“Two of the Best Volumes Yet in the Series”

Following (with added links) is an excerpt from Tyler Tichelaar’s review of Prince Valiant, Volumes 22 and 23 (1979-1982), the two most recent releases by Fantagraphics Books.

Tyler is the author of The Children of Arthur series, which includes the novels Arthur’s Legacy, Melusine’s Gift, Ogier’s Prayer, Lilith’s Love, and Arthur’s Bosom. He has also written the non-fiction scholarly works King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition and The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, plus numerous other novels and non-fiction works.

To learn more about Tyler and his writings, click here, here, and here.

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The Prince Valiant saga continues in the latest two volumes reproduced by Fantagraphics, and I must say these are two of the best volumes yet in the series. Ironically, Volume 22 contains the last of creator Hal Foster’s contributions to the strip. He had already quit doing the final artwork some years earlier, handing it over to John Cullen Murphy, but through 1979, he continued to create the scripts and concepts for the artwork, until at age eighty-seven, he fully retired. The writing was then taken over by John Cullen Murphy’s son Cullen Murphy. With all due respect to Foster – for we would have no Prince Valiant without him, and his incredible work marked the strip’s first forty-two years – I feel there is no falling off in artwork after he left, and the plots, as evidenced at least in the first three years completely in the Murphys’ hands, may well be even stronger than in Foster’s original work. Having your successor keep up the momentum and quality of your work is rare indeed, and countless examples can be provided of works that have retained popularity but still fell off in quality when the original creator was no longer involved. One example is L. Frank Baum’s magnificent Oz novels. The series has continued for thirty-plus volumes after his original fourteen novels, but while they continue to be written and be popular, none of his successors ever really achieved the quality and whimsy of his original novels, as readable and enjoyable as many of those sequels are.

Volume 22 of Prince Valiant continues with one of my favorite elements of the strip, watching Valiant’s children grow up. We see his oldest son, Arn, now a squire to Sir Gawain and setting off on his first quest. Valiant’s youngest and fourth child, Galan, becomes a page so he can learn the manners of the court. The twin girls [Karen and Valeta] get less attention in these volumes, but they are ever present. Among the highlights of this volume are Arn and Gawain’s journey to the Isle of Man to help protect it from Viking raiders. In another storyline, Valiant is captured by brigands and sold into slavery, causing Arn to travel as far as the Sahara to find him, with a dramatic rescue happening during a sandstorm. Perhaps best of all, Mordred moves into the forefront of the plots beginning in this volume. In Prince Valiant, Mordred is Arthur’s half-brother, not his son, but he is just as evil. He begins to poison King Arthur to try to take the throne for himself, but of course, his plot is discovered. After Arthur recovers, he banishes Mordred from court, declaring “May your children scorn you and your grandchildren call you Judas.” This is a significant moment in the storyline, although the reader will not realize it for some time. . . . Several other adventures occur in this volume that I will leave for readers to discover on their own.

. . . What I loved especially about Volume 23 was that often two plots were going on simultaneously, which made the pacing better. Frankly, in some of the earlier volumes the plotting got kind of boring.

Like all previous volumes, there are opening and closing essays. Volume 22 begins with an article by Cullen Murphy first published in The Atlantic in 1994. I loved reading it because I read it when it was first published in The Atlantic at the time I was beginning work on my book King Arthur’s Children. It was my first introduction to the Prince Valiant strip. . . . The final essay in Volume 23 discusses historicity in the Prince Valiant strip, which is interesting because it points out both the depth of research Foster and the Murphys did to make the setting appropriate to the days of King Arthur and where they introduced anachronisms. For example, by providing a timeline of Valiant’s life, he would have to be ninety-nine years old to live long enough to meet the Emperor Justinian. Oh well, the storylines are fun if we don’t try to impose too much historical accuracy on them.

