Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics_Education & Science

Camelot InFourColorsA Survey of the ArthurianLegend inComicsThe legend of King Arthur has been told and retold in manyformsover the past fourteen centuries. In the last hundred years, the"Matter of Britain" has inspired works in new forms of culturalexpression, including motion pictures, television, and comics.These web pages are an attemptto providescholars, enthusiasts, and other interested parties with an overviewof the various comic strip and comic book series that have featuredArthurian themes. I acknowledge that this overview is incomplete(especially in regards to non-American comics), and suggestions foradditions are more than welcomed. For a more comprehensive andscholarly approach to one major segment of Arthurian comics, Ienthusiastically recommend Michael Torregrossa's "Camelot3000 and Beyond: An Annotated Listing of Arthurian Comic BooksPublished in the United States c.1980-1998",originally published in the journal Arthuriana andnowavailable on the Web. Michael also maintains another web site devoted to the topic, the Arthur of the Comics Project. Yet another great online resource is RodneyParrish's "CamelotIllustrated", or "King Arthur in Comics",an alphabetized list based on Rodney's own collection. Finally, the singlemost comprehensive bibliography of Arthurian comics -- and allArthurian works in English over the last 750 years -- is Daniel P.Nastali and Phillip C. Boardman's two-volume TheArthurian Annals,published in2004.The survey is divided intofive majorsections:Retellingsof the original legendsNewstories of traditional Arthurian charactersStoriesfeaturing original characters derived from Arthurian legendStoriesfeaturing characters not generally associated with the Arthurian legendwho interact with it on a temporary basisAdaptationsof Arthurian works in other mediaBecause of both the malleablequality of thelegend and the storytelling conventions of the comics medium, theboundaries between these categories are often blurred. Thanks to thethe hypertext qualities of the Web, however, we can follow themigrations of characters and series from one category to another.(For the present, at least, I have chosen not to include a potentialsixth category -- stories featuring references or allusions toArthurian legend rather than literal appearances of characters,places, or artifacts -- Lawrence Marvit's Sparks,for example,includes a robot named Galahad, but the robot is not to be consideredan actual representation of the Arthurian Sir Galahad. A few suchreferences or allusions are discussed in the context of more directlyArthurian stories; see the entries for Aquamanand Romfor examples.)The information on this siteis based onprimary sources (the author's personal comics collection, for themost part) except as noted, with the exception that some of thepublishing history for a few series is derived from the OverstreetComic Book Price Guide. More details are provided on thesourcesandresources pages,but I do want to notehere the contribution of Robert Vermaat, who provided information onEuropean comics that would otherwise have been unavailable for thisproject. Robert maintains the VortigernStudies sitewhich should be ofinterest to anyone curious about the "historical Arthur". Thebibliographic efforts of Michael Torregrossa, mentioned above, aswell as the information gathered by other collectors or scholars likeDaniel Nastali, Rodney Parrish, Jason Tondro, Scott McMahan, and Orville Eastland hasalso been very helpful. I am aware that some users ofthis resourcewill be more familiar with the Arthurian legend than with comics andvice versa. While a thorough discussion of either topic is beyond thescope of this site, I've included some basic introductory material onboth topics, as well as pointers to further information (online andotherwise) on the sourcesand resources pages.Among theseresources is a glossary explaining "Who'sWho and What's What in Arthurian Legend."I have opted not to have links to this page from every reference toArthur, Merlin, et al, within the other pages; however, if one doescome across an unfamiliar character or concept, it will likely beexplained in the glossary.A word about my use of tense:While I'm awarethat correct usage dictates the use of present tense when describingevents in works of narrative art, this often yields awkward resultswhen one is discussing a fictional character's "career" which mayspan several decades and a variety of publications. The use of pasttense to describe the "histories" of such characters has becomesomething of a convention in writing about comics. In these pages, Ihave generally used present tense when describing events inessentially self-contained works (such as Camelot3000, or Batman:Dark Knight of the Round Table) andpast tense when relating incidents in the ongoing sagas of seriescharacters (such as the BlackKnight or,again, Batman).Incidentally, for anyonecurious about the useof the phrase "four colors" in the site title, the reference is tothe four colors of the CMYK separation system that has been used toprint the majority of color comics in the United States. The colorsare: Cyan,Magenta,Yellowand blacK. These colors, mixed together in differentratiosand different color screen densities, provide the range of colorsseen in most of the images included on this site. For many oldercomics fans (or fans of older comics), "four colors" will call tomind Dell Publishing's long-running Four Colorseries, whichincluded several Arthurian stories described on thesepages.These pages are intended foreducational,informational, and entertainment purposes and are entirelynon-profit. The author has no comics or other materials to sell, andno official relationship with the publishers or creators of any ofthe intellectual properties discussed on these pages, nor any claimsto ownership of the same intellectual properties, should be inferred.Copyrights of all illustrations are held by their respective owners,and will be removed from the site by request of the rightful owners.The author reserves all rights to the text.Illustrationby HalFoster from "Prince Valiant," King Features Syndicate,1937.Doteasy Web Hostingplease enablebrowser's Javascript to use the Hit Counter tool.Powered by Ifyou would like to join anongoing discussionof Arthurian comics, visit the ArthurianComics Discussion Listpage at Yahoo!Groups. This e-mail group is moderated by MichaelTorregrossa.Part One -- Retellings of theoriginal legendsPart Two -- New stories oftraditional ArthuriancharactersPart Three -- Storiesfeaturing originalcharacters derived from Arthurian legendPart Four -- Stories featuringseries characters who temporarily interact with the Arthurian legendPartFive -- Adaptations ofArthurian works in other mediaSources and ResourcesBackto top.Site created 2/24/00. Last updated 7/12/15. E-mailyourcomments and suggestions to theauthor, AlanStewart .