Known for his pin-up girl illustrations and especially for his skill with the conté crayon, Bill Ward began his career during World War II with the creation of his sexy gal, Torchy, to divert his fellow soldiers. Because his work seemed to meet "America's collective postwar sex fantasy" and the timing was right for the men's magazines that hit the market in the 1950s, Ward became one of the most popular "girlie artists" in America. In the next four decades he expanded his subject matter somewhat but "never varied from his template of the Ultimate Woman---except to make her breasts a little bigger, her heels a little higher, or the satin and leather encasing her a little glossier."

Ward's formal name was Will...