I’m a Prince Valiant fan since way back, so it’s strange to think that Fantagraphics’ gorgeous hardcover reprint series is the first time I’ve actually seen any Prince Valiant written and drawn by creator Hal Foster. Foster was off the strip by the time I discovered it in the old Post-Dispatch comic page — remember when the Sunday funnies were something to get excited about? — so John Cullen Murphy’s version was my initial exposure, and it led to a lifelong love affair. I’ve greatly enjoyed the Mark Schultz/Gary Gianni edition, or at least I did until the P-D killed it a few years back; this marked last time I bought a P-D. Why yes, I am a grudgeholder, why do you ask? You can still “enjoy” Prince Valiant online if your paper doesn’t carry the strip, but look at this and then look at this:

Yeah, online comics are ersatz comics.

Actually, now that I think of it, I have seen Foster’s work before, but only in passing. There was a dealer who used to show up at those Fred Greenberg conventions at the airport Holiday Inn who had three-ring binders full of original Prince Valiant strips meticulously cut out of the newspaper and pasted to heavy cardstock. He wanted too much for a year’s worth of strips, but now that I’ve had a chance to pore over Volume 1 and 2 of the new Fantagraphics hardcovers (backordered forever, and just now getting to my sweaty hands), I think that nameless, utterly devoted man set his prices too low.

There is no superlative you can pile on Foster’s work that does justice to his talent as artist and storyteller. The sweep of his plot is Romance as it hadn’t been done in 500 years, and then not again in the 40 years since he last touched a bristol board. These initial adventures of a young Val finding his way in the world are beautifully plotted and magnificently rendered, but Foster consistently creates little moments that surpass fiction and cut to the very heart of what it means to be human. In Volume one, Val fights a rearguard action that allows Sir Gawain to escape imprisonment. Gawain marks his trail with the corpse of his last foe, Gawain’s sword jutting out of the unfortunate man’s chest and the dead man’s hand propped up in a cleft stick pointing Val in the right direction. This one panel (!) in strip 37 shows you the grim world of the Dark Ages, and provides stark contrast to Gawain’s courtly grace and good humor; these are dangerous men in a dangerous world.

But there are also moments of quiet wonder, too. The story of Val’s first love, Ilene, features a stolen moment between the two in strip #54. Ilene, face in her hands at her palace window, looks down beatifically at Val, who’s in the garden strumming a lute above the caption, “A kindly moon looks down on an old, old story that a boy and girl thinks is new.” That’s the essence of first love, captured in a single image and less than 20 words. The date for this strip is February 19, 1938, hard upon Valentine’s Day — how many young men reading the strip had stolen similar moments earlier in the week (minus the lute, of course), feeling the same frisson of a new world? This may be Foster’s most potent gift as an artist, the ability to make you feel that Val’s life could be your own, if you only had a sword.

But you don’t need the sword — all you need are $30 an installment, and this greatest of tales, containing everything in the world and everyone under the sun, can be yours. It’s an old, old tale, but every page brings something new.

-Paul

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