Editing Hal Foster (section)

==Retirement and death==
In 1970, Foster was suffering from [[arthritis]] and began planning his retirement. He had several artists draw [[Sunday strip|Sunday pages]] before choosing [[John Cullen Murphy]] as his collaborator and permanent replacement in 1971. Murphy drew the strip from Foster scripts and pencil sketches.<ref name="washingtonpost" /> Foster stopped illustrating (and signing) the ''Prince Valiant'' pages in 1971 – with the exception being Page #2000, on June 8, 1975, that featured reprinted vignettes of previous panels along with his signature. For nine years, Foster continued writing the strip and making fairly detailed {{convert|8.5|in|adj=on}} x {{convert|11|in|adj=on}} penciled layouts for Murphy, until he sold the strip to King Features Syndicate in 1979. Prolonged anesthesia during a hip replacement surgery in November 1979 took his memory, and he no longer remembered ever doing ''Tarzan'' or ''Prince Valiant''.

Foster attended the [[Comic Art Convention]] in 1969, and the [[OrlandoCon]] in 1974 and 1975.<ref>[http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2007/01/jim-iveys-photo-album-part-one.html Jim Ivey's Photo Album, Part One]</ref><ref>[http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2011/07/san-diego-comic-con-1974.html San Diego Comic Con 1974]</ref>

Foster was 73 when he was elected to membership in UK's [[Royal Society of Arts]], an honor given to very few Americans.{{sfn|Kane|2001|p=155}}

Foster died at a care facility in Hernando, Florida in 1982, a month before his 90th birthday.<ref>Ancestry dot com Death Record</ref>