PRINCE VALIANT - Fantagraphics

PRINCE
VALIANT
vol. 10: 1955-1956 – by hal foster
published by fantagraphics books, inc., seattle.
SCHOOLED BY FOSTER
Introduction by Timothy Truman
W
hen I was a little kid in the early 1960s, Sunday afternoons at
our home in Parkersburg, West Virginia, were pretty special.
Dad was a Baptist minister, so early mornings were always hectic.
After wolfing down some breakfast, our little house became all rush
and frenzy as Mom, Dad, and my two oldest sisters primped and
preened and selected their best clothes for the morning service,
while in the middle of it all making sure my baby sister and I were
dressed and my crew cut was all butch-waxed and combed. Then
it was off to church, where Mom hoped that the family could set
a good example for the congregation by arriving before the first
hymn was done.
Once there, sitting through a two- or threehour service was a grueling task for me. I was a
notoriously fidgety kid, afflicted with a nearterminal case of what we now call ADHD. To
keep me settled, Mom always brought along a
pencil and some ruled, loose-leaf paper from
our school supplies. While Dad delivered his
sermon, I’d occupy myself by drawing pictures
of my favorite Bible heroes, Samson and the
prophet Elijah, occasionally sneaking in a doodle of a cowboy or race car when Mom wasn’t
looking.
When we finally returned home, it was time
to relax. While Mom took care of the baby and
prepared our Sunday dinner, Dad would kick
back in an easy chair to read the Sunday paper.
He’d always pull out the color “funny pages”
and hand them to me. Lying on my stomach on
the living room floor, I’d eagerly spread out the
Sunday comics, reading every word and studying
every drawing, the smells of fried chicken and
fresh-baked rolls wafting through the air from
the kitchen.
Even at that early age, I preferred adventure
strips to the humor stuff. I had my favorites, of
course—John Celardo’s Tarzan of the Apes, Mandrake
the Magician by Lee Falk and Phil Davis, and Milt
Caniff’s Steve Canyon. However, there were three
strips that I looked for first: Chester Gould’s
Dick Tracy; The Phantom, as depicted by Sy Barry;
and—of course—Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. I’d read
them once, then when I was finished with all the
other strips, would go back and read them once
again—savoring them more carefully this time,
trying to figure out how the heck the artists had
managed to draw all that stuff so well. I have to
admit that, at that point in my life, the artwork
of Tracy and The Phantom excited my young eyes
the most. Gould’s characters were so bizarre,
his drawing so wickedly stylized and intriguing.
Plus, jeez, there were the two-way wrist radios
and Diet Smith’s flying gadgets! And not only
did The Phantom star a masked, costumed hero,
Sy Barry’s panel compositions and beautifully
drawn and rendered figures were imbued with
the type of dynamism and energy one found in
comic books.
However, even a scrawny, hyperactive, butchwaxed seven- or eight-year-old like me could
tell that Foster’s Prince Valiant Sunday pages were
in a class all their own—something triumphant,
glorious, and very, very special. Foster’s art was
more refined, the drawings so realistic, carefully
wrought, and sumptuous. Sufficiently inspired,
I’d grab for the pencils and loose-leaf paper
again and start to draw until Mom called for us
to come to dinner. At that stage of my artistic
development the figures I drew were little more
than balloon heads on stick bodies, and I knew
that I’d never, ever possess the drawing abilities
of Hal Foster. But his work and that of the other
artists in the Sunday comics pages provided me
with the urge to try.
And try I did. As the years progressed, my
fascination for newspaper comic artists waned
when I discovered my cousins’ comic book collections. Kubert, Kirby, Glanzman, Steranko,
Wrightson, Kaluta, Gulacy, Golden, then on to
underground artists like Spain, Griffin, Jaxon,
and Irons—in the late ’60s through the ’70s,
these guys became my new inspirations. It wasn’t
until I entered the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, in
1979 that I rediscovered the work of Hal Foster
and gained a true appreciation for his work.
There really was no way around it, you see—
not that I tried. When I attended the school,
classes were still held in its original location in
the old Baker Mansion, high on a wooded hill
on the edge of town. Every morning, we sleepy
students would trudge up the front porch stairs
and through the big double doors that led into
the mansion’s main hallway. Immediately after
entering the school we’d pass by a magnificent
example of Foster’s art that hung on the wall by
the teachers’ lounge door: a perfect black-andwhite photostat of the Prince Valiant Sunday page
from December 9, 1962. Seeing it was absolutely
unavoidable. The page always looked huge to me.
