Hal Foster was conspicuously talented and greatly influential. He drew two of the best-looking adventure strips in comics, Tarzan and Prince Valiant. He was active in the field from the late 1920s to the early 1970s, and during that half-century reached a wide audience and influenced numerous younger artists, including Alex Raymond and Frank Frazetta.

Harold Rudolf Foster was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The family moved to Winnipeg when he was still in his teens. An outdoorsman, he went fur trapping as a teenager. After a variety of short-lived jobs, Foster decided to try to make some money with his knack for drawing; he landed a seasonal job illustrating the catalog of the Hudson Bay Company i...