Customer Reviews

Prince Valiant: Far From Camelot

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First, a proviso:
"No one knows better than I how great Prince Valiant was when the comic strip was produced by Hal Foster himself. As conscientious as I am in maintaining a certain quality, I ultimately have no control over who or how it's printed. If I did, the strip would be presented in the same high-quality fashion as seen in the book entitled The Prince Valiant Page."

That quote is from one of the creative individuals of this adventure strip regarding the quality of this book. It's a fair point so to anyone who is disappointed by the way the book looks do not complain to the creative end. They had little to no say over what lands in your hands. Instead, contact the publisher with any complaints, also the same one that doesn't even credit this book's actual designer.
That said I highly recommend this book because there is nowhere else (other than the actual Sunday newspaper strips if you're lucky enough to get it locally, or through the King Features comic strip subscription service) to see the inspired and very successful efforts of Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz' Prince Valiant. As much as I appreciated the work of John Cullen Murphy to continue what Prince Valiant's creator had started the strip is fun again after years of PC history lessons.
Prince Valliant was created and flawlessly written and drawn by the late Hal Foster.
As he aged and became less able to keep the wonderfully illustrated, full paged, Sunday strip viable he hired John Cullen Murphy to help him out. When Foster passed away Murphy continued the strip until a few years ago when Gianni was hired to assist him and as Murphy retired Gianni became the full time artist. Those early stories drawn by Gianni were written by Murhpy's son until artist and writer Mark Schultz was asked by Gianni to step in and lend his writing flare to the strip.
With this new creative team the style and exuberance of the strip has returned with a grandeur closer to the original Hal Foster strip with it's adventurous heart and personable wit.
"Far From Camelot" is a grand adventure that collects three years of the Gianni/Schultz Sunday strips. This tale starts with the restless Prince Valiant being allowed, by wife/co-regent Aleta, to shirk his boring duties as Camelot's co-regent (she's better at administering the duties of the realm anyway) to take his young son Nathan on an adventure. Needless to say nothing goes as planned but Valiant and son Nathan have serious adventures that feature a dangerous, schemeing Pict, Viking raiders, ghosts, giant serpents, lake monsters, flying bat-winged harpies and a quest to return an African queen to her throne (with the help of "King Solomon" himself?).
Like all the best Prince Valiant tales there are also life long bonds forged with unlikely allies as well as new friendships made. This book embodies the spirit of Hal Foster's creation with gusto. If you want to see what all the fuss is about when (us) older folks mourn the demise of the adventure strip, this is the book best suited today to show you what they're talking about.
Despite the printed color flaws this book should be on every one's shelf.
I hope then next book is printed by a publisher who cares more about the material. Until then this will have to do. If you'd like to see how great this book could look if given more care look for "The Prince Valiant Page" by Gary Gianni. Published the impeccable John Flesk this book is a perfect example of how these things should always be done.

This reprinting of the first four years of Prince Valiant under the new helm of Gianni and Schultz is an eye-opening experience. Unlike many of you, I do get the Val Sunday page in my local paper, and I've been enjoying Gianni's art despite the criminally small quarter page presentation. What I failed to recognize reading the strip in weekly installments was the superb craftsmanship of Mark Schultz's script.

Under the ridiculous strictures of a strip that tries to advance the storyline in a quarter page (even while sacrificing some of that space for a weekly synopsis) one doesn't expect all that much from a writer, and I confess that on Sunday mornings I failed to recognize the artfulness of the plot that Schultz was weaving. The reprint book gives me the chance to read the entire story at one sitting, though, and under these conditions it's plain that Schultz is a master at working under these severe restrictions.

The story is a long one, a four year adventure in which Val and son Nathan set out from Camelot to find some respite from the boredom of court life. What starts as a simple desire to slay a dragon (!) turns into an epic adventure that eventually takes the pair as far afield as Africa. Against all odds, Schultz manages to keep this epic under control even when following up to three separate plotlines when the adventurers occasionally become separated.

