Prince Valiant, Vol. 49: Road to Sorrow's End

Fantagraphics' deluxe, full-color editions of Prince Valiant run chronologically, and Volume 49 includes work from the years 1979-1980. Valiant's creator, Hal Foster, died in 1982; this is the penultimate volume in the series. Each volume in the series presents close to a year's worth of strips per volume in an oversized format showcasing the strip's spectacular color pages. With its thrilling continuities of a fictitious knight in the era of King Arthur's Court, Prince Valiant set a new standard for the serial drama when it debuted in 1937. It was Foster who introduced illustrative techniques—and the sensibilities and standards of such illustrative greats as Howard Pyle—to the comics page. He is still considered, 20 years after his death and 65 years since Prince Valiant debuted, to be comics' supreme classicist, and the strip continues to live on in over 100 newspapers across America.