By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-588-4
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour Sunday newspaper strip offering wonder-struck readers safe passage into a world of noble combat, rousing adventure and thrilling romance. Year by year in real time, the strip followed the exploits of a royal exile, driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule, who grew up to roam the world and ascended to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.
Crafted by sublime master draftsman and tale-teller Harold “Hal†Foster, “Val†matured to clean-limbed manhood in a heady sea of exotic wonderment; visiting far-flung lands and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.
The feature has sired films, animated series and all manner of books, toys, records, games and collections based on the strip – one of too few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and still forging ever onward) – and, even in these declining days of newspaper narrative cartoons as a viable medium, it still claims more than 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether via an online edition.
Foster produced the saga single-handed, one spectacular page a week from 1937 until 1971, when he began to ease up on his self-appointed workload. With the syndicate’s approval – and after auditioning the likes of Gray Morrow and Wally Wood – Big Ben Bolt illustrator John Cullen Murphy was selected to become illustrator of the feature, with Foster continuing as writer and layout designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the writer’s role.
In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (and died a month later on July 2nd) since when the strip has soldiered on under the auspices of writer Mark Schultz and artists Gary Gianni and Tom Yeates.
This sixth magnificently oversized (362 x 268mm) full-colour hardback volume reprints the strips from January 5th 1947 to 26th December 1948 as Foster began a phenomenally impressive and productive run on a strip which was already regarded as one of the greatest in existence, revelling in the fact that with war-time restrictions ended, he could devote an entire colossal page to each ever-more gripping and luscious instalment…
The introductory essay for this volume is ‘Foster of the Yukon or The Son Also Rises’ by Brian M. Kane (with Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris), exploring the early life of the creator when he worked for the Hudson Bay Company and detailing his many connections to the Canadian wildernesses and indigenous people – as well as his prior illustration work featuring Canadian cultural themes and motifs.
Also included is a critical and scholarly overview by Native American Dr. Ballengee-Morris, discussing this collection’s material and use of First Nation characters and customs.
What Has Gone Before: Having finally wooed and been won by Queen Aleta of The Misty Isles after many fantastic hardships and spectacular trials and travails, Val and his willing prize briefly sojourned in Rome where they were wed before eventually arriving in Camelot.
Here his unconventional and strong-willed bride caused quite a commotion before foiling a seditious scheme by Mordred to humiliate Queen Guinevere and destroy Sir Launcelot.
Her tactics almost ended her own marriage, and only Aleta’s ferociously loyal, tempestuous fire-haired northern handmaiden Katwin was able to bring Valiant to his outraged senses…
Reunited and both duly penitent, the newlyweds voyaged to winter-locked Thule, where King Aguar could meet his new daughter-in-law. It was not a peaceful homecoming and the barely-rested Val had to quell potential rebellion in fractious Overgaard whilst another brewed in the fiefdom of former ally Earl Jon.
With the doughty Prince recovering from many wounds – again – bright-and-breezy Aleta struggled to win the favour of her straight-laced and sternly formal Father-in-Law and his dour, grim-minded warriors…
Her charm offensive began by solving Aguar’s quarrel with Jon through diplomacy and party-throwing. But even after being accepted by the family the Princess Bride had trouble adapting to the rough sports and pastimes of the chilly region – such as skiing and bear hunting – and she was delighted when the snows finally relented and the Spring thaws began.
Now, the receding snows also bring visitors to the annual parliamentary “Thingâ€. Hostile sub-chief Gunguir and his mighty son Ulfrun, pride of the Vikings, come to pay their reluctant respects but the latter takes an instant and unhealthily obsessive interest in the golden Princess …
As Val visits old friend and shipbuilding genius Gundar Harl, the nefarious Ulfrun kidnaps Aleta and, despite the heroic efforts of Katwin, sails away into the cold Atlantic seas. Nigh-drowned and with a broken arm, the handmaiden finds Valiant and alerts him to the crisis.
As he readies his pursuit the wounded tigress also informs him that his stolen wife is pregnant and that she must be there when they rescue her…
As he sails ever westward Ulfrun begins to realise his mistake. His purloined prize shows no fear, refuses him all things and even begins to win over his rough Viking warriors…
Val and a hand-picked crew are in full pursuit in Gundar’s most advanced sailing ship, utilising the mariner’s greatest invention – a sextant – to follow the abductors. Never out of sight for long, the followers push Ulfrun further and further west and north, past Greenland and into uncharted waters. After weeks of cat-and-mouse sailing with common sailors on both vessels contemplating mutiny, Valiant’s vessel inexorably closes in until a huge sudden storm finally separates stalkers and quarry…
Days later, in the following calm Val’s ship reaches a strange shore where he finds evidence of Ulfrun’s survival: a native village devastated by the Viking’s men. Hot to pick up the trail again he nevertheless finds time to administer aid to the survivors before following the Raiders’ boat into this NewFoundLand…
The pursuit is easy if slow. As Ulfrun’s Dragon-ship sails ever onwards, finding a vast mainland and constantly attacking the red-skinned natives’ settlements for provisions. Val and Gundar patiently follow their crimson wake, always stopping to offer assistance and consequently gaining allies who will allow him first crack at the murderous invader.
Eventually just as they reach a vast inland sea (Lake Ontario) the pressure proves too much and, after killing a mutinous shipmate, Ulfrun attacks Aleta even as Val’s ship heaves into view. The Prince’s men, supplemented by Native allies, ferociously attack but in the melee Ulfrun and two of his subordinates flee deep into the wild green interior…
The chase is manic and a final confrontation inevitable. On a mighty cliff vengeance is taken and justice served, but even as Val deals with Ulfrun Aleta has managed to talk his men into surrendering…
His passion for slaughter slaked, Valiant convinces the aggrieved Red Men to let all the surviving Raiders board their Dragon-ship and try to return to their homes. In one last betrayal, however, the Vikings raid Gundar’s vessel, stealing food stores and his invaluable sextant before setting off downriver towards Newfoundland. They never made it back to Europe…
Valiant and Aleta meanwhile have decided to winter in this strange yet inviting country and, with their faithful retinue and new feather-wearing native friends, prepare for the cold season by hunting, fishing, exploring and building a peculiar dwelling of felled logs.