Schultz not only writes a corking good adventure, a real page turner that begs to be read in one marathon bout, but his work is meticulous. His story is peppered with foreshadowing devices that sometimes don't play out for months in newspaper time. Adventure comic strips have always worked under the convention that characters are introduced and last only until they've fulfilled their role in the plot -- plot threads likewise can conveniently disappear without a trace. Schultz, though, surprised me over and over by having long-forgotten characters and hanging plot threads reappear and weave themselves back into the story, a plotting device that we might expect in a novel but is a marvelous and unexpected surprise in a comic strip.

After the sumptuous production of The Prince Valiant Page I was all set to hate this reprinting. The large format reproduction in that book is not used here. But given that Gianni is creating artwork that can withstand tiny reproduction, the mini-tabloid format in this Andrews McMeel production is perfectly suitable to the project. Of course I found myself wishing that Gianni had the elbow-room to produce a more detailed vision of Prince Valiant, but for that we must fault the syndicate and the newspapers that insist on offering the strip in microscopic formats, not the book publisher.

No one can ever equal Hal Foster's run on PRINCE VALIANT - but fine line artist Gary Gianni (THE SHADOW) comes close. This compact, well-produced
collection of Gianni's work, starting from 2004, shows his development
as a SUNDAY PAGE illustrator. Color reproduction is great. Look for references to Robert E. Howard's Africa. It ain't Harold, but it'll do.

I'll beggin by stating my age. I am 67 and have been a devout prince Valiant followre for many years. I have the entire collection of the strip from it's inception utill 1993. Gianni's rendition is, without a doubt, the closest to hal foster's I have seen. It is a delicious experience to turn the pages and see a Prince Valiant that Hal Foster would have been proud to call his own

I'm a huge fan of Prince Valiant and have read the entire Hal Foster body of work through the Fantagraphics series which carried Prince Valiant from the beginning to about 1980. But since Foster left the strip for good I've read nothing.

This volume seemed like a good time to jump back on board with a new creative team. And so it proved. I prefer Foster but this collection succeeds on its own terms just fine. The characters seem true to Foster and the plots, which I don't think Foster would have approved of, are interesting and surprisingly fast paced for a weekly Sunday strip.

The plots rely far more on the supernatural, fantastic, and exotic than Foster would have been comfortable with. Foster was a much more down to earth writer and while Prince Valiant could never have been described as authentic it was grounded in realism. The Gianni and Schultz version seems to have been influenced by contemporary trends in cinema where the fantastic is heavily emphasized. Again, I prefer Foster but there's nothing basically wrong with the Gianni and Schultz approach.

One thing that did put me off was the jarring anachronistic teasers for the next strip. "A View to a Kill", "Covert Action", "A Little Payback", "Val's Mission Statement" are just a few samples that can easily break up the mood that has been carefully built up.

I recommend this book to all Prince Valiant fans and fans of fantastic fiction in general.

What's with the color

The new authors of Prince Valiant have done a great job. Schultz's text comes off much better than in the weekly papers and clearly demonstrates the planning and the thought that goes into it. Gianni's drawings are terrific. Much seems to be lost though in the coloring. Some of his preliminary pencil sketches and inked drawings are in THE PRINCE VALIANT PAGE by Gary Gianni. When compared to this color reproduction one wonders if the artist would not be better served if they eliminated the color. I have followed this series since the early 50s and I still this this is a great,great continuation of the series and I look forward to more. Congratulations to the authors.

My 14 year old grandson loved this book and yet I thought he was not only being entertained but learning about "history". He asked me if there are any more but I had to tell him he had to wait for his birthday (gave the first one for Xmas).

Gianni and Schultz pick up the reins from the Murphy's to continue Hal Foster's creation. Gianni's artwork is reproduced very nicely in this book, which covers three and a half years. The stories are well told and a fine addition to what has gone before.