Hal Foster's Prince Valiant Sketchbooks: An Illustrated Memoir #1

A remarkable peek behind the curtain of one of comics' most celebrated strips, this first volume from Brian M. Kane gathers Hal Foster's working sketchbooks into a richly presented illustrated memoir. The cover itself is a feast of red-tinted preliminary drawings — armored figures, desert encampments, horsemen, and reclining figures accompanied by Foster's own handwritten notes like "evening," "arab saddle," and "moonlight, date palms" — alongside a clean pencil portrait of Prince Valiant himself displayed in a framed inset. For anyone drawn to the craft and process behind great sequential art, this 2025 Fantagraphics volume offers something genuinely rare: a window into how Foster thought, planned, and built his medieval world from the ground up.