Comics-Prince Valiant TB2

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 25-Mar-24 this trackable had survived for 7.7 years and had been moved by 36 cachers, for an average drop every 78 days, or 4.7 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

My youth was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Drawing from that period, this is one of a series of travel bugs made to commemorate favorite characters from comic books, comic strips, movie cartoons, B-movies and animated feature-length movies.  Some of the characters had only a brief existence, some survived as radio and early TV programs and some have been digitally-modernized into some of the blockbuster movies of today.  There were many other characters, but these are the ones on which I was willing to spend my dimes (comic books) and quarters (movie and popcorn).  However, I didn’t pay for the daily comic strips or Sunday funnies that came with the newspaper.

Prince Valiant is a long-running comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937.  It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 4000 Sunday strips.  Currently, the strip appears weekly in more than 300 American newspapers, according to its distributor, King Features Syndicate.

Edward, the Duke of Windsor, called Prince Valiant the "greatest contribution to English literature in the past hundred years."  Generally regarded by comics historians as one of the most impressive visual creations ever syndicated, the strip is noted for its realistically rendered panoramas and the intelligent, sometimes humorous, narrative.  The format does not employ word balloons.  Instead, the story is narrated in captions positioned at the bottom or sides of panels.  Events depicted are taken from various time periods, from the late Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages.

The setting is Arthurian. Valiant is a Nordic prince from faraway Thule, located near Trondheim on the Norwegian west coast.  Early in the story, Valiant arrived at Camelot, where he became friends with Sir Gawain and Sir Tristram.  Earning the respect of King Arthur and Merlin, he became a Knight of the Round Table.  On a Mediterranean island, he met the love of his life, Aleta, Queen of the Misty Isles, whom he later married. He fought the Huns with his powerful Singing Sword, Flamberge, a magical blade created by the same enchanter who forged Arthur's Excalibur.  Val has traveled to Africa and to America and helped his father regain his lost throne of Thule.  And on it goes.  In the early year of my reading, it was absolutely the most artistically-drawn strip.  Some of the quality was lost in the 1960s, I think, but it is still superb.