As the sagacious Tribal Chiefs observe the golden woman in their midst a strange notion forms, and when a spectacularly fortuitous event occurs whilst she and Val visit the Great Falls (yep, Niagara) the savage savants decide that she is far more than human…
Moreover the tribal women can clearly see that the “Sun Woman†is with child…
This particular section is a mesmerising change of pace in the ongoing saga, focusing on paradisiacal, humour-tinged Arcadian splendour rather than constant angst and action, and Foster’s sublime facility for illuminating the wonders of the wilds make these episodes irresistibly beguiling.
With the snows coming, the Tribes decide that the newfangled log-cabin is insufficient to Aleta’s needs and construct a magnificent birch bark Lodge to keep her in perfect comfort whilst her barbarian men can sit and shiver in their draughty wooden house. Even more insultingly, they hold a village ceremony and appoint a forbidding guardian midwife to look after the incipient’ mother’s natal needs.
Although getting increasingly annoyed at their hosts’ interfering hospitality, nobody has the nerve to gainsay the stoic and terrifying Tillicum… not even Val himself on the morning she kicks him out of Lodge and indicates that from now on he sleeps with the other men…
Soon after, the next prince of Thule is successfully delivered and an amazed, astounded – and hung-over – happy father greets his son and proceeds to get in the way and underfoot.
Luckily for him youngest crewman Gunnar has gone missing so, saying farewell to his smiling “Sun Woman†(and her scowling servants Tillicum and Katwin), Valiant heads off into the snow-covered forests to find him.
The trail takes him to a far distant region which has never seen white skins before, just in time to save the wayward youth from the curious natives, but their hazardous trek back takes quite a while and the ice is melting on the Niagara river before they reach friends once more.
With the cold season gone Valiant and Gundar prepare to make the voyage back to Europe (even though the inventor secretly fears it impossible without his sextant) so Val takes one last opportunity to explore.
Their is precious little food around yet and to provision the ship Val, with a hand-picked squad of Northmen, joins his native pals in a prodigious canoe journey to the Great Lake Trading Center in the Land of the Hurons…
The great event is another chance to meet and exchange ideas but proceeds at its own laborious pace. Happily Val’s impatience is assuaged once he is introduced to the intriguing, bone-crunching pastime called “Lacrosseâ€â€¦
Eventually fully-supplied the men return to the Lodge and begin preparations to leave. The little prince – to be christened Arn once they reach Camelot – has grown strong and boisterous: and would not be overly imperilled by a perilous sea voyage, but another delay has suddenly manifested. Many of the tribes that live on the great river which will carry them back to the Atlantic are in revolt…
Valiant is again outclassed as his golden bride – a master of subtle diplomacy – who devises a cunning, slaughter-free solution to the problem, but her plan almost rebounds as the natives then baulk at the though t of letting their Sun Woman go back beyond the seas…
Once that obstacle is surmounted the only remaining problem is Tillicum, who refuses to be left behind…
The homesick crew head into the unknown and their journey becomes an incredible odyssey as only a general sense of the right direction, shipwreck, icy seas and appalling storms batter the lost voyagers before the weary sailors finally fetch up on a familiar shore.
No sooner has Aleta set foot on land for a moment’s solitude than she is spotted by Hibernian king Roary Dhu who fancies making her the next queen of Ireland…
That difference of opinion leads to appropriate outrage and bloodshed before Valiant and his rapidly diminishing crew head back out to sea, but at last fortune favours them when they are intercepted by Sir Launcelot’s personal ship.
The situation in Camelot is still tense after all these months, but Val’s faithful crew are exhausted and heartsore, so he and his extended family party transfer to the new vessel, leaving his weary followers to return to their own homes in Thule with tidings of his safe return and new son…
All Camelot is lifted by the presence of the Prince and his family, but another crisis is brewing and too soon Valiant is heading towards Cornwall to apply his lethal brand of problem-solving to murderous despotic, rebel king Tourien who, with his brutal sons Alp the Strong, Cedric the Dandy and Doorne the Slave Driver, flouts Arthur’s authority, murders his servants and believes himself utterly untouchable and beyond the monarch’s justice…
Eschewing a large armed force Valiant decides to dismantle the renegade’s threat from the inside using duplicity, and although largely successful he still has to resort to savage force of arms before the Cornish rat’s nest is finally cleaned out…
Back in Camelot again the victorious hero’s thoughts turn to his baby’s long-delayed christening. The only possible choice for a Godfather is his boyhood rival and the child’s namesake Prince Arn of Ord but when Val journeys to the outlying principality he receives an almighty shock…
To Be Continued…
This volume then concludes with ‘Coloring Valiant’ by in Brian M. Kane: a fascinating feature on Foster’s process to provide colour indications for the printers to work from which includes a huge and beautiful gate-fold fold-out of one of his original water-coloured pages, topped off and balanced by the published page his avid fans finally saw.
Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop, celebration of the human spirit in action, under torment, enduring duty and enjoying grand romance; mixing glorious historic fantasy with dry wit, broad humour with shatteringly dark violence.
Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, this is a masterpiece of fiction: a never-ending story no one should be without. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the very best way to do so and will be your permanent portal to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination…
Prince Valiant © 2012 King Features Syndicate. All other articles, content and properties © 2012 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.