Volume 23 has an essay on art [by artist George Pratt], including the role of nature in the strip. It includes mention of other strips that were influenced by Foster, including mention that he was himself influenced by Howard Pyle. The concluding essay is really a collection of the drawings/scripts Foster created to work from.

Overall, I would say these volumes created a real resurgence of interest in the Prince Valiant strip for me. . . . I eagerly await Volume 24, to be released in December 2021.

To read Tyler Tichelaar’s review in its entirety (though be warned, there are numerous plot spoilers!), click here.


See also the previous posts:
• The Comics Reporter’s Review of Prince Valiant, Vol. 3 (1941-1942)
• A Review of Prince Valiant, Vol.5 (1945-1946)
• “A Timeless Gem”: A Review of Prince Valiant, Vol. 7 (1949-1950)
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• 4000
• Comics’ Sweeping Graphic Novel, Prince Valiant, Turns 80
• Celebrating 83 Years of Prince Valiant
• Something Very Special
• Remembering Episode 3000, 8/7/94
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn’t You Say?
• “He Wasn’t a Superhero But He Was a Hero”
• Mark Schultz on the Art of Hal Foster: “Uniquely Appealing, Innovative and Influential”
• 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
• Looking Good
• Thomas Yeates: The New Illustrator of Prince Valiant
• Thomas Yeates: “My Biggest Thrill is Seeing the Prince Valiant Logo on My Drawings”

"Beautiful, Captivating and Utterly Awe-inspiring"

Following (with added links) is an excerpt from Win Wiacek's review of Prince Valiant, Volume 8 (1951-1952), which is released today by Fantagraphics Books.

The stellar Sunday page Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur debuted on 13th February, 1937, a luscious and luminous full-colour weekly window into a miraculous too-perfect past of adventure and romance, even topping creator Hal Foster's previous impossibly popular comics masterpiece Tarzan.

The saga of noble knights played against a glamorised, dramatised Dark Ages historical backdrop as it followed the life of a refugee boy driven from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and attain a paramount position amongst the heroes of fabled Camelot.

Writer/artist Foster [right] wove the epic tale over decades, as the near-feral wild boy matured into a paragon of chivalric virtue: knight, warrior, saviour, vengeance-taker and eventually family patriarch in a constant deluge of wild – and joyously witty – wonderment.

The restless hero visited many far-flung lands, siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes and utterly enchanting generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, animated series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on Prince Valiant – one of the few adventures strips to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and counting) – and even here in the end times of the newspaper narrative cartoons, it continues to astound in more than 300 American papers. It's even cutting its way onto the internet with an online edition.

Foster tirelessly crafted the feature until 1971 when illustrator John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt) succeeded him as illustrator. Foster continued as writer and designer until 1980, after which he retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired. Since then the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artists Gary Gianni and latterly Thomas Yeates with Mark Schultz (Xenozoic) scripting.

Before the astonishing illumination of dauntless derring-do recommences, editor Brian M. Kane discusses, in amazing detail, the incredible tales of the creator’s pre-and-early comics days as an advertising artist and the impact of his "Mountie" paintings on early 20th century American ads in the fascinating Foreword essay, "An Artist Nowhere Near Ordinary: Hal Foster's Lord Greystoke of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

This volume of sublime strips is also balanced by another erudite Kane piece at the back, describing the now forgotten entertainments phenomenon of the Silver Lady Awards bestowed annually by the fabled, prestigious but now forgotten "Banshees."

"Hal Foster and the Other Woman" reveals the story behind the story of King Features' "Shadow Cabinet" and how Foster won his Silver Lady in 1952 as well as noting many of his other testimonials such as the Rueben, the Swedish Academy's Adamson Award and his election to our own Royal Society (for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce), an honour he shared with the likes of Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Hawking.

This eigth enormously entertaining and luxurious oversized (362 x 264mm) full-colour hardback volume reprints the pages from January 7th, 1951 to 28th December, 1952 (pages #726 to 829, if you’re counting).

. . . Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop rollercoaster of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending human-scaled fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, the strip is a landmark of comics fiction and something no fan can afford to miss.

