unsquare reviewed The Pin-Up Art of Bill Ward by Alex Chun
Review of 'The Pin-Up Art of Bill Ward' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Bill Ward is a famous pin-up artist who drew the kinds of comics you might find in Playboy or its forgotten men’s magazine predecessors. The most interesting thing I learned from this collection is that he drew with a conté crayon and his originals were huge as a result.
He definitely had a knack for drawing glossy black leggings on absurdly exaggerated statuesque women. Less successful were the gag captions, which I only rarely found funny, probably because they’re from a different era but also because the jokes were clearly not the point.
This volume also makes it clear that Ward had a few go-to poses and settings, and most of his comics were variations on a handful of themes. His work probably stands up slightly better in an uncollected form, which essentially means that this collection only diminishes it.