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The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion

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The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion (DPVC) is an essential volume for the Hal Foster or Prince Valiant fan, comic strip collector, pop culture historian, or anyone who just loves great stories and art.

Prince Valiant, published continuously since 1937 as a Sunday comic strip, has long been considered one of the definitive adventure-based newspaper comic strips (rivaled, possibly, only by Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon). It's founder (writer and artist) Hal Foster, ranks with Raymond, Herriman, McCay, Segar, and a handful of other creators, as the all-time giants of the art form. Foster hand-picked his successor, John Cullen Murphy, who continued the tradition after Foster's retirement (and is probably the most under-rated and under-appreciated comic strip artists in the history of the medium). Think about this...for nearly 60 years, Prince Valiant was drawn by these two artists (with only a handful of try-out pages by Gray Morrow and Wally Wood included in the run). Recently, Mark Schultz (writer) and Gary Gianni (artist) have assumed the mantle of continuing the Valiant tradition.

Brian Kane, "THE" expert on all things Hal Foster and Prince Valiant, has put together what is truly the definitive study of this seminal comic strip. Well written and lavishly illustrated, this is a beautiful tome which nicely complements Kane's prior book, "Hal Foster: Prince Of Illustrators".

If it's Prince Valiant related, it's included in this book: story arc identification and summaries; important events and developments in Val's life; commentary on story arcs, individual strips, and more, including identification of continuity issues; artist identification and listing for each page; Foster and Murphy art reprints, many in vivid color; new PV art by current comic artists; short bios and career retrospectives of Foster and Murphy (Brian, if you're looking for your next project, I'd love to see a full-treatment biography of John Cullen Murphy, who certainly deserves it); and much more.

The short take: If you have any interest at all in Prince Valiant, Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy, or adventure comic strips, don't let this volume pass you by.

Prince Valiant has been published every Sunday since 1937. The single thing that has separates this body of work from its peers is the high quality of its illustration. Hal Foster was a "Golden Age" illustrator with the temperment of a fine artist. Upon Hal Foster's retirement, John Cullen Murphy and later Gary Gianni continued producing beautifully illustrated work. This rich body of art holds a singular place in American popular culture.

Starting in 1984, Fantagraphics Books began the work of re-publishing Prince Valaint in sequential order. By 2005, Fantagraphics had published fifty paperback volumes of Prince Valiant stories. These volumes tracked Hal Foster's work from the first story in 1937 to the final strip in 1980. In 2009, Fantagraphics decided to once again re-publish the Prince Valiant series. To date, Fantagraphics has produced one, very high quality hardback volume. There is a promise to start releasing volumes on a yearly basis. One can only hope that Fantagraphics will eventually start releasing more than one volume a year. Hal Foster had a very long career and at this pace, I may not live long enough to see the whole series re-produced.

"The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion" is an effort by Fantagraphics to support this latest release of Prince Valiant volumes. It has everything a fan of the series could want. First of all, it is edited by Brian Kane the foremost scholar of the series. The book begins by presenting the Prince Valiant story arch from 1937 to the present and follows up by looking at Foster's artistic influences. But the highlight of the book are the series of interviews with Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy, Gary Gianni and Mark Shultz. Fantagraphics Books is the leading publisher of classic comic reprints and this beautifully produced volume is another great example of why they are the leader. Highly recommended.

Prince Valiant is one of the longest-running and most beloved newspaper strips, getting its start in 1937 courtesy of legendary illustrator Hal Foster. The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion is the indispensable guide to the strip and a must have for its legions of fans new and old. Fantagraphics has been re-printing these original strips in chronological order in beautiful hardcover volumes and this guide makes the perfect complement.

Inside the 160 page book you'll find story synopses for each and every one of the 235 story arcs from 1937 right up through August 2009, complete with dates and page counts. But you get much more than that...Also included is a breathtaking 16 page full color gallery of Prince Valiant strips, culled from throughout the decades and digitally remastered from the original engraver's proofs. This gives you an idea of how the strips looked when created before being printed onto inferior newsprint.

There is an enriching history of Prince Valiant by Brian Kane; a vintage 1949 magazine feature on Hal Foster; a 1979 interview with Foster after he had recently finished his last Valiant strip; and interview with John Cullen Murphy, the artist who succeeded Foster; and an interview with Gary Gianni and Mark Shultz, the current team handling the strip. Throughout the book there are illustrations by Foster, Murphy and others as well vintage photos of the various creative talents.

No matter how long you've been a Prince Valiant fan...one year or seventy years, you're certain to find this book informative and entertaining. Fantagraphics has produced another spectacular book!

If you are into the Prince Valiant comics, this is a must have publication. It has a lot of information on Hal Foster and how he came to make the comic series. I have read this comic since I first learned to read and the story lines never get old. The quality of the graphics is wonderful.

160 pages of Prince Valiant information.
I have a mismatched collection of Prince Valiant books from the 40's to the latest 3 volumes currently selling here. (Eagerly awaiting volume 4)!
Excellent paper, printing & binding.

Created in 1937 by illustrator and cartooning legend Hal Foster, Prince Valiant takes us to King Arthur's court, where Val, the young son of an exiled Nordic king, advances from squire to knight of the round table and sets off on a seemingly endless series of fanciful adventures that take him around the world.

Foster is long gone (he died in 1982) but various artists and writers have assumed his mantle over the years, and his much-admired epic remains in circulation to this day. Known for its detailed artwork, stunning realism, literacy, sometimes humorous domestic story lines and high drama, Prince Valiant certainly deserves a reference book of its own. Now it has one.

Edward, Duke of Windsor, once described Prince Valiant as the "greatest contribution to English literature in the past hundred years," which is, of course, a ridiculous overstatement. Still, it underscores the exalted spot that Prince Valiant holds in the annals of comic-strip history.

As King Features Syndicate, which distributes the strip, explains on its web site, Prince Valiant is "a historical novel in serialized form, one in which characters have more than two dimensions -- the virtuous have flaws, and the villainous are frequently not without some small virtue. The characters have known defeat as well as triumph. And they have aged over the years."

First published in 1992 and reissued in updated form in 2009, "The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion" fills a void for the student of all things Val. In addition to full-color pages from various period's in the strip's history and black-and-white illustrations, the book offers an invaluable story synopsis that runs from 1937 through August of last year.

Also included is a timeline of Val's life, summarizing the highlights from his birth circa 433 through the next 40-plus years. Well-focused interviews with Foster successors John Cullen Murphy and the artist/writing team of Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz are part of the mix as well.

But there are sins of omission and commission here too.

Noticeably lacking are brief biographical sketches of the major characters in the strip, which would have been beneficial because Prince Valiant has covered a lot of ground in its 73 years of weekly strips. (There never was a daily strip.) We could use a bit of help sorting out King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Tristram, Merlin, Mordred, Val's wife Aleta, their children, and the countless villains and heroes who have filled the strip's pages, either on a recurring basis or in passing.

"The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion" also features a fawning, overly long, interview with Foster that was conducted late in his life. This exchange includes some revelations, such as the fact that Foster thought cartooning was beneath him when he began illustrating Tarzan several years before the creation of Prince Valiant. But the interview would have benefited from some judicious editing.

This handsome volume's assets outweigh its deficiencies, however, and it is a must for any library devoted to classic comic strips.