The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories [Paperback]

Roy Thomas (Author), Barry Windsor-Smith (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2003

In the early 1970s, Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian exploded on to the comics scene. Writer Roy Thomas teamed with a young artist named Barry Smith, and together the two mapped out some of the most stirring and memorable Conan adventures to come along since those written by Howard himself. Over the course of their 24-issue run together, Thomas and Smith defined Conan for a generation of comics readers, and now those stories are collected here in a series of trade paperbacks. Featuring completely remastered color and text corrections, and containing material not available for nearly thirty years, these books are the perfect companions to the upcoming all-new Conan series from Dark Horse.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

These reprints from Marvel's Conan the Barbarian (originally published in the early 1970s) shows the best and worst of sword and sorcery adventure. At its best, S&S fiction enables readers to identify with heroes who fight against vast, cosmic forces. At its worst, it features muscle-bound louts in fur skivvies who bellow insults at each other while waving enormous, phallic weapons. Robert E. Howard, who created Conan in a series of pulp magazine tales, achieved the former level more often than he sank to the latter. Eventually, Thomas and Windsor-Smith did, too. Thomas's informative closing notes explain how, under Stan Lee's editorship, he got permission to write a Conan comic in collaboration with young artist Windsor-Smith. He admits to glitches in the writing and blemishes in the art, but correctly states that the comic hit its stride by issue #4, an adaptation of Howard's "Tower of the Elephant." This archetypal Conan story sets the quick-thinking, tough outsider against a corrupt, over-sophisticated society. The young barbarian is exasperated by the superior attitudes of the experienced rogues in the slums of a decadent metropolis, so he decides to test himself by robbing a powerful, evil sorcerer. This comics adaptation isn't without flaws, but Thomas does preserve Howard's escalating sense of menace and strangeness. Windsor-Smith's pencils do justice to the mood too, making Conan believably muscular enough to prevail against human or superhuman foes. The stories in this deluxe collection are much more spirited and solid than those featured in the original printing.
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Review

The List, 9-23 September 2004, review by Matt Fielder: "Fidelity or no, the Thomas/Windsor Smith strips remain the best." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (October 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593070160
• ISBN-13: 978-1593070168
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 6.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #670,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thomas and Windsor-Smith begin their epic run on "Conan", October 25, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories (Paperback)

Barry Windsor-Smith is my favorite comic book artist. Even though I have been selling off a lot of my old Marvel comic books, if Windsor-Smith drew the issue or just the cover, then that comic is a keeper. The irony is that when he drew his first comic book for Marvel comics, literally drawing his pages on park benches in Central Park, we all though he was the worst artist in the history of the world. But as you can see in "Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories," the first volume in "The Chronicles of Conan," in which Dark Horse reprints the first eight issues of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian," Barry Windsor-Smith was quickly developing one of the most distinctive drawing styles in the history of comic books.

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CROM! What a wonderful book!, July 31, 2004

By 

Jaundiced Eye "jaundicedeye" (Hollywood, California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories (Paperback)

When I was young I had read all of Howard's Conan stories and the DeCamp and Carter pastiches, so I was incredibly excited when Marvel brought out the Conan the Barbarian comic books. This volume is a compilation of the first eight issues (sans the covers, unfortunately - a big minus!).

In Mark Schultz's foreward to "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian," which compiles all of Howard's Conan stories in the order in which he wrote them, he observes that there is no mistaking a Howard story. Reading through that book I was shocked at how elegant and cleanly and clearly written were the Howard stories compared to later pastiches and original stories by other writers. Conan was Howard's and Howard's alone to write, it seems. That holds true in this volume, too. Although all of the stories are written by Roy Thomas, the absolute best (and memory tells me that they were the best when these were still new comics) are those originally written by Howard himself or derived from his material: "Twilight of the Grim Grey God," "Tower of the Elephant" (a very, very memorable piece, even thirty+ years later), "The Lurker Within" (from Howard's story, "The God in the Bowl," it is strong in the parts where it follows Howard's story, weak in the new additions), and one of the most memorable Conan comics of all, "Keepers of the Crypt," based on an original Howard synopsis. The latter especially suffers from the lack of its magnificent cover.

Fortunately, the Afterward by Thomas helps to explain the history of the Marvel comic and the hows and whys of the ups and downs of the comic's popularity, and how it was tied to the (not published here!) covers.

Even without the covers (how we must hammer on that in the hope that future editions will have them) this is an excellent book and a worthy addition to the library of any comic collector or fan of Conan.

I give this 4 stars, the fifth missing because of the absence of ... you know what.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad remastering spoils otherwise nice editions, February 21, 2006

By 

Joel A. Best (Schenectady , New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories (Paperback)

Barry Smith's Conan series is one of my favorites, but the Dark Horse color editions don't really measure up. The colorists for these volumes laid it on a bit thick, the result being a lot of muddied and/or obscured linework. There were many, many pages where the original artwork was blurred to the point of being unrecognizable. Smith's artwork deserves better treatment. BTW, for whatever reason, none of the covers are reproduced here. It seems an odd omission. If you're a Barry Smith fan, you'd be better served by picking up the Essential Conan. Fifteen dollars gets you 25 issues and covers, with all of Barry Smith's lovely artwork left intact.