INTERLUDE IN CALIFORNIA: TOM YEATES

Jenner, California, is perched on a bluff overlooking the Russian River where it empties into the sea. Tom Yeates has lived here for over 30 years; he’s on his third studio. Yeates appeared first on the comic book landscape in 1982, reviving, with Martin Pasko, the Swamp Thing in Saga of the Swamp Thing Nos.1-23. He’s worked on an impressive gaggle of pop culture icons—Tarzan, Conan, and Zorro (daily newspaper strip version)—plus such titles as Timespirits, Universe X Specials, Claw the Unconquered and Dragonsword, Captain EO and The Outlaw Prince.

Last winter, he was offered Prince Valiant. He’d assisted on the strip when Gary Gianni fell behind, and apparently Gianni told Brenden Buford, King Features’ comics editor, and Buford came up to Yeates at a comic-con one day last year and asked him, straight out, no preamble, if he’d like to do Prince Valiant. Would he? The last and the first of the great illustrated comic strips? Of course. And he’s been doing it ever since, starting with the release for April 1, 2012.

When I heard Yeates lived in this out-of-the-way place, I wondered how he delivered his weekly PV’s to King. Driving into town, I was relieved of that worry when I saw a post office. But I needn’t have worried: Yeates doesn’t rely upon the postal service. He delivers Prince Valiant via the Internet, and at King, a colorist and letterer complete the preparation of each week’s strip.

Even medieval England has surrendered to an alternate reality in the digital ether.

Yeates told a story that purports to explain why Prince Valiant, a viking, has black hair instead of blond. His mother was Italian.