Comic book series : Pin up art of Bill Ward

The Pin-Up Art of Bill Ward continues Fantagraphics' dedication to showcasing the best of the classic pin-up artists. Culling through thousands of images, editor Alex Chun has selected the best of Ward's Conte crayon pin-ups, including many of his infamous telephone girls, many of which have not seen print in almost half a century. In those countless cheap and long forgotten men's humor magazines, Ward's voluptuous "girly" drawings shared the pages with photos of Bettie Page and Mamie Van Doren, and pin-up cartoons by the likes of Archie's Dan DeCarlo and Playboy magazine's Jack Cole.Thumbing through those digests, it quickly becomes evident that Ward was Humorama's dominant pin-up cartoon artist. His mastery of the Conte crayon allowed him to produce unparalleled textures, including the wonderful sheen on satiny curve-hugging dresses and on black thigh-high stockings that became Ward trademarks. The Pin-Up Art of Bill Ward is presented in the same accessible sotfcover format as The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo and The Pin-Up Art of Bill Wenzel.

"Mr. Ward's drawings were provocative and alluring, the subjects exploiting power over men that their sexuality granted. They were drawn in fetishistic detail with black stockings, lush lingerie, deep décolletage and steely stilettos." – The New York Times