Eloquent Enough

Art and text: Hal Foster (from page 506, October 20, 1946).
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 5): 1945-1946 – Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books, 2012).

“Long Live the King”

There can be great dignity in frailty, and the aging [King Arthur] stands before his people and announces that the time has come to relinquish the powers of the crown.

“When she reaches her maturity, my granddaughter Ingrid, child of Maeve and Arn, shall rule in Camelot as queen. Ingrid unites the blood of two great houses – the House of Thule and my own House of Pendragon. Until then, Prince Valiant and Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles shall act as a regency council. And I? I shall spend the time that is left tending my gardens and reading my books.”

Tears roll down a thousand faces, and a thousand voices cry as one: “Long live the King!”


Art: Gary Gianni (from page 3513, June 6, 2004).
Text: Mark Schultz.

See also the previous posts:
• Arthur Pendragon, High King of Britain
• An Audience with King Arthur and Queen Guinevere
• Arthur and Launcelot
• “The King Is But a Man”
• Mistress of the Hounds
• “I Dare You to Learn My Secret”
• The Ring
• Maeve, Woman of Mystery
• Prince Arn, Regent of Camelot

Celebrating 85 Years of Prince Valiant

Valiant, Prince of Thule, as drawn by Thomas Yeates (2021),
the fourth and current illustrator of the Prince Valiant adventure strip.

Friends, today marks the 85th anniversary of the Prince Valiant adventure strip, the first “page” of which was published in newspapers around the world on February 13, 1937 (left).

Cited as “one of the finest works ever to be produced in the comic art medium,” Prince Valiant (full title, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur) was created and drawn for 30+ years by Hal Foster (1892-1982). From the start, Foster’s weekly strip set a benchmark in excellence, and has long been regarded as profoundly influential.

Instead of word balloons, Prince Valiant is narrated via captions positioned at the bottom or sides of panels. Because of this, Todd H. Goldberg, in his introduction to the first edition of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion (1992), says that Prince Valiant is actually “a massive illustrated novel presented in a comic art-like style.” To date, this “novel” has 4,436 pages (or weekly installments)!

For how I first discovered and became an admirer of Prince Valiant, click here and here.

For A Prince Named Valiant’s informative series of posts to mark the 75th anniversary of Prince Valiant, click here, here and here.

For 2017’s special 80th anniversary post featuring an insightful article by Prince Valiant scholar Brian Kane, click here.

Also, A Prince Named Valiant was launched on the 74th anniversary of Prince Valiant. To read the post that began it all, click here.


Right: Current Prince Valiant illustrator Thomas Yeates at Comic-Con 2015 . . . with none other than the Prince of Thule himself!

Yeates took over from Gary Gianni, the third illustrator of Prince Valiant, in April 2012. Gianni, in turn, had taken over from the strip’s second illustrator, John Cullen Murphy, in 2002.


For the latest installment (or page) of Prince Valiant, click here.

Above: Prince Valiant, as drawn by Hal Foster (1943). Foster began drawing Prince Valiant in 1937. He fully retired from the strip in 1980.

Above: Prince Valiant, as drawn by John Cullen Murphy (1984). Murphy’s son, Cullen, wrote Prince Valiant during his father’s tenue of over 30 years.

Above: Prince Valiant and his wife, Queen Aleta of the Misty Isle, as drawn by Gary Gianni (2004).

Above: Aleta, as drawn by Thomas Yeates (2019).

Above: An action sequence from page 4309 (September 8, 2019) of Prince Valiant, with art by Thomas Yeates and text by Mark Schultz.


See also the previous posts:
• How It All Began
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn’t You Say?
• Remembering Episode 3000, 8/7/94
• John Cullen Murphy on Prince Valiant: “It’s My Duty. I’m Responsible For It”
• Former Prince Valiant Writer Cullen Murphy Interviewed by Terry Gross
• Mark Schultz on Prince Valiant as an American Invention
• Gary Gianni’s Prince Valiant: Looking Good
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• Something Very Special
• Thomas Yeates: “My Biggest Thrill is Seeing the Prince Valiant Logo on My Drawings”
• “He Wasn’t a Superhero But He Was a Hero”
• 4000
• Comics’ Sweeping Graphic Novel, Prince Valiant, Turns 80
• A First for Prince Valiant
• Prince Arn, Son of Valiant and Regent of Camelot
• “We Are the Daughters of the Queen of the Misty Isles and the Prince of Thule”
• The Return of Karen and Valeta
• Galan to the Rescue
• Nathan

Permission

Art and text: Hal Foster (circa 1960).

Witchcraft!

January 23, 2011 is significant in the history of Prince Valiant as it was on this day that writer Mark Schultz and artist Gary Gianni revealed that Val’s wife, Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles, is a practitioner of “the craft.”

