Barry Windsor Smith; London, UK

One of the superstars of the comics industry, he was born in London and travelled to America in 1968 to get work with Marvel Comics. Much influenced by Jack Kirby, his early work was on X-Men 53 and two Daredevil issues. Starting work on a brand new title Conan the Barbarian, he developed his own unique style. Conan became highly acclaimed critically and an award-winning best seller but, disillusioned with the editorial restrictions imposed by Marvel at the time, he left after issue 24.

Founding his own publishing company Gorblimey Press, he published a series of his own limited edition prints, lithographs and portfolios. During this period away from comics, Smith joined with Mike Kaluta, Jeff Jones and Bernie Wrightson in a loose association producing lithographs and prints from The Studio, culminating in the book of the same name.

Returning to the comics field in 1985 Smith drew the Machine Man mini series, X-Men and the Weapon X story. Leaving Marvel again, he helped to put Valiant on the map with the origin to Solar Man of the Atom and Archer & Armstrong.In 1993 he left Valiant due to contractual differences and moved to Malibu to create Rune. Since the demise of Valiant he continues to work in comics and has produced two volumes of his autobiography (Opus 1 and Opus 2) featuring many of his superb paintings. Nearly all of his prints and portfolios are now long out of print and much sought after by collectors.