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Prince Valiant (Hardcover) #6
Prince Valiant, Vol. 6: 1947-1948
Hal Foster 's masterpiece of adventure enters its second decade as Valiant and Aleta journey to The New World, a 16-month epic that allows Foster to draw some of his spectacular native Canadian backgrounds, and during which Aleta gives birth to Arn and acquires her Indian nurse, Tillicum. Most of the rest of the book is taken up with the action-packed five-month sequence The Mad King, during which Val, back at Camelot, confronts the evil, fat little King Tourien of Cornwall. This volume will be rounded off with an essay by Foster scholar Brian M. Kane (The Prince Valiant Companion) discussing Foster 's depiction of Indians as it relates to other interpretations of the times, accompanied by various graphic goodies such as a previously unpublished camping cartoon by Foster from circa 1915, some of Foster 's Mountie paintings, Foster 's own map of Val 's voyage to/from the New World, and more rare photos and art.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2007
About the author
Hal Foster
194 books53 followersHarold Foster, also credited as Hal Foster, was a comic book artist best know for Prince Valiant.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 31, 2022
He went to Canada, so that was a bit exciting (I'm Canadian). It's disconcerting having the narrator give current modern names for some places and not others, but oh well (e.g. Canada isn't named, Ontario isn't named, but Newfoundland and Iceland are). The heroine's hair changes colour with some regularity (though always in the yellow to orange range). And some jokes (or at least some writing which was obviously intended to charm or amuse) wear thin the third time the author makes them.
But, what lovely art, what a sweeping canvas—Foster will essentially send his characters anywhere, and I can't wait until (I assume) they discover the Silk Road, or sail to Japan. Sadly Volume 8 is a no-show ... I can buy 7, I can buy 9, but no 8 to be had for love or money. I've written to Fantagraphics to see if they have any intention of reissuing the next boxed set, and if not, yikes. I'm a completist ... it'll make my blood boil to end up with volumes 1 through 40-something and not have 8! [And they wrote back (that was fast) and said wait about 6 months. Joy!]
One reader mentioned that Valiant is a bit of a Mary Sue, and I get that. I liked that in this story he obtains his goal through lying and deception, and the author sort of mocks the villains who are so untrusting that they will probably not believes Val's lies. I mean, really! But Val suffers a crisis of conscience about attaining his ends through this deception, rather than valour, and it was a nice touch I hadn't noticed before for the character.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
But, what lovely art, what a sweeping canvas—Foster will essentially send his characters anywhere, and I can't wait until (I assume) they discover the Silk Road, or sail to Japan. Sadly Volume 8 is a no-show ... I can buy 7, I can buy 9, but no 8 to be had for love or money. I've written to Fantagraphics to see if they have any intention of reissuing the next boxed set, and if not, yikes. I'm a completist ... it'll make my blood boil to end up with volumes 1 through 40-something and not have 8! [And they wrote back (that was fast) and said wait about 6 months. Joy!]
One reader mentioned that Valiant is a bit of a Mary Sue, and I get that. I liked that in this story he obtains his goal through lying and deception, and the author sort of mocks the villains who are so untrusting that they will probably not believes Val's lies. I mean, really! But Val suffers a crisis of conscience about attaining his ends through this deception, rather than valour, and it was a nice touch I hadn't noticed before for the character.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
March 24, 2014
Another awesome edition of Hal Foster's masterwork. This one has a slightly different focus as Val and his Viking crew chase a kidnapped Aleta to the New World. One she's recovered, the story shifts to surviving through winter and interacting with the new continent's native inhabitants.
Foster does a good job portraying his Native Americans not as inferiors, as might have been the tendency of the day, but simply a different culture, well adapted to their home. Sure, Aleta is viewed as a goddess, and Val's chain mail frightens a whole village into submission, but all in all it could have been much worse.
The art is amazing. Foster does an equally good job capturing the worry on Val's face and the intricacies of tribal finery. When the crew eventually returns to Camelot, a new subplot emerges, requiring Val to go undercover for a bit of dangerous trickery. It's another fine offering, combining exquisite art with action, a strong grasp of human foibles and even some nice humor as baby Arn enters the mix.
Foster does a good job portraying his Native Americans not as inferiors, as might have been the tendency of the day, but simply a different culture, well adapted to their home. Sure, Aleta is viewed as a goddess, and Val's chain mail frightens a whole village into submission, but all in all it could have been much worse.
The art is amazing. Foster does an equally good job capturing the worry on Val's face and the intricacies of tribal finery. When the crew eventually returns to Camelot, a new subplot emerges, requiring Val to go undercover for a bit of dangerous trickery. It's another fine offering, combining exquisite art with action, a strong grasp of human foibles and even some nice humor as baby Arn enters the mix.
November 19, 2014
The sixth volume of this incredibly beautiful comic by Hal Foster has Val and Aleta traveling to and from the New World (to what is now Canada - Foster's home country) where their child Prince Arn is born. Brilliant as ever!
May 13, 2013
Another beautiful edition. I read this story as a young teen in a slightly different format. A partically novelized version in black and white was published that I read so the story was not new to me. But seeing it in color and more illustration was new.
