Barry Windsor-Smith - Tower of Shadows Unpublished Splash Page

An unusual item, this was presumably destined to be the opening page for a Tower of Shadows story of which I know... nothing!

In 1970, Barry Windsor-Smith worked for the 2 Marvel ill-fated horror-themed anthologies (Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness), with 5 stories published, most famous of which is the Conan-try-out Starr the Slayer story in Chamber of Darkness 4... I'm quite sure that both the lack of success of these titles plus the soaring success of Conan 1 this very summer led to a sudden switch in Barry's assignments...

So, it's safe to say this was the splash page for a story that was planned for a later issue of ToS, but probably never went further than this fully-penciled stage.

Not that I mind though, as this is pure undiluted Barry Windsor-Smith with incredibly detailed pencil-work. When judging his art from this key period, I'm convinced he was at his most accomplished when he inked himself and that other inkers, however gifted they were, had a tendency to over-simplify. This was certainly required for maximum reading impact, but it certainly diminished the power and delicacy of Barry's pencils.

The baroque architectural perspective (suitably awkward) clearly hints at what would be the walled city of Xuchotl in the Red Nails' adaptation in Savage Tales, or even the lair of Thoth-Amon (see additional picture).

Also impressive are the 2 great characters on the front. Next to Digger (the titular story host in ToS) is Barry himself with a nice "Make Mine Marvel" button on his hat! And, of course, the story's title "Old enough to know better" (which, according to notes on the page, was supposed to be altered) strongly reminds me of the Beatles' "Cry Baby Cry" and the splendid portrait of John Lennon that Barry drew around this time (See additional picture).

Finally, (See additional picture) a last treat comes from the back of the page with renditions of The Vision that appear to be stylistically more similar to Barry's second run on The Avengers in issues 98-100, except that this took place a couple of years later. Another mystery... Maybe Barry kept that unpublished page for a while and used the back for try-outs, but I don't know...

If anyone out there has more info about the story behind this page, I'd be delighted to know...

In the meantime, I'm just delighted by the page itself!