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Miscellaneous Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators, Father of the Adventure Strip by Brian M. Kane $19.95 / Vanguard Prod. / 2001 For those who remember when Prince Valiant was a regular feature of the Sunday comics, this long-overdue retrospective on the life and work of Harold R. Foster is a delight. Part biography, part art book, author Brian M. Kane's personal access to Foster's family and friends-along with rare photos, drawings, and paintings-details Foster's 70-year career as an illustrator whose influence on 20th-century storytelling was unmistakable. Possessed of a natural penchant for detail, Foster spent his formative years as an illustrator for ad agencies, a career that eventually led him to Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose novel Tarzan was about to be adapted as a comic strip. Foster illustrated this classic, helping to catapult it into instant popularity and prompting newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst to offer the 36-year-old artistic control over any project he chose to pursue. After two years of meticulous historical research, Prince Valiant (or Derek, Son of Thane, as Foster originally named his hero), made its debut in 1937, a comic that would continue to run for an unprecedented 43 years. Foster's acute visual perfection and fluidity of style transformed comics from simple line drawings into lush vistas with sophisticated storylines and complex characters. In fact, his work was so highly regarded that entire panels and scenes were blatantly copied by other prominent illustrators, such as Charles M. Schulz, Frank Frazetta, Jack Kirby, and Joe Shuster. Edward, Duke of Windsor, called Foster's Prince Valiant "the greatest contribution to English literature in the past hundred years," a fitting compliment for a man whose life was every bit the adventure as his noble knight. Likewise, this book is a fitting tribute to this notable illustrator. —Charles Matza

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