Customer Reviews

The Prince Valiant Page

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gary Gianni, a gifted pen and ink artist in the tradition of Franklin Booth, began to rejuvenate the "Prince Valiant" Sunday strip as assistant to the soon-to-retire John Cullen Murphy in 2004. Noted for this remarkable illustrations for Wandering Star's editions of Robert E. Howard's Conan, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn stories, Gianni's work in comics include THE SHADOW: COILS OF LEVIATHAN and a "Hellboy" backup series, titled THE MONSTER MEN. Gianni was soon joined by writer Mark Schultz, who helped restore the element of the supernatural to the strip, which had in past decades gravitated toward mundane historical detail. Worthy heirs to creator Hal Foster, Gianni and Schultz have restored "Prince Valiant" to its status as the best-drawn and written adventure strip in America.
While recent years have produced fine comics-related retrospectives such as Barry Windsor Smith's OPUS, and Alex Ross's series (such as EARTH X) have been accompanied by "zero issues" with sketches and character designs, never before has there been so lavish an exploration of the making of a comics series. As newspaper printing fails to do justice to Gianni's exquisite line, the razor-sharp black and white reproduction in THE PRINCE VALIANT PAGE brings with it a sense of vindication. (Though designed as a full-page, The Boston Herald crops and rearranges the panels and text into a quarter page.) The book is so packed with intense visual detail that I can't take in more than about 30 pages in one sitting.
Beautifully designed, this 9"x12" Flesk Publications hardcover is a exemplary work of the art of publishing, with elegant touches such as the gold-stamped title on black cloth boards. Highly recommended to fans of the golden age of illustration, Mark Schultz's XENOZOIC TALES, Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Michael Kaluta, and Frank Frazetta.

What an amazing piece of work! Both fans of comic books and classic illustration will find a lot to glean from in this book. If you're not familiar with Gary Gianni's work, check him out at GaryGianni.com and look at some of his amazing pen and ink samples. The guy clearly stands on the shoulders of some of the pen and ink masters like Coll and Booth and yet he still manages to bring a new spin to the techniques of the masters.

Basically, what you'll find in this book is a behind the scenes look at the creation of the Prince Valiant page that Gianni and Mark Shultz have been helming for several years. There's lots of drawings and studies depicted in the making of this masterpiece. There's also some examples of Gianni's other works from Batman, The Shadow, and his comics translation of 20000 Leagues Under The Sea (which is going to be released very soon by Flesk Publications). Gianni gives a lot of insights to what he uses to create this work including his pen nibs and paper as well as his thoughts and his thinking behind some of his artistic decisions on the series. One thing that I thought was kind of neat were the notes that Gianni received from the former Prince Valiant master artist when Gianni was just getting started assisting on the strips. It's kind of like seeing George Bridgeman grade Norman Rockwell and reminds me of the Famous Artist School where you send your art lessons to a master and they put an overlay on top, critique them, and redraw portions to show you how to do it better.

There's also several full color foldout Valiant strips that I believe have been specially colored for this edition only. The entire book is very well made and the paper is heavy and beautiful. The tones of Gianni's work are reproduced in ways that I've never seen before. Usually, reproductions of Gianni's works (Batman, The Shadow, Conan, etc.) are specifically black and white, and yet this book gives you the tones that Gianni creates in his work that are often missed by standard reproduction. So anyway, buy this book and you won't be disappointed. And while you're at it, buy some of the books of the masters that inspired Gianni from the same publisher. Franklin Booth and Joseph
Clement Coll Legacy in Line are tremendous, and Mark Shultz's work (co-writer of Valiant and creator of Xenozoic Tales) is also available. I can't say enough about these works. Having started reading comics with Todd McFarlane's Spiderman and Jim Lee's X-Men (which I still insist are fun) I was completely floored when I saw an inking demonstration by Mark Shultz. The guy took comic art to new levels. Anyway, following Shultz' work lead me to Gary Gianni, and both of them lead me to other great artists like Hal Foster, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Al Williamson, etc. Alright. I'm done gushing. To end all, this book is really terrific. Buy it and enjoy it.

I have been a fan of Prince Valiant for more than 50 years, so I have seen the work of the previous artists. This was a very nice introduction to the details of picking up a legacy and carrying it forward with style. I have to agree with John Cullen Murphy's early assessment of Gianni's style...too many lines. Doesn't seem to be a problem now, and it was good of Gianni to show the difficulties he had in taking over. I also liked him showing how they have used photos from life and from movies to model poses. Really informative. I wish Gianni a long career at this!

Gianni's breakdown of how the pages are constructed and story of how he came to replace J. C. Murphy are pretty interesting, but it's the scads of Prince Valiant art that really make this book an excellent art book. The art is reproduced very crisply and makes me want to get out my own art tools, just looking at it. An excellent value for a reasonable price.

This is a terrific introduction to the difficulties of putting a story into an illustrated- visual form. Gary Ganni does a great job with the text, which is a pleasant surprise for an artist. When one sees the scope of his work it is easily seen why the Foster illustrations of the 40s and 50s looked better. From the designer's point of view he had a lot more space to deal with. The current funnies are a fourth page that make production much more challenging. It is also apparent that all three of the illustrators who have worked on the series are master craftsmen and cannot be fairly compared as they were appealing to vastly different audiences with different technologies. The similarity of Gianni to Foster is readily apparent in THE PRINCE VALIANT PAGE in the expanded reproductions of his preliminary pencil sketches and ink drawings . The most salient difference that I can see is the coloring. Foster's work is with water color while the pictures in this book appear to be computer generated. Any enthusiast of the series will covet this book.

I have poured over every page of this book in complete amazement. Just look at the cover illustration, with the wonderfully ink-rendered face and hands, plus the expertly depicted chain mail. Gianni is a true master.
The book discusses the process of creating the Sunday page, and it includes many reproductions, including preliminaries, pencils, finished black and white pages, and a few color fold-outs. It certainly gives the artist a worthy treatment. What more could be desired? Nothing, unless you had some desire to read Val's adventures in uninterrupted sequence. Will these ever be published in book or web form? The few color pages in this book are quite beautiful- perhaps specifically colored for this edition as another reviewer suggested. How nice it would be to have a whole book like that depicting a single adventure.

Prince Valiant has been published continously in Sunday newspapers since 1937. In seventy one years, there have been only three illustrators of whom Gary Gianni is the most recent. Following Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy must be something akin to following Sean Connery and Roger Moore in the role of James Bond. There is a lot of pressure from fans to maintain the same high levels of excellence.

The Sunday Prince Valiant comic is the most intensely designed strip the genre has ever produced. The most interesting aspect of "The Prince Valiant Page" is Gary Gianni's description of the process that goes into producing the weekly comic strip. The level of detail and preparation is simply extraordinary.

With the rise of the Internet, the American newspaper industy is facing its greatest crisis. Who knows if my own children will even read newspapers when they become adults. But my sense is Prince Valiant will survive. There will always be a fascination for adventure stories and a deep admiration for beautifully crafted illustration. Gary Gianni should be very busy for the next twenty five years or so.

In contrast to the other reviewers here, I've been disappointed by the turn Prince Valiant has taken since Gianni took over. The drawings seem far less detailed and inspired than John Collen Murphy's, and the faces seem "off" somehow. Even the colors look paler. And Gianni seems almost lazy when he draws a large shield full of text to fill a large portion of the strip each week, rather than filling the panel with a drawing that illustrates the story. As for the plot, the stories progress ploddingly slowly each week. Sometimes I don't even turn to this strip in the Sunday paper anymore. I'm going to ask for the original publications (1937-1938) for birthday or Christmas.