April 1, 2013
Another beautiful job by Fantagraphics. This one finds Val on a quest to Canada to save his beloved wife. It reads much better than it sounds, Hal foster doing a fantastic job both in the art and the writing.
Six volumes in and these still can't come out fast enough.
Six volumes in and these still can't come out fast enough.
January 12, 2015
It's freakin' Prince Valiant. Of course it's good. Read it. The interview with the anthropologist at the start discussing how respectful and accurate Foster's work is, especially for it's time, is enlightening as well.
March 28, 2016
Prince Valiant journeys with Aleta to America for the birth of their son before returning to Camelot to check on a mad king. The focus and tone shift a little from previous volumes but the quality of the story remains high.
April 27, 2014
Foster: simply the best, and at the height of his legendary talents. His imagined worlds are a wonderful place to explore and experience...
May 20, 2015
Absurdly good.
January 16, 2016
Another beautifully reproduced book of Hal Foster's classic strip. There's even a foldout double sized page here. I have loved following Prince Valiant's adventures again and the art is so fantatsic
August 27, 2020
More classic stuff that shows this comic as the peak of the medium. Here we get a trip to Canada and birth of prince Arm amidst the battles and fantastic art.
January 6, 2020
In my review for the previous volume of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant I lamented the fact that during the war years, Hal Foster was hamstrung by government mandated paper rationing as part of the war effort (as explained in
Vol. 4
this was because paper was needed for firing munitions) into becoming the storyteller I felt he had the potential to be. With only two thirds of a page to work with on Prince Valiant (he and the syndicate justified the use of the whole page with another strip, The Medieval Castle), Foster was unable to "spread out" when producing the strip. However, by the time the strips in this volume were produced, war time rationing had ended, as had The Medieval Castle and Foster was free to produce the strip as he pleased.
After having read six of these Prince Valiant volumes, one can only reiterate Foster's absolute strength here and that is in the art. By being a Sunday only strip, Foster was able to focus on one strip per work week, which allowed him to focus on creating a beautiful strip. But also when you have read almost twelve years of Prince Valiant you are going to realize that there are issues with the lead character that may have hamstrung Foster without him even realizing it. One of my peers in the Mac's Backs Sci-Fi reading group actually put a name to it when we read Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind --the main character of Kothve from that tome is what she calls a "Mary Sue." The "Mary Sue" in her estimation can never do wrong. In our discussion of this element of Wind, I mentioned that Kothve is somewhat like Wesley Crusher in the early Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where the precocious teen could apparently do no wrong--which was annoying as hell. In the end, it made it easy to identify which Wesley episodes were the good ones. Episode where Wesley saves the Enterprise because of his pluck? Lame. One where he fucks up and gets a kid killed and then tries to cover it up? Great. Kothve is the same way (and to be fair, the discussion we had in book club soured me on this book a good deal and lead to us using the term "Rothfuss" as an insult in the club.) Prince Valiant is one of those Mary Sue type characters, as he always seems to do no wrong and manages to get out of bind after bind by being more perfect than everyone else. Perhaps that is a reflection of the times in which Prince Valiant was produced and the disposition of his creator--after all, Foster called him Valiant which has obvious implications for the content of the strip about to be read. Perhaps we are more cynical these days, reading these strips over seventy years after the fact, but realism isn't a bad thing.
Of course there is some really ground-breaking stuff in this volume, what with a major portion of the book taking place in North America and Valiant interacting with the indigenous peoples of North America before the Europeans would appear a thousand years later. While Foster's treatment of the natives isn't perfect he does seem to take a softer approach to them than would have been expected in 1947. Perhaps this is because he was a Canadian. Who knows? But there is an essay at the beginning of the volume from Foster biographer Brian Kane, who consults and interviews a professor of native studies to discuss Foster's treatment of the natives in this volume. Of course, being in North America also allows Foster to utilize North American scenery, as Niagara Falls shows up multiple times. For those who don't care about Valiant being a "Mary Sue", Foster provides the sort of artistic eye candy here that we've come to expect since day one.
Ultimately, it's the eye candy nature of Prince Valiant that ultimately limited Foster's storytelling. I think Foster considered himself an artist first and a storyteller second, unlike someone like Will Eisner, who always put storytelling first. Since Valiant is always going to win (and that's apparent by now) just seeing the strip is the most important thing for Foster. I don't think in this context, Wesley Crusher is ever going to fuck up.
