Hal Foster

Harold Rudolph Foster, the later creator of Prince Valiant, was born 1892 in Halifax/New Scotland (Canada). With 14 years he left the school, in order to contribute to living costs of the family, which was got into many problemes after the early death of his father 1896. Before he received 1910 his first illustration job the autodidact had already worked as an office boy, boxer and hunter. After 10 varied years as an illustrator commercial artist Foster drove 1921 by bicycle to Chicago (which was a distance of 1500 kilometers). In the first years in the USA Foster worked particularly for advertising agencies. Through his job he became acquainted with Joseph H. Nebbe, who had acquired the rights for a Tarzan-strip from Edgar Rice Burrough. Nebbe won Foster as a draughtsman for his project and so on 7 January 1929 the first Tarzan-Daily came out in 13 American newspapers. Foster did not like his new job particularly. He understood himself as member of a rich in tradition craft and regarded the funnypages of the newspapers first as inferior. Thus he fulfilled his contract to transfer Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes in 60 Strips and turned afterwards again to the advertisement business. Since this business was declining because of the economic crisis, he returned again to the comics and took over in 1931 the Tarzan-Sundays page. Dissatisfied with drawing a series, which was not created by him, Foster began in 1935 to negotiate with the King feature Syndicate about the publication of his own series. This series was Prince Valiant. The first episode was printed on 13 February 1937. Foster was 45 years old at this time. Prince Valiant became one of the most successful comic series of all times. Foster drew Prince Valiant up to its retreat from the comic business in the seventies. As his detailed drawing style needed much time (he usually worked about 50 hours at a page) Foster had hardly opportunity to draw other comics beside Prince Valiant. The only exceptions was in 1943 a short strip about the song of Bernadette and an additional strip for the Prince Valiant page in 1944/45 about the adventures of two knight boys. Fosters assistant for many years John Cullen Murphy took over step by step the strip his master, who completely said good-bye in 1979 to Prince Valiant. Foster died 1982 in Spring Hill/Florida.

Thomas Zimmermann, zimmerth@fmi.uni-passau.de
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Last Modified: Tuesday, 14-Jul-1998 09:11:58 MET DST