Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, often simply called Prince Valiant, is an American

The setting is Arthurian. Valiant (Val) is a

At first, in the earliest months of Prince Valiant, Foster's Arthurian England might easily be confused with the

Cimmeria of Conan the Barbarian: monsters abound. As a boy, Val fights a 'dragon' that looks a lot like a plesiosaur, and he fires his arrows at a rampaging swamp-turtle the size of a Zamboni. But only a few installments later, this has sublimated somewhat into history: when Val saves his new friend Sir Gawain from a robber knight and Gawain decides to take the villain to Camelot for summary judgement from King Arthur, the whole party is at one point attacked by another enormous beast—only this time it's a salt water crocodile!... When they all at length succeed in killing the beast, Val is outraged that Gawain still seeks to have the man tried before King Arthur. The young prince naturally speaks up in his outrage before the great king, his queen Guinevere and his feared wizard Merlin—and so a career at Camelot is born. Val becomes Gawain's squire and almost immediately accompanies him on a quest, during which Gawain is captured and Val must use his wits—smiling and laughing the whole time—to free his mentor. On the trip, Gawain is seriously wounded, and the large panel where Val finally gets him back to Camelot is Foster’s first genuine visual show-stopper in the strip.^[6]

Val acquires the Singing Sword in strips from 1938. The original owner of the Singing Sword is Prince Arn of Ord, Valiant's rival for the maid Ilene. The two men put aside their differences when Ilene is kidnapped by Viking raiders on her way to Ord. Arn hands Valiant the charmed sword to help him hold back their pursuers while he himself rides ahead to free Ilene. The pair continue in their efforts to rescue Ilene, eventually discovering that she has been killed in a shipwreck. Arn gives the Singing Sword to Valiant after that adventure and the two part as friends. Later in the series it is mentioned that the Singing Sword is a sister to King Arthur's Excalibur.[5]^[6]

In the strips from 1939 Val is knighted by King Arthur, and the following year, he helps to restore his father as King of Thule. Moving across Britain, Europe, and the Holy Land, Val fights invading Goths, Huns and Saxons. In 1946, shortly after Val marries Aleta, she is kidnapped by the Viking raider Ulfran. Val's pursuit takes him past the

In the strip dated August 31, 1947, Prince Arn, their first son, is born in America, and Val celebrates by getting drunk. The infant Arn is named after Val's old friend, Prince Arn of Ord. Val and Aleta's other children are the twins, Karen and Valeta (born 1951), Galan (1962) and Prince Nathan (1979). Agents of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian abduct Nathan shortly after his birth, and he is eventually rescued by Arn. Earlier, in strips from 1964, Arn leads an expedition to America. In strips from 1987 Val becomes a grandfather when Arn and his wife, Maeve, daughter of the traitorous Mordred, give birth to Ingrid.^[5][7][8]

History and myth

The historical and mythological elements of Prince Valiant were initially chaotic, but soon Foster attempted to bring the facts into order. Many elements of the story place it in the fifth century, such as the death of

Slightly fantastic elements, like "marsh monsters" (a dinosaur-like creature) and witches, were present in the early years but were later downplayed (as was Merlin's and Morgan le Fay's use of magic), so that by 1942, the story became more realistic.^[3]

The storyline is by no means historically accurate. While obviously meant to take place during the

In 1970, after tryout strips by several artists, Foster invited John Cullen Murphy to collaborate on the strip.^[5] Here is a list of the transition artists:

• #1756 Foster
• #1757 Gray Morrow
• #1758 Foster
• #1759 Foster
• #1760 Murphy
• #1761 Foster
• #1762 Wally Wood
• #1763 Foster
• #1764 Murphy
• #1765 Gray Morrow
• #1766 Murphy
• #1767 Gray Morrow
• #1768 Foster
• #1769 Murphy
• #1770 Gray Morrow
• #1771–1772 Murphy
• #1773 Foster
• #1774–1775 Murphy
• #1776 Foster
• #1777 Gray Morrow
• #1778–1779 Murphy
• #1780 Gray Morrow
• #1781–1787 Murphy
• #1788 Foster (last)
• #1789–3502 Murphy

From 1971 on, Murphy drew the strip from Foster scripts and pencil sketches. Foster continued to write the continuity until strip #2241 in 1980. Murphy then drew it solo with scripts by his son Cullen Murphy, an editor of The Atlantic. Stories by Cullen Murphy included many adventures in which Val is opposed by the Emperor Justinian. John Cullen Murphy's daughter, Mairead, did the lettering and coloring. In March 2004, Murphy retired and turned the strip over to his chosen successor, illustrator Gary Gianni. Scripting duties were passed on to Mark Schultz with Scott Roberts providing the coloring.^[3] Schultz continued as the writer when Thomas Yeates began as the strip's artist on April 1, 2012.

Awards

Hal Foster was recognized for his work on the strip with the Banshees' Silver Lady award in 1952, followed by the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1957, their Story Comic Strip Award in 1964, their Special Features Award in 1966 and 1967, the Gold Key award in 1977, and the Elzie Segar Award in 1978. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 1996, and in 2005 he was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creators Hall of Fame for his contributions to comic books. In 2006, Foster was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. At age 73, Foster was elected to membership in Great Britain's Royal Society of Arts, an honor given to very few Americans.

Murphy received the National Cartoonists Society Story Comic Strip Award for his work on the strip in 1971, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1984 and 1987. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps.

Reprints

• Hastings House produced seven hardback Prince Valiant books in the 1950s, using the illustrations by Foster but with the text simplified by Max Trell and for the last two books by James Flowers. This series was reprinted in Germany as Prinz Eisenherz (Prince Ironheart) and continued there for an additional five volumes.
• Nostalgia Press published four hardback reprints in conjunction with King Features. Some entire panels were colored solid pink or solid purple.
• Prince Valiant: An American Epic, from Manuscript Press, reprinted the first three years in three volumes, in the full original color and
  ISBN 0-936414-09-X
  , and a print of Hal Foster's last Prince Valiant page, so that all Foster pages would be available in full page format.
• Fantagraphics published a set of 50 trade paperbacks reprinting all of the strips written by Hal Foster, including those drawn by John Cullen Murphy.
• Andrews McMeel
  published Prince Valiant: Far from Camelot, the only collection of creators Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz's current strips, dating from November 21, 2004, to May 11, 2008.
• A French reprinting of all the Foster-drawn strips was published by Editions Zenda in a green cloth, embossed hardcover series with dustjacket. Featuring two years' worth of strips per volume, it was printed from the original color pages with typeset lettering.
• Prince Valiant has often been reprinted in comic books. Feature Book #26 reprints most of the first year of the strip, and is the only comic book to have an original cover by Hal Foster. Many Foster strips were reprinted in the pages of Ace Comics and King Comics. Not reprints are seven Dell four-color Prince Valiant comic books (#567, 650, 699, 719, 788, 849, 900) drawn by Bob Fujitani,^[10] writer unknown. A 1973 Prince Valiant comic book reprinted Foster art with a simplified text intended to teach reading to children.
• Fantagraphics Books
  is a hardcover collection of the comic strip in full color, published since 2009. In 2018 they completed their reprint of all the Prince Valiant pages drawn by Hal Foster in eighteen volumes. This excluded his work for page 2000, published on June 8, 1975. By 2023, with a total of twenty-six volumes, they plan to finish reprinting all the pages written and penciled by Foster, drawn by John Cullen Murphy, which began near the beginning of Volume 18. The Dutch edition was published by Silvester Strips in a translation by comic strip artist Mark van Broekhoven.