After having read six of these Prince Valiant volumes, one can only reiterate Foster's absolute strength here and that is in the art. By being a Sunday only strip, Foster was able to focus on one strip per work week, which allowed him to focus on creating a beautiful strip. But also when you have read almost twelve years of Prince Valiant you are going to realize that there are issues with the lead character that may have hamstrung Foster without him even realizing it. One of my peers in the Mac's Backs Sci-Fi reading group actually put a name to it when we read Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind --the main character of Kothve from that tome is what she calls a "Mary Sue." The "Mary Sue" in her estimation can never do wrong. In our discussion of this element of Wind, I mentioned that Kothve is somewhat like Wesley Crusher in the early Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where the precocious teen could apparently do no wrong--which was annoying as hell. In the end, it made it easy to identify which Wesley episodes were the good ones. Episode where Wesley saves the Enterprise because of his pluck? Lame. One where he fucks up and gets a kid killed and then tries to cover it up? Great. Kothve is the same way (and to be fair, the discussion we had in book club soured me on this book a good deal and lead to us using the term "Rothfuss" as an insult in the club.) Prince Valiant is one of those Mary Sue type characters, as he always seems to do no wrong and manages to get out of bind after bind by being more perfect than everyone else. Perhaps that is a reflection of the times in which Prince Valiant was produced and the disposition of his creator--after all, Foster called him Valiant which has obvious implications for the content of the strip about to be read. Perhaps we are more cynical these days, reading these strips over seventy years after the fact, but realism isn't a bad thing.
Of course there is some really ground-breaking stuff in this volume, what with a major portion of the book taking place in North America and Valiant interacting with the indigenous peoples of North America before the Europeans would appear a thousand years later. While Foster's treatment of the natives isn't perfect he does seem to take a softer approach to them than would have been expected in 1947. Perhaps this is because he was a Canadian. Who knows? But there is an essay at the beginning of the volume from Foster biographer Brian Kane, who consults and interviews a professor of native studies to discuss Foster's treatment of the natives in this volume. Of course, being in North America also allows Foster to utilize North American scenery, as Niagara Falls shows up multiple times. For those who don't care about Valiant being a "Mary Sue", Foster provides the sort of artistic eye candy here that we've come to expect since day one.
Ultimately, it's the eye candy nature of Prince Valiant that ultimately limited Foster's storytelling. I think Foster considered himself an artist first and a storyteller second, unlike someone like Will Eisner, who always put storytelling first. Since Valiant is always going to win (and that's apparent by now) just seeing the strip is the most important thing for Foster. I don't think in this context, Wesley Crusher is ever going to fuck up.
May 16, 2026
It's fascinating to read such an old comic! Amusing to see the beauty standards and hairstyles of the 1940s put onto characters like Aleta, haha.
And fascinating/wearying to read the signs of that time into the direction of the story and attitudes of the characters - Aleta referred to and treated as a little girl, and both she all other female characters having no inner life or interests outside of taking care of or pining for the men around them (including the baby). Other examples include hiding Aleta's pregnancy with a convenient loose poncho (censorship standards of the time?), and the attitudes towards slavery and the native people of Canada - though, I am impressed with the empathy with which the native Americans are drawn. The character of Tillicum fascinates me a lot.
Though the age of the work has those historical artifacts, what kept me reading was the absolutely GORGEOUS artwork. The mastery on display, and the great deal of research that I suspect was done to depict the locations and costumes with such love and care, makes this still an absolutely worthwhile read. Especially if you are an illustrator yourself, and especially for comics!! Read it and weep, literally. This kind of artistic mastery is increasingly rare.
Relatedly for lovers of the artwork: the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio has some of Hal Foster's original artwork, both on display in their permanent collection and in their archive. The staff is SUPER nice and, if requested in advance, any fan or researcher can request to have original artwork from their collection brought out to the library Reading Room to see.
And fascinating/wearying to read the signs of that time into the direction of the story and attitudes of the characters - Aleta referred to and treated as a little girl, and both she all other female characters having no inner life or interests outside of taking care of or pining for the men around them (including the baby). Other examples include hiding Aleta's pregnancy with a convenient loose poncho (censorship standards of the time?), and the attitudes towards slavery and the native people of Canada - though, I am impressed with the empathy with which the native Americans are drawn. The character of Tillicum fascinates me a lot.
Though the age of the work has those historical artifacts, what kept me reading was the absolutely GORGEOUS artwork. The mastery on display, and the great deal of research that I suspect was done to depict the locations and costumes with such love and care, makes this still an absolutely worthwhile read. Especially if you are an illustrator yourself, and especially for comics!! Read it and weep, literally. This kind of artistic mastery is increasingly rare.
Relatedly for lovers of the artwork: the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio has some of Hal Foster's original artwork, both on display in their permanent collection and in their archive. The staff is SUPER nice and, if requested in advance, any fan or researcher can request to have original artwork from their collection brought out to the library Reading Room to see.
December 11, 2021
Well, I must say, I am almost surprised at how much I am enjoying this series. Prince Valiant was there in the Sunday comics sections when I was young, but I don’t recall that I paid much attention to it. Probably the art was too realistic for my tastes, the stories too serious, and too hard to follow, appearing only once a week. But now, at the age of 58, I’ve rediscovered it, and it seems to me one of the greatest, most epic adventures I’ve ever read. And the art is sometimes so gorgeous (!) I find myself wanting to cut out panels and frame them. Good stories, too: bloody, violent adventures that surprise me with their brutality . . . and I might be just a little bit in love with Aleta.
On to volume 7….
On to volume 7….
August 7, 2017
Este livro não é editado pela "Bonecos Rebeldes" mas sim pela editora "Livros de Papel". A qualidade da restauração de Manuel Caldas não tem comparação, incrível!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews