This book owes its existence to decades of family life. My mother and my brothers and sisters gave generously of their memories and their time. They read drafts of the book and rooted around in basements and attics for drawings and documents. Above all, they are my family, and they share in this story. The book is dedicated to them.
Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, got the book rolling by encouraging me to write for the magazine about the community of cartoonists that formed the background to my childhood. I’m grateful to him for that and for a great deal more. Brian Walker, Mort Walker’s son, whom I have known for most of my life, has been an adviser and sounding board on this project almost from the start. Brian is a prominent historian of comic strips and he writes Hi and Lois. Sixty years ago we attended each other’s fifth-birthday parties.
Mort Walker, now ninety-four, is among the last of his generation of cartoonists; on many occasions over the years, he put time aside to talk with me about his life and work. So did Jerry Dumas, who passed away in 2016, not long after sending me a series of long, funny handwritten notes (with drawings) about topics I raise in the book. Others associated with the world of cartoons and comic strips who provided help and counsel include Chance Browne, Gail Dumas, Tim Dumas, Rick Marschall, Peter and Tanner Saxon, Edward Sorel, Josie Merck, the late James Stevenson, and Greg Walker. Brian Kane, an art historian who has written extensively about Prince Valiant and whose knowledge of comics is both broad and deep, never failed to surprise me with what he could pull from his memory or his files. He was also ready at all times to lend a hand on short notice. Gary Gianni, the illustrator who first took over Prince Valiant from my father, has also written about the strip, and he gamely hunted down photographs on my behalf.
Many friends and colleagues read versions of the book at various stages: Katherine Bang, David Friend, Toby Lester, Mark London, Cullen Nutt, Mark Rozzo, Martha Spaulding, Douglas Stumpf, Scott Turow, and Charles Trueheart. And I am indebted to Melissa Goldstein, Sarah Grogan, Bob Hayes, and Cary Sleeper. They shouldered a variety of responsibilities: taking pictures, making scans, tracking down permissions, handling logistics.
Gathering illustrations for the book served as a welcome reminder that institutions are not faceless. Brendan Burford, the general manager for syndication at King Features, provided essential help, and I’m grateful as well to his colleagues Claudia Smith and Scott Olsen. Most of my father’s wartime drawings and paintings are preserved in the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University’s John Hay Library. Peter Harrington, the curator, put me back in touch with this material and arranged for its reproduction. Susan Zalkind, of Boston, is the great-great-great-granddaughter of the influential Punch cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne, and she made the introduction to Sam Butler and Shirley Nicholson at 18 Stafford Terrace—Sambourne’s home in London, now open to the public. Butler and Nicholson provided some extraordinary photographs. The greatest repository of cartoons and comics in the world is the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University, and the staff there was uniformly knowledgeable, efficient, friendly, and patient. Susan Liberator, the librarian and an associate curator, proved to be an unerring guide, as well as a skilled detective, over a period of many months. I would add my thanks to Jenny Robb, the curator of the Library & Museum; Caitlyn McGurk, an associate curator; and Marilyn Scott, an assistant curator.
Jonathan Galassi, the editor of this book, provided shrewd advice both about the nature of the writing and about the design of the presentation. It made all the difference. I’m grateful for the work of the entire team at Farrar, Straus and Giroux—particularly Carolina Baizan, Karla Eoff, Jonathan Lippincott, Jeff Seroy, Rob Sternitzky, Scott Auerbach, and Stephen Weil—and for the guidance of my agent and longtime friend Rafe Sagalyn.
My wife, Anna Marie, has always been my first reader and best editor. As noted elsewhere, she inspired an enduring character in Prince Valiant—the redoubtable Maeve, wife of Prince Arn. In life as in the funny pages, her husband just tries to keep up.
—Boston, 2017