Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant In the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a comic strip created by Hal Foster. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story for its entire history. Today it stands out for its realistic panoramas and intelligent and often humorous narrative, which appears below the pictures, without word balloons.

Related Topics:
King Arthur - Comic strip - Hal Foster

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Prince Valiant began in full color tabloid sections on Saturday February 13 1937. The first full page was strip #16, which appeared in the Sunday New Orleans Times Picayune. The internal dating changed from Saturday to Sunday with strip #53. The full page strip continued until 1971 when strip #1188 was not offered in full page format -- it was the last strip Hal Foster drew. The strip contiues today by other artists in half page format.

Related Topics:
Tabloid - February 13 - 1937 - Full page - New Orleans Times Picayune - Half page

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The setting is Arthurian. Valiant himself is a Nordic prince (from the faraway Thule - apparently located somewhere near the city Trondheim on the Norwegian west coast. Early in the story, Valiant comes to Camelot and becomes fast friends with Sir Gawain, Sir Tristram), King Arthur and Merlin, and becomes a Knight of the Round Table. Later, he meets the love of his life - Aleta - on a Mediterranean island. He fights the Huns with his magic Singing Sword, Flamberge, travels to Africa and to America, and helps his father regain his lost throne of Thule.

Related Topics:
Thule - Trondheim - Norwegian - Camelot - Gawain - Tristram - King Arthur - Merlin - Round Table - Hun - Africa - America

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The historical and mythological elements of Prince Valiant were initially chaotic, but soon Foster attempted to bring the facts into order. Some of the elements of the story (for instance, the death of Attila the Hun in 453, the murder of Aëtius in 454, though different from the historical version (Valiant and Gawain are blamed for the murder and must flee), and Geiseric's sacking of Rome in 455, which Prince Valiant and Aleta witness), place the story in the 5th century. Some slightly fantastic elements, like "marsh monsters" (a dinosaur-like creature) and witches, are present in the early years but are later downplayed (as are Merlin's and Morgan le Fay's magicks), so that by 1942 the story is in most aspects a realistic one.

Related Topics:
Attila - Aëtius - Geiseric - Rome - Morgan le Fay

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

Related Topics:
1970 - John Cullen Murphy

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• 1756 Foster
• 1757 Gray Morrow
• 1758 Foster
• 1759 Foster
• 1760 Murphy
• 1761 Foster
• 1762 Wally Wood
• 1763 Foster
• 1764 Murphy
• 1765 unknown
• 1766 Murphy
• 1767 same as 1765
• 1768 Foster
• 1769 Muprhy
• 1770 same as 1765
• 1771-2 Murphy
• 1773 Foster
• 1774-5 Murphy
• 1776 Foster
• 1777-87 Murphy
• 1788 Foster
• 1989 on Murphy

From 1971 on Murphy drew the strip from Foster scripts and pencil sketches. Foster continued to write the strip until strip #2241, in 1980. Murphy then drew it himself, with scripts by his son Cullen Murphy, an editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Stories by Cullen Murphy included many adventures in which Val is opposed by Byzantine Emperor Justinian. Murphy's daughter, Mairead, did the lettering and coloring.

Related Topics:
1971 - 1980 - Cullen Murphy - The Atlantic Monthly - Byzantine - Justinian

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In March 2004, Murphy retired, and turned the strip over to his hand-picked successor, illustrator Gary Gianni. Writing duties were soon afterwards passed on to Mark Schultz. Prince Valiant appears weekly in more than 300 newspapers nationwide, according to its distributor, King Features Syndicate. The full stretch of the story is now some 1800 Sunday strips. The Prince Valiant half page appears in the Reading Eagle.

Related Topics:
2004 - Gary Gianni - Mark Schultz - King Features Syndicate - Sunday strip - Half page - Reading Eagle

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In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps.

Related Topics:
Comic Strip Classics - Postage stamps

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