The lead-up to this revelation involves a number of disasterous incidents befalling Val and his family during a stay at Camelot. In time, these calamaties tempt Val to contemplate that a curse is upon them. He shares this with Aleta who responds by hurrying to the market where she “proceeds to judge and purchase a unique array of herbs, roots, oils – and salt. Lots and lots of salt.”

Meanwhile, a new calamity befalls Camelot and Val and his son Arn are blamed.

Writes Schultz: “Val grows despondent, and returns to his chambers, muttering, 'Can my previously charmed life grow any stranger?' He is quick to discover that, yes, it can. Before him kneels Aleta – whom he assumes he knows as well as himself – in the midst of ritual witchcraft!”


Art: Gary Gianni (from page 3899, January 23, 2011).
Text: Mark Schultz.

A Role He Relishes

Art: John Cullen Murphy (from page 2272, August 24, 1980).
Text: Cullen Murphy
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 22): 1979-1980 – Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (Fantagraphics Books, 2020).

Reunited

Art: Gary Gianni (from page 3719, May 18, 2008).
Text: Mark Schultz.
Source: Prince Valiant: Far from Camelot – Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2008).

Arrival

Art: Thomas Yeates (from page 4325, December 29, 2019).
Text: Mark Schultz.
Source: Comics Kingdom.

See also the previous posts:
• Tintagel
• Arthur Pendragon, High King of Britain
• Prince Arn, Regent of Camelot
• Reunion

Ever Before Him

Art and text: Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (from page 1783, April 18, 1971).
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 18): 1971-1972 – Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (Fantagraphics Books, 2018).

Into the Valley of Death

See also the previous post:
• Waldo’s Tale

Art: John Cullen Murphy (circa 1983).
Text: Cullen Murphy.
Source: The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia); from the collection of Michael J. Bayly (circa 1985).

Prince Arn, Regent of Camelot

Last week’s page saw the welcome return of Arn and his family to the Prince Valiant saga.

Prince Arn is the first-born of Prince Valiant of Thule and Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles. In his youth, Arn was smitten by Maeve, a woman of great mystery. In time it was revealed that Maeve was King Arthur’s niece, the daughter of his evil half-brother Mordred.

After many trials and tribulations, Arn and Maeve eventually married. They have a young daughter named Ingrid, whom Arthur decreed the heir to his throne.

When Arthur retired to a life of solitude and seclusion, he made Prince Valiant and Queen Aleta co-regents of his realm until Ingrid came of age. In time, however, Arthur realized that Prince Valiant was ill-suited for such a task. He therefore relieved Val and Aleta of their duties and made his niece and her spouse the co-regents of Camelot.

Page #4363 (September 20, 2020) of Prince Valiant shows Arn for the first time in a long time. It's been just as long since Maeve has made an appearance, and even longer for little Ingrid.

Of the five children of Val and Aleta, the three who have figured most prominently in the strip over the past decade are the youngest, Nathan, and the twins, Karen and Valeta. The one who has been seen the least is Galan, who for years has been studying medicine in far-off Jerusalem.

At long last [back in Britain], Val, Aleta and Nathan report their travels in the southern and eastern worlds to Camelot's regents, Arn and Maeve, and to Ingrid – the heir to Arthur's throne. As they are all family, separated for years, there is much exchange, and gossip well outside the bounds of official court business.


Art: Thomas Yeates (from page 4363, September 20, 2020).
Text: Mark Schultz.
Source: Comics Kingdom.

See also the previous posts:
• Reunion
• A Sweet Reunion
• “We Are the Daughters of the Queen of the Misty Isles and the Prince of Thule”
• The Return of Karen and Valeta
• Marital Woes
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn't You Say?

No Way of Knowing

Art and text: Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (from page 1796, July 11, 1971).
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 18): 1971-1972 – Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (Fantagraphics Books, 2018).

No Privacy

Art: Thomas Yeates (from pages 4092 and 4093, July 12 and 19, 2015).
Text: Mark Schultz.
Source: Comics Kingdom.

A Complicated Relationship

Click on any image for a larger view.

Art: Thomas Yeates (from page 4269, December 2, 2018).
Text: Mark Schultz.
Source: Comics Kingdom.

It Has Been Claimed . . .

Art and text: Hal Foster (from page 923, October 17, 1954).
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 9): 1953-1954 – Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books, 2014).

No Equal in Loveliness

See also the previous posts:
• More Than Words
• His Strong and Gentle Aleta
• A Tender Moment
• The Olive Branch

Art: Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy (from page 1860, October 1, 1972).
Text: Hal Foster.
Source: Prince Valiant (Vol. 18): 1971-1972 – Hal Foster & John Cullen Murphy (Fantagraphics Books, 2018).

Planning Their Next Move

NEXT: Into the Brooding Forest

See also the previous posts:
• Oom Fooyat's Creation
• A Flash of a Cameo

Art: Gary Gianni (from page 3912, January 29, 2012).
Text: Mark Schutz.
Source: Comics Kingdom.

Until the End of Time

Art and text: Hal Foster (from page 451, September 30, 1945).
Source: The Prince Valiant Scrapbook (King Features Syndicate, published by Bill Crouch, Jr., 1981).

Comics’ Sweeping Graphic Novel, Prince Valiant, Turns 80

.

By Brian M. Kane

Before television, when most films were still black & white, the Sunday comics were an oasis of color in a Depression-era gray world. Highly popular comic strips drove newspaper sales in the early twentieth century, so it is little wonder why their creators were regarded as celebrities. The epic Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur by Harold Rudolf “Hal” Foster premiered in the color comics section on February 13, 1937 (left). Prior to Prince Valiant, Foster originated the adult protagonist adventure strip genre by adapting Tarzan as a black & white daily strip in 1928, which was followed by the Tarzan color Sunday feature from 1931-1937. Faced with imposing financial and creative constraints as a work-for-hire artist, Foster focused his considerable skills as an illustrator towards producing his own strip. The extraordinary effort resulted in international prominence for both Prince Valiant and Foster. Today, after 80 years, “Val” remains one of the few adventure strip characters still in print.

Above: Detail of the November 4, 2016 installment of Prince Valiant
by the strip's current illustrator, Thomas Yeates.

It is difficult to imagine the impact Foster’s Prince Valiant had on 1930s and 1940s popular culture. When Prince Valiant began, Superman’s debut in Action Comics #1 was still over a year away. Many of the first two generations of comic book creators owe a great debt to Foster (right). Young comic book artists studied Foster’s technique, sometimes copying panels from his strips. “Swipes” of Foster’s art can be found in the origin of Batman, and comics drawn by Jack Kirby, the co-creator of many of today’s movie heroes, including Captain America, The Avengers, The X-Men and Thor. Most importantly, Val epitomized a knightly moral code, creating an ethical standard of conduct that exemplified truth, justice, and what it meant to be a hero.

Seminal works such as The Hobbit, The Sword in the Stone, and The Chronicles of Narnia were non-existent in February of 1937. By the time Joseph Campbell’s groundbreaking The Hero with a Thousand Faces was published, Prince Valiant had already spent twelve years on his own mono-mythic hero’s journey. Yet, unlike Campbell, Val’s adventures included strong, self-reliant, heroic women; attesting to Hal’s wife, Helen’s influence on the strip.

To the uninitiated, Valiant, a lowly Prince of Thule, fell in love with and eventually married Aleta, Queen of the Misty Isles. To Hal’s and Helen’s credit, Aleta became a role model for the millions of capable women running America during World War II; fighting off offenders with her wit, charm, intelligence, and, on occasion, a hidden dagger strapped to her thigh. Aleta was kicking butt long before Princess Leia, Katniss Everdeen, or most of the Disney princesses were even a thought.

Though set in the time of King Arthur, Foster’s Prince Valiant was surprisingly contemporary. During World War II, Val fought the Huns, resulting in the strip being canceled in German newspapers. In 1943, Val befriended a boy with a withered leg who could not “play soldier” with the other boys. Nevertheless, the boy was encouraged to hone his skills so that one day he could be “arrow-maker to King Arthur.” The story appeared a year into a polio epidemic and 16 months after Pearl Harbor, and was a call to service to all who could not go off to fight. After the war, as American troops returned home, Val and Aleta sailed to the “New World” and had a son, heralding the coming baby boom. Then, as the demographics of 1950s America changed, multi-cultural couples in Prince Valiant married and had children just as they did in the popular sitcom I Love Lucy.

Foster’s Prince Valiant is not just an adventure, or romance, or humor strip—though it is sprinkled with all those elements. Prince Valiant is a graphic novel about life where people fall in love, wars are fought, children are born and grow older, hearts are broken, friends die in battle, couples marry,and even disfigured and disabled characters young and old, male and female have a place and purpose in this brave world Foster fashioned. While some may feel Prince Valiant is archaic by today’s standards, perhaps its unabashedly inclusive “Might for Right” message is simply ahead of its time. Long live Val!


Brian M. Kane, Ph.D. is the author of the IPPY Award-winning biography Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators, and edits the New York Times Best-Selling Prince Valiant reprint series from Fantagraphics Books.

For A Prince Named Valiant's special series of posts celebrating the 75th anniversary of Prince Valiant in 2012, see:
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• Something Very Special . . .
• How It All Began

See also the previous posts:
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn't You Say?
• "He Wasn't a Superhero But He Was a Hero"
• Remembering Episode 3000, 8/7/94
• John Cullen Murphy on Prince Valiant: "It's My Duty. I'm Responsible For It"
• Mark Schultz on Prince Valiant as an American Invention
• Gary Gianni's Prince Valiant: Looking Good
• Thomas Yeates: "My Biggest Thrill is Seeing the Prince Valiant Logo on My Drawings"
• 4000
• Celebrating 79 Years of Prince Valiant