Foster's Gospel

The Gospel According to St. Luke
illustrated by Hal Foster,
Lethbridge Herald,
December 24, 1954

Hal Foster versus the Combines

This rare Hal Foster political commentary appeared in the Wiinipeg, Manitoba Grain Grower's Guide on November 26, 1913. The GGG's main cartoonist Arch Dale had been in England for a few years and Foster was just one of the many cartoonists who replaced him.

Hal Foster in Winnipeg 1910

A short story titled Saved by Grace, by W. G. Shepherd, was published in the February 1910 issue of Western Home Monthly, a Winnipeg, Manitoba fiction magazine with illustrations signed "Taylor." In 1910 Hal Foster, future Tarzan cartoonist, was working on the Eaton's catalogs for Brigdens of Winnipeg Limited.

Taylor's artistic style is so similar to Foster's work, and his signature in the spidery Foster style, that I'm inclined to think that either Taylor was Foster, moonlighting under an assumed name, or he was Foster's artistic mentor. Although there is no proof that Foster worked for the Western Home Monthly a photograph exists showing Foster and two unknown commercial artists posed with a large cover painting and paste-up for the Western Home Monthly circa 1912. The photo is reproduced in Brian M. Kane's 2001 book Hal Foster Prince of Illustrators.

On the bottom of the page I have uploaded a sample of Foster's Eaton's work from roughly the same period, February 27, 1911, which shows his Prince Valiant style of drawing woman was already in evidence at this early period of his career.

W. G. Shepherd was probably William Gunn Shepherd (1878-1933) author of Confessions of a War Correspondent, Harper & brothers (1917). Shephard was a reporter on the New York World.

Hal Foster (1892-1980)

Prince Valiant in the New World by Harold Foster and Max Trell, NY: Hastings House, Prince Valiant Book No. 6, 1956.

This book was Hal Foster’s only Canadian work although he produced plenty of paintings of Mounties for Northwest Paper calendars in the thirties. The book has an end piece map which shows the route Prince Valiant took to the new world.

Val, following his kidnapped wife Aleta, started out in Thule (Northwest of Scandia), stopped for a battle in the Canary Islands, made a stop in Southern Iceland, and went southwest at Greenland to arrive in present day Newfoundland. Next our hero went north, made a sharp u-turn heading below Anticostia Island to a smooth sail up the St. Lawrence river against the current still on the trail of the villainous Ulfrun and the captive Aleta. The chase carries on through the Thousand Islands and out onto Lake Ontario where he catches up with his quarry and sends Ulfrun to his death. The Prince of Thule and his family carry on to Niagara Falls, turn back taking a half-circle round southern Newfoundland, straight on to Ireland then home to King Arthur’s kingdom in Britannia. Judging by the map King Arthur resided in London.

During the newspaper syndication of Prince Valiant in the New World, August 31, 1947, a son was born to Val and Aleta in the woods of Ontario. Young Prince Arn, a sturdy Canadian lad, looked a little like Sir Winston Churchill.