To read Win Wiacek's review in its entirety, click here.


See also the previous posts:
• The Comics Reporter's Review of Prince Valiant, Vol. 3 (1941-1942)
• A Review of Prince Valiant (Vol.5): 1945-1946
• "A Timeless Gem": A Review of Prince Valiant (Volume 7): 1949-1950
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• Something Very Special
• Remembering Episode 3000, 8/7/94
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn't You Say?
• "He Wasn't a Superhero But He Was a Hero"
• Mark Schultz on the Art of Hal Foster: "Uniquely Appealing, Innovative and Influential"
• John Cullen Murphy on Prince Valiant: "It's My Duty. I'm Responsible For It"
• Mark Schultz on Prince Valiant as an American Invention
• Looking Good
• Thomas Yeates: The New Illustrator of Prince Valiant

"A Timeless Gem"

Over at Collected Comics Library, Wallace Ryan has selected Prince Valiant (Volume 7): 1949-1950 (Fantagraphics Books) as his pick for "must have" comic book collected edition, reprint, and/or graphic novel released this week. Following is Ryan's review.

The new comics arrived today and buried deep in one of the last boxes was the latest volume in Fantagraphic’s collection of Hal Foster’s graphic masterpiece, Prince Valiant! I’d only ever seen pictures over the years of Foster’s magnum opus and had always wanted to get my hands on some kind of collection of these Sunday comics. Thankfully, Fantagraphics Books has obliged with this wonderful set of hardcovers with colour reproduced from original syndicate proof sheets restoring the vibrant and rich colours that previous reprints of the strip seem to have lacked.

Prince Valiant is a classic adventure comic that follows the exploits of the Nordic Prince, who becomes a Knight of Arthur’s court and roams the medieval world with the singing sword Flamberge by his side, fighting evil and injustice in all its forms. The artwork is beautifully detailed and it’s obvious that Foster dedicated a lot of time on research and in the comic’s final execution. The storytelling is paced with expertise and care, giving a feeling like you’re sitting at the knee of the great Prince as he regales you with wild tales of his travels and his many adventures.

I recommend that you give Prince Valiant a try and you will experience legends from the edge of time, still wrapped in the magic of Camelot and a world wide open for exploration, danger, romance and tragedy. In terms of the classic adventure comic strips of old, you’re not going to get anything much better than this timeless gem!

– Wallace Ryan
Collected Comics Library
August 16, 2013

See also the previous posts:
• Prince Valiant (Vol.5): 1945-1946
• Prince Valiant (Vol. 3): 1941-1942
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• Mark Schultz on Prince Valiant as an American Invention
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn't You Say?

Prince Valiant, Volume 5: 1945-1946

Following is how Fantagraphics describes the latest volume in its Prince Valiant series.

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Fully half of this latest volume of Hal Foster's epic masterpiece – again scanned from superb syndicate proofs – is devoted to the remaining chapters of "The Winning of Aleta," a 20-month(!) epic in which Valiant obsessively pursues his bride to be. Not surprisingly this is followed by a sequence called "Matrimony," which ends with a newly wed queen adjusting to the luxurious, exciting court life at Camelot.

But Val's marriage does not signal an end to his adventures, quite the contrary. In "War in the Forest" Val is sent out to spy on encroaching Saxons – unknowingly aided by Aleta, who, disguised as a small knight (and dubbed "Sir Puny") helps prevent disaster. But the 1946 strips end with Val and Aleta unable to return to Camelot and the displaced couple journeying to Thule.

Half the strips in this volume also include the delightful "The Medieval Castle," Foster's chronicle of two young boys growing up during the time of the First Crusade – but by the end of the 1945 strips this series has ended and the Valiant portion resume its full-page glory.

This volume also features a Foreword by P. Craig Russell, a gallery of Hal Foster's commercial illustration work and an essay titled "Aleta: Water Nymph of the Misty Isles" by Brian M. Kane [author of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion] .

