Prince Valiant by Hal Foster: Too Good For the Sunday Comics?

January 5, 2026

This illustration was originally published in a Sunday newspaper.

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Back in the 1970s when I discovered a book that collected Prince Valiant comic strips by Hal Foster, I couldn’t believe that the artwork inside had originally appeared in the Sunday newspapers of the 1930s and 1940s. I thought it was too good for the newspapers. I thought it was good enough to be in… comic books!

Hal Foster loosely based much of the Prince Valiant stories on history (with lots of anachronisms,).

Here’s what I didn’t understand at the time. Comic books as I knew them didn’t really exist in the 1930s when Prince Valiant first made its appearance in the Sunday comics section of the newspaper. The early comic books of the 1930s were just reprints of the newspaper comic strips. And then the first comic books that had original material in the late 1930s and early 1940s were thought of as garbage (or maybe one step above garbage… you’d read the comic book and then throw it in the garbage).

The comic book artists of the 1940s were thought of as hacks. A lot of comic book artists wanted to move up to newspaper comic strips, but I think most of the artists actually were hacks. Even comic book historians look down on most comic book artists of the early days. I have proof of that if you want to argue with me about that (but I don’t think anybody cares anymore).

Prince Valiant had everything, including lots of sword-swinging adventure.

Anyway, the point is that Prince Valiant was perfect for the Sunday newspaper in the late 1930s and beyond. Back when newspapers were relevant, the Sunday newspaper was a big deal, the most important newspaper of the week. I still miss the Sunday newspaper. I had it backwards as a kid; Prince Valiant was too good for comic books, and the newspaper was the only media that could handle it.

***Prince Valiant*** had references to legends and mythology. Here, Prince Valiant gets knighted by King Arthur!

Good sword & sorcery is my favorite sub-genre of fiction, but there are so few good examples of it that I rarely recommend anything other than some of the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. Prince Valiant is the closest thing you can get to good sword & sorcery in the Sunday strips. It was set in the days of King Arthur, so there was a blend of ‘fake’ history with legends and romance and battles and political drama and magic/sorcery. Hal Foster kept a good pace with his stories. Very rarely did any storyline seem rushed. He knew how to use exposition at the bottom of the panels so that dialogue and word balloons/thought bubbles didn’t interfere with his illustrations (with an occasional exception).

Early episodes threw in supernatural elements like witchcraft, sorcery, and monsters.

Hal Foster isn’t the only noteworthy action strip creator of that era. Alex Raymond was awesome illustrating Flash Gordon, but the writing in the title was a little juvenile, even for comic strips. Milton Cainiff did some great work with Terry and the Pirates and then followed that up with Steve Canyon. Dick Tracy by Chester Gould was downright crazy sometimes, even by modern standards of comic storytelling. But as far as illustrations/artwork and stories go, Prince Valiant stood above everything. It was that good.

***Prince Valiant*** had a little bit of romance, but not enough to distract readers from the adventures.

Prince Valiant is undervalued today. The old books are easy to find and inexpensive. I’m shocked sometimes by how little this is appreciated. I mean, I shouldn’t complain that the books are cheap now (I’m a cheapskate), but I believe modern readers just aren’t aware of this hero.

Maybe it’s the haircut. Prince Valiant looks kind of feminine for an action hero. If he had a better haircut and some stubble, maybe he’d be more appealing to today’s audience. I don’t know what kind of haircut to suggest. I’m bald. Even when I had hair, it was tough for me to get it right. Hal Foster should have gotten that right. Every other male character had cool hair. Or at least normal hair.

***Prince Valiant*** even had the occasional observational relationship humor.

Even without the bad haircut, it might be tough for Prince Valiant to make a comeback. The Sunday comic strip format has disappeared. Plus, Hal Fosters’ artwork was what made the strip. John Cullen Murphy did a good job after Hal Foster retired, and I know that there’s a new artist now, but nobody can replace Hal Foster. Maybe Barry Smith could have done it. He did a good job with Conan the Barbarian for Marvel Comics (he just couldn’t keep up with deadlines, and deadlines are important for Sunday strips). The character Conan of Cimmeria is making a comeback with today’s readers, though. Maybe Prince Valiant can too.