Hal Foster was born on this date in 1892. It's impossible to overstate Foster's influence on the field of comic art. His Tarzan of the Apes pages helped define what an adventure would be, and his creation Prince Valiant is still being published and offers fans an incredible saga of a one brave man and his family.
Hal Foster's Prince Valiant has proven over the decades to be a sturdy and popular adventure comic strip across the world. So prevalent was the strip, a weekly visitor in many if not most homes, that in the early 50's Hasting House adapted the story of Valiant and his friends into lavishly illustrated children's books. Hal Foster's wonderful artwork became blended with text by Max Trell and later by James Flowers. Nostalgia Press reprinted some of these volumes in the 60's.
I'm lucky now to own most of these handsome volumes. My local store got in an incomplete collection (missing the second volume) some months ago and I've been looking at them glowingly since. The price asked was very fair, but not insubstantial. I picked up the first volume, an example of the Nostalgia Press reprint because it was a bit cheaper and because I didn't want to let all of these slip through my fingers. It's beautiful.
Using some accumulated store credit, I was able to finally bring home the remaining five volumes. I wanted to wait and try to get a bit more credit accrued, but I became fearful the volumes would disappear before that ideal situation presented itself. Now my mission is to find the elusive second volume. These are very pretty books, all but one with slipcover and blessed with some of Foster's most attractive work throughout. Below is a look at the other covers in this charming series.
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