(W/A/CA) Bill Ward
Vintage glamour girl artist extraordinaire Bill Ward gets the full Fantagraphics Studio Edition treatment featuring Ward's most polished, fully realized pinups from the 1950s and 1960s. Bill Ward's glamour girls were the staples of countless men's and humor magazines, where they shared the pages with cult models like Bettie Page, Tina Louise, and Julie Newmar, and cartoons by fellow 'good girl' artists such as Archie's Dan Decarlo and Playboy's Jack Cole. What set Ward apart - and above - his talented contemporaries in terms of sheer image-making was his use of the conte crayon. When drawn on simple newsprint stock, this potent combination created Ward's trademark gossamer sheen on his women's thigh-high stockings. This Fantagraphics Studio edition showcases the best of Ward's Humorama work and includes a healthy number of what became known as his 'telephone girls.' Tame by today's standards, Ward's telephone girls were always caught in candid moments when they just happened to be talking on the phone dressed in gossamer lingerie in innocently provocative poses. M
