The Sexy and Patriotic Cartoon World of Bill Ward
Monday, 18. June 2007, 15:15:10
Anyone who ever glanced at an old girlie magazine from the 60’s or 70’s (and 50’s too but I never saw any of those) had to have seen the cartoons of Bill Ward at one time or another. There is a new collection out of his work from Seattle’s Fantagraphic Books. I found some samples of his earlier work with Torchy and then a later character called Pussycat. The inks on the Pussycat comic book panels is by Bill Everette and his pens and brush washes enhanch Ward’s pencils beautifully. Ward had a classic near pin-up style of illustrating glamour girls that degenerated, in my opinion, into a crude, hurried style of blatant pornography by the 70’s. In later works the women’s boobs were so exaggerated as to be beyond belief. The men were always weak and powerless towards the physical charms of Ward’s women. He did a lot of work in bondage and S&M as well but none of the samples I found were suitable for the Café. They were simply hardcore. I did not care for where his work went later simply because I liked his early work so much and the change was pronounced and probably done for nothing other than money. His later stuff is not in anyway bad as far as porno cartoons go, what do you expect, but his early work, like Torchy, showed real talent.
Also included here at the bottom are some of his great war propaganda cartoons. I know we are supposed to be ashamed of this stuff as Americans but something about confusing Imperial-psycho-Japanese soldiers with monkeys or seeing a couple Nazis about to get their swastikas splattered just makes me snicker.
THE WAR CARTOONS OF BILL WARD. SHOOT THE ONE'S WITHOUT TAILS, HAHA, THAT IS GREAT!
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 20. June 2007, 19:37
I have seen Torchy somewhere before....probably some Taaschen publication....and now that you point it out, there is something....classical?.....about her. This goes to the point I often make that the drawn figure is not necessarily exactly lifelike, but most effectively represents the artists CONCEPTION rather than reality.
Even in that early work there is the "exploitation" that would degenerate into sheer porn in his later work. It's that jokiness that is a little cloying, the same kind of thing we saw earlier in that sniper cartoon.
Those propaganda cartoons are a bit disturbing, but wow, are they well drawn. The atmosphere in the "ones without the tails" is really masterful...but again, there is a jokiness that detracts from what could be....art?
Bill Courtney # 21. June 2007, 01:26
I found some interesting propoganda posters from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany that really made these American posters looks rather mild. Especially the posters the Nazis did of the Jews and the Japanese did of the Chinese. The posters warning of sanctioned child rapes and murder of innocent civilians at random that would happen if the yanks occupied Japan never happened of course after the actual occupation. What permanant occupation under Japan or Germany would have been like is a freaky thought. While the American posters are essentially "racist" (I guess towards the Japanese and not towards the Germans since Germans are anglo as well) I guess they serve the same purpose that the propoganda posters from Germany and Japan did: to dehumanize the enemy and make them easier to kill. It is hard to kill people that seem similar to us.
I was reading something interesting on the net that I never knew even existed. There is so much scathing banter still about the internment of Japanese in WWII (and it was not a good thing although it was one driven by a paranoia that was not 100% unfounded) and that it was racist becuase they are different looking essentially. But nothing ever seems to to get discussed about the internment of German and Italian Americans and how they blended back into society without all the whining we still get from the Japanese (who also interned British and American citizens during the war). In fact The Germans and Italinas were kept interned even after Germany surrendered. They suffered the same hardships as the Japanese in camps mostly in Texas yet it seems you never hear anything about it. Are you aware of this? I found a site listing all the German and Italian camps and some stories from them.
Of course neither the Japanese or Germans were the idiots portrayed here and I do not think anyone really thought they were. Both were capable civilizations that had turned evil and produced great fighting armies with an agenda nothing short of world conquest. Propoganda is actually necessary I guess. If one side did not dehumanze the enemy and make it acceptable to kill them... i.e. what if soldiers are trained to see the enemy as equal human beings... then that is good on a deep philiosophical level, but the enemy will slaughter you unless they are using the same touchy feely approach to war. The enemy within concept I guess that Sam Keen wrote about in a book on propoganda.
I am glad I never had to be brainwashed to kill some other person in another country, but maybe I feel more secure knowing some guys from Alabama or Arkansas don't mind it. War sucks, but until it is abolishd we might as well enjoy the cool art it produced.
Anonymous # 18. July 2007, 04:14
Typed out a long comment but i pissed off the damn server monkeys..I'll try again later.
Bill Courtney # 31. August 2007, 04:19
Anonymous # 22. April 2008, 16:03
I used to love his Tina Small/Chelsea Charms sized women.Ward also illustrated erotic stories, written by himself, in such men's magazines as Juggs and Leg Show — an article a month for the former in his later years.[3] One feature in Juggs that ran for a year was "Quest for a Big Pair", featuring the sexual adventures of Harold Brown, who endowed with an 11 inch peter had sexual encounters with busty women. Ward also drew the comics feature "Debbie" in Club magazine.THESE WERE ALL SEXY CARTOON WRITTEN AND DRAWN BY Bill Wards.If you have copies.please let us know
Anonymous # 6. August 2008, 19:41
What can I say other than Bill Wards women are most ens fanatasy fit, why wouldnt he get wrapped up in his women and stay at home? I could see how his imagination would be enough for him to handle without dealing with the outside world. lets just thank him for his fine art and enjoy......
Anonymous # 16. April 2009, 21:46
I lost my coonections to yahoo sites on bill ward and am trying to find a replacement