Born: 1892 August 16 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Died: 1982 July 25 in Spring Hill, Florida, United States
Biography: Hal Foster was an artist and writer best known for his work on two newspaper strips, “Tarzan” and “Prince Valiant”.
Born in Nova Scotia, Foster rode his bicycle to the United States in 1919 and began to study in Chicago, eventually living in America.
In 1928, he began one of the earliest syndicated adventure strips, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Tarzan”.
In 1937, William Randolph Hearst offered him complete ownership to create a new strip for the Hearst papers. The result was Foster’s signature strip, the weekly “Prince Valiant”.
The medieval fantasy adventure is set in medieval times. The strip featured his dexterous, detailed artwork; unusually, he preferred putting narration and dialogue in captions rather than balloons within the art.
Notes: To be confirmed against the Who's Who entry.
Chicago Art Institute ? to ?
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts ? to ?
National Cartoonist Society Type: member