Prince Valiant
''Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur'', often simply called ''Prince Valiant'', is an American comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretc ...
'', with text in captions but minus
word balloon
Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a char ...
s, it eventually switched to using word balloons. The last full page was #85. After that, the strip appeared in
half page
Comic strip formats vary widely from publication to publication, so that the same newspaper comic strip may appear in a half-dozen different formats with different numbers of panels, different sizes of panels and different arrangement of panels.
...
daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays.
Bud Fisher's ''Mutt and Jeff'' is commonly regarded as the first daily c ...
began January 14, 1957 and lasted at least until February 15, 1958. Tufts's '' Casey Ruggles'' was referenced when Ruggles made a brief appearance in the daily strip.
The final ''Lance'' strip was #261, published May 29, 1960.
Characters and story
''Lance'' starred U.S. cavalry officer Lance St. Lorne, stationed at
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth () is a United States Army installation located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in the city of Leavenworth. Built in 1827, it is the second oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C., and the oldest perma ...
, Kansas in the mid-19th century. In tales of settling the
Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
frontier, the character crossed paths with such figures as
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and ...
and others. Comics historian
Don Markstein
Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...
said the strip was "characterized by high-quality stories and art, but also by historical accuracy. Unlike, say, ''
Lucky Luke
''Lucky Luke'' is a Western '' bande dessinée'' series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborating with French writer René Goscinny. Their ...
'', when Lance met someone who had really lived, that person was as old as he'd actually have been at the time, and in circumstances congruent with the known course of the person's life."''Lance'' at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Archived from the original on March 8, 2015.
Recognition
Comics critic
Bill Blackbeard
William Elsworth Blackbeard (April 28, 1926 – March 10, 2011), better known as Bill Blackbeard, was a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art ...
rated ''Lance'' "the best of the page-high adventure strips undertaken after the 1930s".
The American Comics Archive reprinted ''Lance'' in its ''Big Fun'' comics magazine. ''Big Fun'' #5, devoted solely to ''Lance'', reprinted Sundays and dailies from June 5, 1955, through August 20, 1957. ''
Comics Revue
''Comics Revue'' is a bi-monthly small press comic book published by Manuscript Press and edited by Rick Norwood. Don Markstein edited the publication from 1984 to 1987 and 1992 to 1996.
As of 2020, it has published more than 350 issues, making ...
'' had ''Lance'' as a cover feature on several issues.
The series was completely reprinted with restoration by Manuel Caldas in Portugal (four volumes), Spain (four volumes), Germany (five volumes), and Norway (a four volume edition and a one volume editionGrand Comics Database: Norwegian Lance samleutgave /ref>) in their respective languages. A four-volume Serbian edition was published by Makondo in 2015.
A complete English language reprint of the strip was published in 2018–2019 by Classic Comics Press.