Bill Ward (cartoonist)
| Bill Ward | |
|---|---|
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| Born | William Hess Ward March 6, 1919 Brooklyn. New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 17, 1998 (aged 79) Ridgewood. New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer, Penciller |
| Pseudonym(s) | Bill |
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Notable works
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Torchy |
William Hess Ward (March 6, 1919 – November 17, 1998), known as Bill Ward, was an American cartoonist notable as a good girl artist and creator of the risqué comics character Torchy.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ward grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where his father was an executive with the United Fruit Company.
At age 17, Ward, already an art hobbyist, began his professional career by illustrating "beer jackets", a type of white denim jacket with text or design printed or drawn on the book; Ward charged one dollar a jacket, and by his own count drew hundreds during that summer. He went on to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, where one classmate was future naturist painter Bob Kuhn. Ward graduated in 1941, and through the university's placement bureau obtained a Manhattan art-agency job at $18 a week, sweeping floors, running errands and serving as an art assistant. He was fired after accidentally cutting in half a finished Ford automobile illustration with a matte knife.
Still rooming at his college fraternity house, he received a call from Pratt regarding another job, assisting comic book artist Jack Binder. He joined Binder's small art studio, a "packager" that supplied outsourced comics pages to fledgling comic book publishers, where Pete Riss was his assistant. The studio was relocating from The Bronx to, coincidentally, Ward's hometown of Ridgewood, New Jersey, to the upstairs loft of a barn. There, Binder drew layouts for Fawcett Comics stories, for which Riss penciled and inked figures and Ward drew the backgrounds. Features included Mister Scarlet and Pinky, Bulletman, Ibis the Invincible, Captain Battle, the Black Owl, and the adapted pulp magazine features Doc Savage and The Shadow. The studio grew to about 30 artists, with Ken Bald as the art director.
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