Number 671


Pussycat, damsel in disguise


It's time to bid adieu to our dear little Pussycat, who has graced Pappy's now for five episodes. (You can see them by typing the word Pussycat in the search engine box at the top left, or go to the link on the bottom and click on the name. You can also click on Bill Ward and see the other sexy stories I've run by this incredible good girl artist.)

This is the sixth and final Bill Ward story from the Pussycat one-shot, black and white magazine published in 1968.

I've also included a Torchy story from the 1992 Torchy Summer Fun Special, published by Innovation. When you're through ogling Torchy, let your eyes wander to the evil scientist, who is a dead ringer for Captain Marvel's Dr. Sivana. Also, I can't swear to it, but the goggle-eyed guy yelling "You're telling us!" looks to be an homage to Al Feldstein.

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Number 519


Pussycat is booby-trapped!


Ah, Pussycat...how I wish I could stroke you, see your back arch, feel you purr.

Excuse me, guys. I get carried away. Here is yet another sexy Bill Ward masterpiece from the one-shot 1968 Pussycat magazine, reprinting stories from men's magazines published by Marvel Comics publisher Martin Goodman. Pussycat was probably inspired by Playboy's Little Annie Fanny, the Kurtzman/Elder masterpiece. Pussycat is kind of innocent like Annie until she turns on her feminine charms. Elder could draw Annie nude and still make her look innocent, but Bill Ward specialized in glamour pin-ups, and Pussycat looked anything but innocent in her ensembles from Frederick's of Hollywood.

I'm also showing you an earlier Ward, a Torchy story from the 1940s. I scanned it from Torchy Summer Special #1, published and copyright 1992 by Innovation. The sharp black and white stats were provided by Greg Theakston and/or Bill Black of AC Comics, who know how to reconstruct the black line from color comics.

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Number 420


Spacy Pussycat


Pussycat, Bill Ward's voluptuous agent of S.C.O.R.E., takes us around the world while she gets off...the planet, that is.

This is yet another classic from the 1968 one-shot, Pussycat, published by Marvel Comics. The stories are reprinted from men's magazines published by Martin Goodman, then Marvel Comics publisher.

Other episodes from this excellent book have been posted here, here, and here.

After you screw your eyeballs back into your heads, travel on over for more feline excitement with Killer Kittens From Beyond the Grave, an excellent blog presided over by Kitty LeClaw. You get to see Karswell, of The Horrors Of It All, starring in a splatter comic book, circa 1991. "Purrrrrr-fect," as Batman's sexy nemesis, Catwoman, used to say.

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Number 348

Pussycat the Bunnycat!

Pussycat shows us once again why Bill Ward was a great cartoonist, and maybe one of the best good-girl artists ever. This is from the one-shot Pussycat Marvel magazine from '68, reprinted in turn from its appearance in one of the men's magazines that company published.


As an extra here are scans of some original art by Ward. These are cartoons I bought for the astounding price of $5.00 each at a mid-'80s San Diego Comicon. My friends and I were grabbing them off a stack of art as fast as a dealer could put them on the table. I think I got some of the better ones. Most of these are dated from the mid-1960s. Ward said once that he sold about 25 cartoons a month to Chip Goodman at Humorama, publishers of monthly small-size cartoon books, "the kind men like!" You can see why the editor bought these, and why guys like them.

I've taken the liberty of inserting the punchline to the bikini drawing with my software, because it's written on the back of the drawing.

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Number 297

Pussycat wins!

What a babe! With a body like this Pussycat isn't built for speed, but she wins anyway. With guys especially. With protests over the upcoming Beijing Olympics headlines the past few weeks it's time to run an Olympics related story, and this is the only one I have. It's a funny Bill Ward story from the only issue of Pussycat, published by Marvel Comics in 1968.

There's another Pussycat strip by Ward in Pappy's #148.

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Number 148


Pussycat, Pussycat, I love you…


Did anyone ever draw glamorous, sexy chicks as well as Bill Ward?

Pussycat was a feature Ward did in the 1960s for Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman's line of men's magazines, after having established himself as a cartoonist of excellence in drawing the female form. Ward had worked as a comic book artist for years. He created super-siren Torchy, as well as being an artist specializing in love comics and several other genres, including Blackhawk. It was the pin-up art that made him famous, though.

Pussycat was a satire on the spy craze started by the James Bond phenomenon, continued on with TV shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, et al.) The character she most resembled was Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's Annie Fanny in Playboy. Like Annie, Pussycat was an innocent, without guile. She apparently didn't understand the effect she was having on the men around her, who acted like horny idiots.

This particular strip was originally published in 1966, then reprinted in 1968 in a compilation magazine, Pussycat #1, listed in the indicia as being published by Marvel Comics. It contains one story by Wally Wood and another by Jim Mooney. The cover is by Bill Everett. The rest of it is all Ward.
Click on pictures for full-size images.

Several books have been published reprinting Ward's pin-up cartoons. For years he sold about 30 of them a month to Goodman's Humorama Publications. You couldn't open one of those digest magazines without seeing a new Ward.

Years ago I got lucky and found some of Ward's cartoons for sale at a San Diego Comicon. I even found a rough he submitted for approval, most likely to the aforementioned humor magazines he contributed to so regularly.
Even though it's a rough he lavished his time and attention on the girl. The guys in his cartoons, and even in his comic strips* were drawn as generic guys, with a lot less attention than he gave to his girls. The guys in his cartoons all went crazy at the sight of a pretty girl. If you were ever to see a living Ward girl walk down the street you might go crazy too.

*Ward was also a regular for years in Cracked Magazine, sometimes under the name McCartney.

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