"A Christmas Carol" - Holiday Greeting from King Features Syndicate (1946)

"A Christmas Carol" - Holiday Greeting from King Features Syndicate (1946)

Artist: Hal Foster

Here's another goody I see out there that I'd like to get my mitts on: a nice volume of "A Christmas Carol," sent from King Features Syndicate to various newspaper editors and such in 1946.

It features a nice cover by Hal Foster, the brilliant comic strip artist who created the long-running "Prince Valiant" strip.

What I can't determine if there are any internal illustrations of the story itself, but I'd like to get a copy and find out!

What the book does feature, and what makes it a nice collectible is that the endpapers feature a couple of Christmas scenes featuring all of the "stars" from King Features Syndicates' stable of comic strips!

The scene below shows a bunch of them at the dinner table, with Prince Valiant himself seemingly enjoying the tall tale being told by Popeye.

I think that's actually Mrs. Cratchit serving the turkey and not a comic strip character, but not all of the characters are well-remembered today - but there are some big stars!

I also think that's an original Tiny Tim design, sitting down at the end with Blondie, while Dagwood feeds Daisy at the other end.

The other scene shows a bunch of other characters with Santa and his sleigh:

Lots of fun!

And for more fun, here a couple of images of Prince Valiant enjoying the holiday from other sources, as drawn by Hal Foster:

Good stuff all around!