Prince Valiant

PRINCE vol. 23: 1981-1982

VALIANT by foster + murphy

PRINCE VALIANT AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY This gallery of original Prince Valiant art was compiled from the collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University, which includes among its many holdings art for 60 Prince Valiant strips originally published from 1976 to 1991 and donated to the university by John Cullen Murphy. The pages shown here were the roughs done by Hal Foster for Murphy to finish. The strips were scripted, plotted, and laid out

by Foster until he retired at the age of 87 at the end of 1979. One has only to gaze at the art in the following gallery to see that Foster remained a strong artistic presence in the strip until he passed the torch to Murphy.

left: Hal Foster art for the

Aug. 5, 1979 strip. Although the art is labeled as intended for the Aug. 12 strip (page 2218), only a small silhouette version of this scene appears in that week’s strip.

The Aug. 5 strip (page 2217) consists entirely of this large panel as finished by Murphy and two small panels above it, in which Murphy depicts Sir Gawain and Lord Vanoc’s efforts to strengthen a dam that threatens to be breached. See Volume 22.