Good girl art - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Good girl art is found in drawings or paintings which feature a strong emphasis on attractive women no matter what the subject or situation. GGA was most commonly featured in comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

s, pulp magazine

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

s and crime fiction

Crime fiction

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

. When cited as an art movement, it is usually capitalized as Good Girl Art.

The term describes the work of illustrators skilled at creating sexy female figure art; it is "girl art" which is "good". Popular culture historian Richard A. Lupoff

Richard A. Lupoff

Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...

defined it as:

History

The term Good Girl Art (with all initial capitals) was coined in the early 1970s by veteran comic book dealer and The Comic Book Price Guide advisor David T. Alexander, formerly co-owner of the American Comic Book Company. Alexander inserted the term in his company's sale lists to highlight specific panels and covers with sexy women in comic books from Fiction House and other publishers. Shortly after The Comic Book Price Guide was created by Robert Overstreet, the duo of David and his business partner Terry Stroud began to contribute historical, reference and pricing information regarding this particular genre. David currently owns and operates David T. Alexander Collectibles in Tampa, Florida, and continues to sell Good Girl Art comics.

It was during this era that the terms Good Girl Art and Esoteric Comics became widely used by the collecting community. Use of the phrase has since expanded to indicate a style of artwork in which attractive female characters of comic books, cartoons and covers for digest magazines, paperback

Paperback

Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...

s and pulp magazine

Pulp magazine

s are rendered in a lush manner and are shown in provocative (and sometimes very improbable) situations and locations, such as outer space. The artwork sometimes involves bondage

Bondage (BDSM)

Bondage is the use of restraints for the sexual pleasure of the parties involved. It may be used in its own right, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage, or as part of sexual activity or BDSM activity.- Private bondage :...

or damsel-in-distress situations.

A strong influence on the movement was illustrator Rolf Armstrong

Rolf Armstrong

Rolf Armstrong was an American painter of pin-up art.-Biography:Rolf Armstrong was born in Bay City, Michigan on April 21, 1889 to Richard and Harriet Armstrong. His father owned the Boy-Line Fire Boat Company, which included a line of passenger ships. Some were deployed in Chicago for use at the...

(1889–1960), labeled the "Father of Good Girl Art" because of his creamy calendar art for Brown & Bigelow

Brown & Bigelow

Brown & Bigelow is a publishing company based in Saint Paul, Minnesota that produces advertising specialties, or promotional products, such as clocks, pens, cocktail spoons with corkscrew and cap-lifter, and advertising calendars...

and iridescent illustrations for such magazines as American Weekly, College Humor, Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

, Judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

, Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...

, Pictorial Review
Pictorial Review
Pictorial Review is a magazine which first appeared in September, 1899. The magazine was originally designed to showcase dress patterns of William Paul Ahnelt's American Fashion Company. By the late 1920s it was one of the largest of the "women's magazines"....

and Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly publication, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s....

, along with his advertisements for Hires Root Beer

Hires Root Beer

Hires Root Beer is a soft drink which is currently marketed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. The manufacturer considers it the longest continuously made soft drink in the United States; however, Vernor's ginger ale is even older dating back to 1866.- History :Hires Root Beer was created by...

, Palmolive, Pepsi, Oneida Silverware and other products.

During the peak period of comic book Good Girl Art, the 1940s to the 1950s, leading artists of the movement included Bill Ward

Bill 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:...

(for his Torchy
Torchy (comics)
Torchy is a comic strip and, primarily, a series of comic books featuring the ingenue Torchy Todd, created by the American "good girl art" cartoonist Bill Ward in 1944.-Publication history:...

) and Matt Baker. Arguably the king of Good Girl Art, Baker was one of the few African Americans working as an artist during the Golden Age of Comics. Today, Baker's rendition of Phantom Lady

Phantom Lady

Phantom Lady is a fictional superheroine, one of the first female superhero characters to debut in the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books. Originally published by Quality Comics, the character was subsequently published by a series of now-defunct comic book companies, and a new version of the...

is considered a collectors item, and much of his GGA is sought after.

Two of the leading creators of GGA for science fiction magazine covers were Earle Bergey (Startling Stories
Startling Stories
Startling Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1955 by Standard Magazines. It was initially edited by Mort Weisinger, who was also the editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, Standard's other science fiction title. Startling ran a lead novel in every issue;...

, Thrilling Wonder Stories
Wonder Stories
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went...

) and Harold W. McCauley (Imagination
Imagination (magazine)
Imagination was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in October 1950 by Raymond Palmer's Clark Publishing Company. The magazine was sold almost immediately to Greenleaf Publishing Company, owned by William Hamling, who published and edited it from the third issue,...

, Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures
Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Ray Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940...

