Bill Ward (artist)
Encyclopedia
- Not to be confused with the American cartoonist, William "Bill" WardBill Ward (comics)William Hess Ward , known as Bill Ward, was an American cartoonist notable as a good girl artist and creator of the risqué comics character Torchy.-Early life and career:...
Bill Ward (died 24 July 1996) was a graphic artist known for producing educational materials for children and erotic images for homosexual publications.
History
Bill Ward was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and lived in the city except for three years in the Army. He worked in publishing, having started as a copy boy for a London newspaper. Then he worked for a large publishing firm first in editing, later in the art department. After working as the art editor of a children's weekly magazine, he transitioned to freelance work. He also painted landscapes
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
in oil, produced children's picture books, and rendered art for adult magazines such as Drummer, Alternate and Manifest Reader.
Influences
Bill Ward admired comic art, and he was inspired by Burne HogarthBurne Hogarth
Burne Hogarth was an American cartoonist, illustrator, educator, author and theoretician, best known for his pioneering work on the Tarzan newspaper comic strip and his series of anatomy books.-Biography:...
(Tarzan
Tarzan (comics)
Tarzan, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in 23 sequels. The character proved immensely popular and quickly made the jump to other media, including comics.-Comic strips:...
), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...
) and Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
(Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip,...
).