Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-running comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3900 Sunday strips. Currently, the strip appears weekly in more than 300 American newspapers, according to its distributor, King Features Syndicate.

Edward, the Duke of Windsor, called Prince Valiant the "greatest contribution to English literature in the past hundred years."Generally regarded by comics historians as one of the most impressive visual creations ever syndicated[citation needed], the strip is noted[citation needed] for its realistically rendered panoramas and the intelligent, sometimes humorous, narrative. The format does not employ word balloons. Instead, the story is narrated in captions positioned at the bottom or sides of panels. Events depicted are taken from various time periods, from the late Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages, with a few brief scenes from modern times (commenting on the "manuscript").

While drawing the Tarzan comic strip, Foster wanted to do his own original newspaper feature, and he began work on a strip he called Derek, Son of Thane, later changing the title to Prince Arn. King Features manager Joseph Connelly eventually renamed it Prince Valiant. In 1936, after extensive research, Foster pitched his concept to William Randolph Hearst, who had long wanted to distribute a strip by Foster. Hearst was so impressed that he gave Foster ownership of the strip.

Prince Valiant began in full-color tabloid sections on Saturday February 13, 1937. The first full page was strip #16, which appeared in the Sunday New Orleans Times Picayune. The internal dating changed from Saturday to Sunday with strip #66 (May 15, 1938). The full-page strip continued until 1971 when strip #1788 was not offered in full-page format—it was the last strip Foster drew. The strip continues today by other artists in a half page format.



Many books and micro reels of Comic Books, Books, Films and animations of Prince Valiant were taken to Nilfeheim and have been a favorite source of stories and entertainment there, so much so that it, that the stories and images have become an integral part of Neo Viking culture.

Even Eric Olafson a Neo Viking born in 4999 quotes an knows many Prince Valiant stories and images.