With stunning art reproduced directly from pristine printer's proofs, Fantagraphics has introduced a new generation to Foster's masterpiece, while providing long-time fans with the ultimate, definitive version of the strip.

The Comics Reporter's Review of the Newly Released Prince Valiant, Vol. 3 (1941-1942)

Following is a review of Prince Valiant, Volume 3 (1941-1942), which was released by Fantagraphics Books on March 21, 2011. This review was written and first published by The Comics Reporter.

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In his fine introduction to this new Prince Valiant collection, Dan Nadel briefly invokes Jack Kirby as a cartoonist who picked up on the way of making comics by which Hal Foster became a star, methods practiced by only a handful of others. According to fellow practitioner Burne Hogarth, Foster employed classical ways of drawing and made them work at a size and with an elegance of line that the images retained their power but also kept the eye skipping across the page. Kirby/Foster is an enlightening if offbeat comparison; in addition to the similarities in figure and panel work that Nadel describes, the power each could suggest within a single image, both cartoonists used page design and narrative rhythm to control their work's tone, to cut into what otherwise might be an interminable journey from point A to point B.

In devouring the latest in Fantagraphics' fine, modern-day collections before the introduction, I was actually reminded more of Kirby's fellow Silver Age comic book titan Steve Ditko. Foster's young man seethes and overreacts and even plays the fool in the same way that Ditko allowed Peter Parker the human foibles inherent to those in the process of becoming an adult. (Spider-Man never got mad enough to lop off anyone's hand that I can remember, so point to Valiant there; they did operate in different centuries with their own definition of "responsibility," however.) As long as the readers are invested in the energy with which Valiant seizes after goals both major and minor, we remain intrigued by his story. My memory of Prince Valiant as it progressed in later years makes me wonder if Foster ever got all the way past the bold and obvious appeal of this specific version of his character, to the point that future, similar adventures felt like a retreat for Valiant as opposed to continued growth, explaining also why the story would be shifted to Valiant's son.

There was a time not many decades ago when Hal Foster was considered the greatest cartoonist in the world, end of story, by a significant subset of people that took comics seriously -- my father among them. Like my father, many of the people who thought this have now passed on. This latest collection effort allows those younger than, say, 60 years old, to take a second look at the work without hackles raised, minus the powerful impulse to push back and tear down a conception born of a restrictive view of what art does well and why. With fresh eyes, savvier readers will likely recognize the obvious appeal of the bigger, splashier images but also pick up on the impressive hammer-to-nail effect that Foster could summon from a nine-panel grid. Most readers will see or at least sense the essential economy with which Foster tells his stories, how the more complex imagery serves a specific thematic function either by making unshakably lucid some sensual aspect in play or by drawing a moment that encompasses several smaller instances in a way that stops the eye and makes it consider an effect greater than the sum of those parts. Even untethered from rigidities caused by favoring realistic rendering over all other expressions available to the the form, it's hard not to be come away impressed by Foster's prodigious skill set.

Foster staged individual scenes extremely well. He never wasted a closeup, and he also knew where each man in a group of men might stand in proximity to a threat according to their personality as individuals and as a group. Foster could show a realization moving across the faces of dozens and in what order they came to enlightenment, and he could put a grin on Valiant's face that said everything it needed to about his role in the action to come. Seeing all this work under one cover makes one realize how much Foster accomplished in the context of a delivery system that for most people meant work that slipped from view and memory seconds after being consumed, only to have to muster its entire energy the next time around. Nadel mentions that Foster may have doubted his own greatness, but each time I see and attempt to catalog the various techniques he put into play every time he worked on a page, I come away with enough faith in his ability for the both of us.


Related Off-site Links:
A Review of Prince Valiant (Vol. 1): 1937-1938 – Read About Comics (July 20, 2009).
A Review of Prince Valiant (Vol. 2): 1939-1940 – Graphic Novels Reviews (December 13, 2010).