English
The best eye candy money can buy
The life of Bill Ward, good girl artist. By Eric Kroll
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Born in Brooklyn in 1919. Died in New Jersey in 1998. Most of the time between those years Bill Ward spent drawing women. Women with exaggerated bosoms, small-waisted, long-legged, with a healthy round ass. A fantasy woman, unless you are the actress Anita Ekberg, Veronica Lake, or the adult model Candy Samples. They were dressed, or sometimes partially dressed, to please his imagination. His imagination fed the imagination of the American male with his illustrations of women for 50 years. Bill himself conceded he probably drew more "babes" than any other illustrator of his time. After all... his last name spelled backwards is DRAW.
Born March 6, 1919, William Hess Ward moved with his prosperous family from Brooklyn, NY, to Ridgewood, NJ, where he grew up. Bill's dad was high up in the United Fruit Company management and wanted his son to go into the business, but all Bill wanted to do was draw. He returned to Brooklyn and went to college at the Pratt Institute, graduating in 1941.
After being drafted and serving in the Army, Ward returned to Ridgewood, married twice, and lived out much of his adult life in the town where he was raised. Taken from the monologue in Reb Stout's very fine video The Wonderful Women of Ward, Ward's own words provide an overview: "Fans have written to me about the incredible volume of my work over the years. And it's occurred to me that I may have had more work published than anyone in the history of the world. Now, it would have to be in the last 50 years and it would have to be in the United States. There just wasn't the market for volume work the way there is now. There's the comic strips, the gags, and so on. That's where the bulk of the work would be. Now, for example, when I was in the Binder shop I laid out literally thousands of pages, seven panels per page. And this is when I was just a kid. Then all the work I did during the war and afterwards. The work in Humorama, for example, the largest purchaser of cartoons in the world. And he bought 30 a month from me from 1947 through '67. Now that's 20 years and that comes to a total of 7,200 drawings, just gags, for one outfit. Then there's comic strips that I've done since then. And remember, each strip has seven panels. And there were 20 individual drawings each month for that. Well, I never ever could figure out how much but... There's only one person that I can think of that may have produced as much and that's Jack Kirby. He started out when I did and created Captain America and then he went on later to produce Spider-Man and The Hulk. And, of course, he does seven panels on a page and he's been working as many years as I have. But, he's the only one that I can think of, so there's a good chance that I may have produced more work than anyone in the history of the world. It's awesome."
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Page [1] [2] [3]
Born in Brooklyn in 1919. Died in New Jersey in 1998. Most of the time between those years Bill Ward spent drawing women. Women with exaggerated bosoms, small-waisted, long-legged, with a healthy round ass. A fantasy woman, unless you are the actress Anita Ekberg, Veronica Lake, or the adult model Candy Samples. They were dressed, or sometimes partially dressed, to please his imagination. His imagination fed the imagination of the American male with his illustrations of women for 50 years. Bill himself conceded he probably drew more "babes" than any other illustrator of his time. After all... his last name spelled backwards is DRAW.
Born March 6, 1919, William Hess Ward moved with his prosperous family from Brooklyn, NY, to Ridgewood, NJ, where he grew up. Bill's dad was high up in the United Fruit Company management and wanted his son to go into the business, but all Bill wanted to do was draw. He returned to Brooklyn and went to college at the Pratt Institute, graduating in 1941.
After being drafted and serving in the Army, Ward returned to Ridgewood, married twice, and lived out much of his adult life in the town where he was raised. Taken from the monologue in Reb Stout's very fine video The Wonderful Women of Ward, Ward's own words provide an overview: "Fans have written to me about the incredible volume of my work over the years. And it's occurred to me that I may have had more work published than anyone in the history of the world. Now, it would have to be in the last 50 years and it would have to be in the United States. There just wasn't the market for volume work the way there is now. There's the comic strips, the gags, and so on. That's where the bulk of the work would be. Now, for example, when I was in the Binder shop I laid out literally thousands of pages, seven panels per page. And this is when I was just a kid. Then all the work I did during the war and afterwards. The work in Humorama, for example, the largest purchaser of cartoons in the world. And he bought 30 a month from me from 1947 through '67. Now that's 20 years and that comes to a total of 7,200 drawings, just gags, for one outfit. Then there's comic strips that I've done since then. And remember, each strip has seven panels. And there were 20 individual drawings each month for that. Well, I never ever could figure out how much but... There's only one person that I can think of that may have produced as much and that's Jack Kirby. He started out when I did and created Captain America and then he went on later to produce Spider-Man and The Hulk. And, of course, he does seven panels on a page and he's been working as many years as I have. But, he's the only one that I can think of, so there's a good chance that I may have produced more work than anyone in the history of the world. It's awesome."
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The Wonderful World of Bill Ward, King of the Glamour Girls
Hardcover 10.2 x 13.4 in., 344 pages
Special Price: $ 29.99
Save $ 30.00!
Special Price: $ 29.99
Save $ 30.00!
Ward's world: a titillating voyage into the paradise of pin-up
Bill Ward. Collection of the Ward family