Foster, Harold Rudolf

Harold Rudolf Foster, byname Hal Foster, (born Aug. 16, 1892, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Can.—died July 25, 1982, Spring Hill, Fla., U.S.), Canadian-born cartoonist and creator of “Prince Valiant,” a comic strip notable for its fine drawing and authentic historical detail.

Before becoming an artist Foster had been an office worker, a boxer, and a gold prospector. In 1921 he moved to Chicago, where he studied art. As a commercial artist, he was asked to develop a comic strip based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan of the Apes (1918). Foster’s strip, first printed on Jan. 7, 1929, was one of the first adventure comic strips. It emphasized realism, composition, and drawing based on the techniques of commercial illustration. After an initial test sequence, the daily strip was drawn by Rex Maxon and the Sunday page by Foster, who drew it for some six years.

In 1936 Foster resigned from “Tarzan” and created his own strip, “Prince Valiant,” which first appeared on Feb. 13, 1937. The main character was a Viking prince taken as a child from his homeland to the medieval England of King Arthur. Beautifully drawn, the strip was an exciting re-creation of the period, rich with carefully researched details of armour, dwellings, and scenery. Foster continued to work on the Sunday comic strip until 1979, when he turned it over to his longtime associate, John Cullen Murphy.

A motion picture based on the adventures of Prince Valiant was released in 1954.