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Ad Code: 4
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from Auction House Records.
Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #8 Cover Featuring Torchy and Women In Comics Original Art
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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Biography from AskART:
| Known for his pin-up girl illustrations and especially for his skill
with the conté crayon, Bill Ward began his career during World War II
with the creation of his sexy gal, Torchy, to divert his fellow
soldiers. Because his work seemed to meet "America's collective
postwar sex fantasy" and the timing was right for the men's magazines
that hit the market in the 1950s, Ward became one of the most popular
"girlie artists" in America. In the next four decades he expanded
his subject matter somewhat but "never varied from his template of the
Ultimate Woman---except to make her breasts a little bigger, her heels
a little higher, or the satin and leather encasing her a little
glossier."
Ward's formal name was William Hess Ward. He began his career at
age 15 as the sports cartoonist for a local paper in his home town of
Ocean City, Maryland. He was a kid who caused his teachers a lot
of discipline problems but was also appreciated for his drawing
abilities. However, one teacher did tell his parents that drawing
was his only talent. He quickly learned that not only did his
skill make him popular but also it was a way to make money. As a
teenager, he made good money during the summers doing caricatures and
selling them.
After high school, he enrolled in The Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and
almost immediately he chose the female figure as his specialty.
Reportedly that choice pertained not only to artwork but to his life as
well. It was said that he did not take full advantage of Pratt
Institute, from where he graduated in 1941, but reportedly he took much
advantage of the many good looking young women in Brooklyn.
Of his prototypical pin-up, he said that throughout his career he kept
in mind the "better parts" of several movie stars: Anne
Southern's exotic eye lids; Marilyn Monroe's lips; Anita Ekberg's
massive bust; and the long wavy hair of Suzie Parker.
After leaving Pratt Institute, he worked briefly for the Manhattan Art
Service, which he disliked because it was basically clean up work for
other illustrators. He then took a job with Fawcett Comic Books
drawing backgrounds and then doing a complete Captain Marvel book, and
he credits his boss, Jack Binder, as giving him valuable lessons for
his future career. Next he worked for Quality Comics, which was
regarded as the top comic line in the world and for which he took over
Blackhawk Comics featuring Blackhawk aircraft. The bosses at
Quality Comics were very impressed with Ward's covers.
However, like so many young men, he was drafted and was assigned at
Quonset Pont Naval Air Base in Rhode Island to an anti-aircraft
unit. He had plenty of spare time so he laid out stories for
Fawcett Comics, and created his most famous female figure,
Torchy. In 1944, one of the naval officers, aware of Ward's
talents, commissioned him to do a comic strip for the base paper.
He named the strip Ack-Ack-Amy, and based the story line on the
exploits of this very shapely blonde bombshell. Torchy evolved
from this character.
After the war, he returned to Quality Comics and did more Blackhawk
drawings, but he was irritated because he was allowed only to do the
pencil drawings and not his own inking. He also brought Torchy
into the civilian publications, and 'she' had her own comic book in
1949 and 1950 with Modern Comics. Ultimately Ward became so busy
with other assignments that Gil Fox took over some of the
responsibilities with Torchy. Finally in the mid 1950s, the
series came to an end because of much national attention being focused
on the negative effects on kids of comic books. And shortly after
that, television began taking over as the entertainment of choice.
Ward turned to magazine cartoons, and did much work, especially girlie cartoons, for monthlies including Humorama Magazine, Joker Magazine and Cracked Magazine. He also contributed to adult literature such as Screw and Fetish Times, work he justified because he had to put food on the table.
According to his wife Judy, to whom he was married for 46 years, he was
very shy, and he lived for his family and his work---would start at
4:00 AM and work into the afternoon from his studio at his hometown of
Ridgewood, New Jersey.
Source:
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/sex/new/facts/02994.htm
http://billwardcontent.com/
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Biography from AskART:
| The following comments are from an editorial review on Amazon.com of The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward by Bill Ward and Alex Chun.
Renowned pin-up artist Bill Ward gets the full coffee table treatment
in a lavish, oversized, full-color collection of his most polished
1950s illustrations. Imagine, if you will, an innocent but
stunning young woman boasting the most unlikely Barbie-like
proportions—and then some—poured into a wisp of lingerie or clingy
cocktail dress, silky opera-length gloves, and sheer thigh-high
stockings, perched precariously but not inelegantly atop a pair of
dangerously high stiletto heels, and you've got the recipe for the
quintessential Wardian glamour girl. Ward's girls became staples
of countless men's and humor magazines where he shared the pages with
cult models like Bettie Page and fellow "good girl" artists such as Dan
DeCarlo and Jack Cole. Ward became the standard bearer and justly
famous through the '50s and '60s for his angular, high-sheen images of
improbably busty glamour girls, a kind of low-rent Charles Dana
Gibson. What set Ward apart—and above—his talented contemporaries
was his use of a medium called the conte crayon. When drawn on a
simple newsprint stock, this potent combination created a charcoal-like
effect and color that gave Ward's original art an elegant sepia-tone
quality. This volume features the best of Ward's Humorama work,
including a selection of Ward's infamous telephone girls. Tame by
today's standards, Ward's telephone girls were considered provocative
at the time, caught as they were in various states of dress or, more
often, undress.
The majority of the images in this volume were drawn between 1956 and
1963 when Ward was at the height of his skill, shot from original art
and printed in full color. This book not only reproduces over a hundred
beautifully rendered illustrations, but captures a more innocent moment
in American pop culture. 72 pages color.
Source:
http://www.amazon.com/Glamour-Girls-Bill-Ward/dp/1560975318
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