I’m told it measured 18" x 24", but compared to
the then-standard-sized 10" x 15" comic book
pages we were doing in class it appeared much
larger. As I recall, it was the sole piece of framed
art in the hall. It almost seemed as if Kubert had
hung it there as some sort of monument: a proverbial sword in the stone, reminding us every
day that that this—this!—should be the ideal that
we, as devoted squires of pen, brush, and India
ink, should ever strive toward. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that, for the three years I
attended the school, a day would seldom pass
that I didn’t stop at some point to look at that
page. And almost every time, like the mirrored
surface of the Lake of Avalon, it would attempt
to reveal some little secret to me.
Look at those shadows on the boat, cast by
the campfire. See how they frame Arn’s figure:
they establish the mood and the overall sense of
a young boy, all alone and overwhelmed by the
dark night and the omnipresent, too-silent forest. See Valiant against the black line of trees,
lost in his thoughts, so concerned about the welfare of his son. Look at the way Foster sculpts the
faces, the subtle characterizations he establishes,
the way he allows you to read their thoughts.
Look at how the folds work against each other;
you can read the weight of the fabric. Look at
the way Foster uses line work, alternating from
thick to thin, adding weight and mass with unbelievable deftness and simplicity. Indeed, one of
the most amazing revelations gleaned from that
piece of art was just how much realism Foster
attained with so few lines. Yet, while lessons can
be revealed, it’s another thing for them to be
emulated. For a guy like me who has ever been
guilty of overworking a page and throwing just
too much darn stuff in there—and poorly drawn
stuff at that!—the 1962 Hal Foster original provided a lot to ponder. Still, I tried and continue
to do so. It’s one of the things that makes facing an unfinished page of artwork that’s lying on
your desk so worthwhile.
In any treatise about Hal Foster’s work and
career, we always read about how much his artwork inspired and influenced other artists
in the comic-strip and comic-book fields. It
wasn’t until I attended the Kubert School that
I discovered just how true that is. His impact
on Kubert and the other instructors was allpervasive. You could be absolutely certain there
were four artists at least one of the teachers
was going to mention during the course of
the day: Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff, Roy
Crane, and Hal Foster. Without a doubt, it
was Foster’s name that came up most of all.
Every instructor absolutely idolized him,
and the most minute details of his work were
constantly used as examples. Dick Giordano
would show us how the master would sometimes add weight to figures and root them to
the ground by breaking up the linework and
eliminating the shadows where characters’
feet touched the ground. Tex Blaisdell pointed out to us that, while some artists would
never touch the lines of a background image
to a foreground figure, Foster would, and by
doing so would actually give the overall image
a clearer impression of depth and space.
Oh, yeah—and also that, in his opinion, the
women Foster drew were much better-looking than Alex Raymond’s. Bob Oksnar, who
had an incredible and scholarly knowledge
of composition, showed us slides of choice
Foster panels, using them to illustrate how
compositions can be built by situating figures
and objects in a drawing, and planning the
lighting and shadows in the form of geometric shapes. Among the Foster-derived wisdom
that Hy Eisman imparted to us during one of
his inking classes was a simple and eminently
valuable fact: “Line equals shadow”—i.e., that
when we were inking outlines around figures
and objects we weren’t simply drawing lines.
We were telling the reader about the lighting. During one assignment, Joe Kubert
used Foster’s work as an example of how to
establish lighting continuity and how he used
shadows as both a compositional device and
a way to lead a reader’s eye to the next panel,
or wherever else he wanted it to go. Nor were
all the lessons purely technical. John Belfi
once pointed out to Tom Yeates, John Totleben, and me just how much violence Foster
could sneak into one of his otherwise familyfriendly Sunday pages. Don’t believe it? Look
again at some of his most famous action panoramas and fight scenes, and keep a careful
eye out for the barely concealed beheadings
and chopped-off, bloody hands that fly
through the air! And Tom Yeates has already
told you—in an introduction to one of the
earlier volumes in this series—about the time
that Joe Kubert gleefully pointed out a few
choice panels from his Tarzan comic-book
run that he’d unashamedly cribbed from the
Tarzan work done by his favorite artist, Hal
Foster!
Once, as kids, all these cartoonists and
their fellow instructors had probably lain on
their bellies on the living room floor, gazing
at the newest, eagerly awaited editions of the
Sunday funnies, studying in wonderment the
work of the master, Hal Foster.
Much like that preacher’s kid in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
–Timothy Truman, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, June 2014
www.timothytruman.com