWII.
For decades the industry seemed to find Barry Windsor Smith
difficult to work with, he was often labeled a rouge, too independent or wanted
too much control. He just never seemed to be “one of the boys”. He never gave frequent interviews, but when he
did, he made it known that he had issues with the industry, so both the industry and himself seemed to have a falling out. Though he inspired
many, even Jim Lee, Barry was a legend to many that grew up reading comics in
the seventies. But he never really sought the attention of mainstream in comics
in his later years. A lot of comic fans today don’t even seem to know that the
origin of “Weapon X”, the story of Wolverine, is all his. A story he did on his
own then took to Marvel by the way.
 |
| Weapon X |
But what “Monsters” reveals about Barry Windsor Smith is more than he is an amazing craftsman of drawing and storytelling skills, it reveals who Barry is. A sensitive soul who understands what it is to be human, someone who himself has known deep personal pain and transmutes it into art. This alone negates any opinion of an industry who didn’t appreciate enough just who and what they had on their hands to give him the creative license to set him loose. So, he did it on his own. I am not saying that Barry was a victim of abuse, but he is someone who has the empathy to understand pain, loss and abandonment. So I don't want to read anything more into that. But what one can safely say, this was a laborious work at 365 pages. Even in an interview though he said it wasn't fun working on "Monsters", it definitely had to be a labor of love and had to be important for him to bring to the public
From the interview he has given on “Monsters”, Barry now at seventy-one has retired. This is his last entry into the world of comics…and what a final
note to leave on.
Below is the interview that Barry gave on "Monsters" and sadly we probably won't see another.
