- Prince Valiant
Infobox comic strip
title=
caption= Prince Valiant
author=Hal Foster
url=
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status= Running/Weekly
syndicate=King Features Syndicate
publisher=
first=1937-02-13
last=
genre= Epic historical adventure
rating=
preceded by=
followed by=John Cullen Murphy Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz"Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur", or simply "Prince Valiant", is a
comic strip created byHal 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. The events shown are historically accurate, but taken from various different time periods ranging from the late Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages, with a few very brief scenes from more modern times commenting on the "manuscript".History and story overview
"Prince Valiant" began in full color
tabloid sections on SaturdayFebruary 13 1937 . The firstfull page was strip #16, which appeared in the SundayNew Orleans Times Picayune . The internal dating changed from Saturday to Sunday with strip #66 (May 15, 1938). The full page strip continued until 1971 when strip #1788 was not offered in full page format—it was the last stripHal Foster drew. The strip continues today by other artists inhalf page format.The setting is Arthurian. Valiant himself is a Nordic prince (from the faraway
Thule —apparently located somewhere near the cityTrondheim on the Norwegian west coast). Early in the story, Valiant comes toCamelot , becomes fast friends with SirGawain and Sir Tristram, earns the respect ofKing 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 theHun s with his magicSinging Sword , "Flamberge ", travels toAfrica and to America, and helps his father regain his lost throne of Thule, usurped by the tyrant Sligon.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), andGeiseric 's sacking ofRome 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 andMorgan le Fay 's use of magic), so that by 1942 the story is in most aspects a realistic one.Still, the storyline is far from being historically accurate; while obviously meant to take place in the mid 5th century, Foster continuously incorporated "out-of-era" features: VikingLongship s, Muslims, alchemist and technological advances not made before theRenaissance , and the fortifications, armor and armament resemble theHigh Middle Ages .to collaborate on the strip. 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 unknown
* #1766 Murphy
* #1767 same as #1765
* #1768 Foster
* #1769 Murphy
* #1770 same as #1765
* #1771-2 Murphy
* #1773 Foster
* #1774-5 Murphy
* #1776 Foster
* #1777-87 Murphy
* #1788 Foster
* #1789 on MurphyFrom 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. John Cullen Murphy's daughter, Mairead, did the lettering and coloring.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. Coloring is handled by Scott Roberts."Prince Valiant" appears weekly in more than three hundred newspapers nationwide, according to its distributor,
King Features Syndicate . The full stretch of the story is now over 3700Sunday strip s.Marvel Comics published a 4-partminiseries titled "Prince Valiant" in the 1990s.Awards and recognition
Hal Foster was recognized for his work on the strip with the
National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award in 1957, their Story Comic Strip Award in 1964, and their Special Features Award in 1966 and 1967. John Cullen Murphy received the National Cartoonist 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 theComic Strip Classics series of commemorativepostage stamps .In 2006, Hal Foster was inducted into the
Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.Reprints
*
Hastings House produced 7 hardback "Prince Valiant" books in the 1950s, using the illustrations by Hal Foster but with the text simplified by Max Trell and for the last three 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 withKing Features . To save time, the colorist on these books has colored some entire panels solid pink or solid purple.
*"Prince Valiant -- an American Epic", fromManuscript Press , reprinted the first three years in three volumes, in the full original color andfull page size. They also published a hardback omnibus of the three years, in a limited edition of 26 copies, ISBN #0-936414-09-X.
*Fantagraphics published a set of 50 trade paperbacks reprinting all of the strips written by Hal Foster, including those drawn by John Cullen Murphy."Prince Valiant" has often been reprinted in
comic book s. 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 ofAce Comics andKing Comics . Not reprints are seven Dell four-color "Prince Valiant" comic books — #567, 650, 699, 719, 788, 848, 900 — drawn byBob Fuji , writer unknown. There was also a "Prince Valiant" comic book published in 1973 reprinted Foster art and simplified text, intended for children learning to read.In other media
*There have been two "Prince Valiant" phonograph records and three coloring books, and in 1954 Treasure Books published a small children's book with Foster art in brilliant color.
*
Chaosium produced a "Prince Valiant"role-playing game . [cite web
url=http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=28
title=RPGnet entry: Prince Valiant
publisher=RPGnet ] In 1999 "Pyramid" magazine named the "Prince Valiant Role-playing Game" as one of "The Millennium's Most Underrated Games". Editor Scott Haring said "Prince Valiant" was designed as a beginner's introduction to roleplaying... Perhaps the subject matter's perceived lack of 'cool' killed this game, but it deserved better." [cite journal
title=Second Sight: The Millennium's Most Influential Company and The Millennium's Most Underrated Game
journal=Pyramid (online)
last=Haring| first=Scott D.
url= http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/article.html?id=1240
date=1999-11-25
accessdate=2008-02-17]Movie and television adaptations
* "Prince Valiant" - A 1954 US motion picture by
20th Century Fox , filmed in color andCinemascope . Directed byHenry Hathaway , it starredJames Mason ,Robert Wagner (in the title role),Janet Leigh , andSterling Hayden . The film was also adapted into a comic book.
* A 1991 animated UStelevision series on The Family Channel in the US andCBBC in the UK, titled "The Legend of Prince Valiant "
* "Prince Valiant" - A 1997 UK/Ireland /Germany movieCultural references
* A parody of this strip, "Prince Violent", appeared in the old
Mad Magazine (comic book format).
* PrinceValium is the sleepy prince in the movie "Spaceballs ". Also, in the movie "Beetlejuice ", Winona Ryder's character says that nothing will interrupt her mother's (played by Catherine O'Hara) sleep that night, because "she's sleeping with Prince Valium."
* Prince Valiant once used the guise of a demon. His costume was an inspiration to Jack Kirby for his character,Etrigan the Demon [ [http://www.toonopedia.com/demon.htm The Demon - Don Markstein's Toonopedia ] ] .
*Bugs Bunny did a parody called "Prince Varmint" originally called "Prince Violent", in which he plays a rabbit in the Middle Ages who must recover the Singing Sword from theBlack Knight . The Black Knight is portrayed asYosemite Sam in a black armor.
*Dave Sim did a weekly "Valiant" parody titled "Silverspoon" in "The Buyer's Guide to Comic Fandom". The strip was done using Foster's illustration-and-captions method.* In the "
Defenders of the Earth " episode "Terror In Time", Valiant appeared as a guest.References
*"A Prince Valiant Companion" by
Todd Goldberg andCarl Horak , edited byDon Markstein andRick Norwood ,Manuscript Press , ISBN 0-936414-07-3.
*"Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators" by Brian M. Kane, Vanguard Productions, ISBN 1-887591-25-7, IPPY Award-winning biography of Hal Foster, 2001.External links
* [http://www.princevaliant.net The international fanclub site] .
* [http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/pvaliant/about.htm Prince Valiant at King Features] .
* [http://members.aol.com/TGoldberg/pvcompanion.htm Todd Goldberg's plot summaries and timeline up to 1980] .
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/val.htm Toonopedia] .
* [http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/foster.htm excerpt from Foster biography by Brian Kane] .
* [http://valarnrow.i8.com The Legend of Prince Valiant Fan Webpage: The Official Self-Proclaimed Fan Community] .
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047365 "Prince Valiant" (1954) at IMDB] .
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101171 "The Legend of Prince Valiant" (1991) at IMDB] .
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119947 "Prince Valiant" (1997) at IMDB] .
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