Artist: Hal Foster Medium: Pencil on Paper Size: 8" x 11" (214mm x 278mm) Date: 1971 This is the unique original Pencil drawing by Hal Foster. This is the original preliminary drawing by Hal Foster created for Prince Valiant Sunday page #1779 published on 14th March 1971. In this heavily annotated page (by Foster's hand), Val rides out from Merlin's cave to seek out a ship fast enough to overtake his wife Aleta who is at sea with the twins and Galan. Sailing on the ship of Gundar Hal his wife and three of his children are making their way to the Misty Isles where Aleta is Queen. Unfortunately, Val can find no such ship to charter as the hook-handed Gundar Hal's skill at sea is unparalleled. Riding on, Val is reunited with his eldest son Arn, who is still stationed in Camelot. This page features Val, his beautiful wife Aleta (The Queen of the Misty Isles), and all four of his children. The drawn page is highly annotated and gives away certain tricks Foster would use to build tension and explain the scenario to his assistants; the note under the penultimate panel for example reads "Shadows continue thru!"- indeed, we can see from the photograph of the published page, that Cullen Murphy has followed this instruction precisely. This very detailed drawing was drawn by Foster to guide John Cullen Murphy who would be inking the finished page. This is only the 6th page Cullen Murphy had inked for the series, so Foster was being incredibly precise with his visual instructions, including a series of diamond shaped layout grid to help with balance and perspective. When we compare Fosters' original pencil drawing to Cullen Murphy's published final, it gives us an intimate insight into the working practices and visual communication between the artists - simply look at the additional photos. This page appears only 9 pages before Hal Foster's final ever page. Foster, whose work on Prince Valiant is legendary, hand picked John Cullen Murphy to be his successor on the strip, but also tried out Wally Wood and Gray Morrow for the task. The Page was subsequently taken over by Gary Gianni and now Thomas Yeates. Please note that any import duties or taxes are the responsibility of the winning bidder. If multiple pieces from The Vaults of The Book Palace are won in this auction by the same bidder, only one set of shipping charges will be applied.