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Hal Foster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harold ("Hal") Rudolf Foster (August 18, 1892 in Halifax, Nova Scotia – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American cartoonist most famous as the creator of the comic strip Prince Valiant. He worked as a staff artist for the Hudson Bay Company and moved to Chicago in 1919, where he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He subsequently worked as an illustrator before getting involved with Tarzan, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's novels. His impact on the comic was huge and is of great importance in the history of the field for his painstakingly realistic and exact drawings. After a while, he grew tired of adaptation and wished for something he had truly created himself. William Randolph Hearst long wanted Foster to do a comic for his papers. Hearst was so impressed with Foster's pitch for Prince Valiant that he promised Foster the ownership of the strip if he would start the series, a very rare offer in those days.
Hal Foster was recognized for his work with the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award in 1957, their Story Comic Strip Award in 1964, their Special Features Award in 1966 and 1967, all for Prince Valiant; and won their Elzie Segar Award in 1978 and their Gold Key Award (their Hall of Fame) in 1977. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1996, and in 2005 he was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creators Hall of Fame for his contributions to comic books. The latter award was accepted on behalf of the family by an emotional Dave Sim, a modern comic writer and longtime fan of Foster's work.
- Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators by Brian M. Kane, Vanguard Productions, 2001, ISBN 1-887591-25-7. IPPY Award-winning biography of Hal Foster.