). In the '70's pulp fiction, Hector Garrido

Hector Garrido

Hector Garrido is an American book cover illustrator. He illustrated numerous science fiction, horror and adventure book covers, including all the covers for the Baroness series of pulp novels, and covers for the Destroyer series. He also illustrated romance and gothic novels, and Nancy Drew and...

drew the GGA book covers of Baroness spy thriller series by Paul Kenyon and The Destroyer men's adventure pulp novels by Warren Murphy

Warren Murphy

Warren Murphy is an American author, most famous as the co-creator of The Destroyer series, the basis for the film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. He worked as a reporter and editor and after service during the Korean War, he drifted into politics.Murphy also wrote the screenplay for Lethal...

and Richard Sapir

Richard Sapir

Richard Ben Sapir is best known for The Destroyer series of novels that he co-created with Warren Murphy. The first Destroyer was written in 1963, while Sapir worked as a city hall reporter in Jersey City and Murphy served as secretary to the city's mayor...

Publications

In 1985, Bill Pearson edited and published Good Girls, a collection of artwork by himself, Vince Alascia

Vince Alascia

Vincent Alascia , also known as Nicholas Alascia, was an American comic book artist known for his work on Captain America during the Golden Age of comics, and for his 23-year run as inker on a single creative team, with penciler Charles Nicholas Wojtkowski and writer Joe Gill at Charlton Comics...

, Richard Bassford

Richard Bassford

Richard Bassford is an American illustrator who has worked in both advertising and comic books.- Biography :Raised in the New York City borough of Queens from age three, he lived successively in the neighborhoods of Maspeth, Corona and Whitestone until his marriage in 1961, when he moved to Flushing...

, John Beatty

John Beatty (illustrator)

John Beatty is an American illustrator born in Whitesburg, Kentucky who has worked for Marvel Comics and DC Comics,-Biography:...

, Stan Drake

Stan Drake

Stanley Albert Drake was an American cartoonist best known as the founding artist of the comic strip The Heart of Juliet Jones....

, Brad W. Foster

Brad W. Foster

Brad W. Foster is an American illustrator, cartoonist, writer and publisher. He is a fixture at the Hugo Awards, where he holds the record for most awards for "Best Fan Artist." As of 2011, since 1984 he has been nominated 23 times, and won 8...

, Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...

, Frank Godwin

Frank Godwin

Francis Godwin , better known as Frank Godwin, was an American illustrator and comic strip artist, notable for his strip Connie and his book illustrations for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood and King Arthur...

, V. T. Hamlin

V. T. Hamlin

Vincent Trout Hamlin , who preferred the name V. T. Hamlin, created the popular, long-run comic strip Alley Oop, syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association....

, David Karbonik, Roy Krenkel, Bob McLeod, Ed Paschke

Ed Paschke

Edward Francis Paschke was a Polish American painter. His childhood interest in animation and cartoons, as well as his father's creativity in wood carving and construction, led him toward a career in art...

, Victor Perard (author of Anatomy and Drawing and How to Draw), Willy Pogany

Willy Pogany

William Andrew Pogany was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children's and other books.-Biography:...

, Trina Robbins

Trina Robbins

Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for...

, Kenneth Smith, Wally Wood

Wally Wood

Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...

, Mike Zeck

Mike Zeck

Mike Zeck is an American comic book illustrator.-Biography:Zeck was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania to Michael and Kathryn Jean Zeck...

and others.

Since 1990, AC Comics

AC Comics

AC Comics is a comic book publishing company started by Bill Black.AC Comics specializes in reprints of Golden Age comics from now-defunct companies whose properties lapsed into public domain and were not reprinted elsewhere...

has published 19 issues of his Good Girl Art Quarterly (incorporating several issues of Good Girl Comics), featuring a mix of photos and new comics with reprints of vintage stories. In addition to Baker, Black, Frazetta, Ward and Wood, the artists in this series include Nina Albright, Chris Allen, Nick Alton, Dick Ayers

Dick Ayers

Richard "Dick" Ayers is an American comic book artist and cartoonist best known for his work as one of Jack Kirby's inkers during the late-1950s and 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comics, including on some of the earliest issues of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four, and as the signature...

, Frank Bolle

Frank Bolle

Frank Bolle is an American comic strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator.-Career:-Children's books:...

, Gill Fox

Gill Fox

Gilbert Theodore "Gill" Fox was an American political cartoonist, comic book artist and editor, and animator.-Biography:...

, Brad Gorby, Mark Heike, Chad Hunt, Jack Kamen

Jack Kamen

Jack Kamen was an illustrator from Brooklyn, New York. His first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor working for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Brandt Bridgman and William C. McNulty...

, Ed Lane, Steve LeBlanc, Bob Lubbers

Bob Lubbers

Bob Lubbers is an American comic strip and comic book artist best known for his work on such strips as Tarzan, Li'l Abner and Long Sam.-Biography:...

, Billie Marimon, Mark Moore, Ralph Mayo, Pete Morisi

Pete Morisi

Peter A. Morisi , who sometimes went by the pseudonym PAM, is an American comic book writer and artist who also spent much of his professional life as a New York City Police Department officer. He is best known as creator of the 1960s Charlton Comics series Peter Cannon .....

, Rudy Palais, Nick Poliwko, Bob Powell

Bob Powell (comics)

Bob Powell né Stanislav Robert Pawlowski was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930-40s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular...

, Richard Rome and Maurice Whitman.

External links

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History

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External links