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Valiant, Prince. Prince Valiant was created by Hal Foster and appeared in the comic strip “Prince Valiant” (1937- present). Prince Valiant, while Foster worked on it, was one of the best adventure comic strips of all time.

Prince Valiant is a Norse knight whose father left Camelot to live in his ancestral homelands. Eager for adventure, Valiant leaves his father's homestead and goes to Camelot, and from there begins a series of adventures across the world, occasionally involving King Arthur’s knights but more often giants, Romans, Africans, Huns, and even dinosaurs. Valiant wields the magic Singing Sword.

* I'm including "Prince Valiant" in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because the comic strip is enormous good fun, drawn exceptionally well (especially under Hal Foster), and is endlessly charming. "Prince Valiant" is among the best comic strips of the Pulp Era in part because of Hal Foster's matchless art and in part because Hal Foster, with his wry good humor, firm grasp of the Arthurian mythos, and unerring nose always knew the best adventure to send Prince Valiant on. Foster drew like nobody else and did knights-on-adventure stories like nobody else, and the results were comic strips like nobody else was doing--or could do. "Prince Valiant," especially in first few decades of the Foster years (he retired from the strip in 1971), was a rollicking good time for readers, and endlessly charming because of Foster's skill at creating characters to empathize with and to root for, and against. Hal Foster was very influential, but it can't be said that there were Hal Foster imitators--no one was stupid to try. 

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