| Good girl art | |
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 Harold W. McCauley illustration for Imagination. | |
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Good Girl Art (GGA) is a style of artwork depicting women primarily featured in comic books, comic strips, and pulp magazines. [1] The term was coined by the American Comic Book Company, appearing in its mail order catalogs from the 1930s to the 1970s, [2] and is used by modern comic experts to describe the hyper-sexualized version of femininity depicted in comics of the era. [3]
The science fiction author Richard A. Lupoff defined good girl art as:
A cover illustration depicting an attractive young woman, usually in skimpy or form-fitting clothing, and designed for erotic stimulation. The term does not apply [i.e., refer] to the morality of the "good girl", who is often a gun moll, tough cookie or wicked temptress. [4]
The popularity of Good Girl Art peaked in the 1940s and 1950s as the style gained favor with young men, particularly US servicemen, for whom comics served as an opportunity to "girl watch." [5] Leading artists of the movement include Bill Ward (known for his Torchy comics) and Matt Baker, who was one of the few African Americans working as an artist during the Golden Age of Comics.
During this period, GGA also found its way into newspaper comic strips. One of the early examples of good girl art was Russell Stamm's Invisible Scarlet O'Neil, a superhero often depicted in lingerie. [6]
Use of the phrase has since expanded to indicate a style of artwork in which female characters in comic books, [7] cartoons, and covers for digest magazines, paperbacks [8] and pulp magazines are shown in gratuitously provocative or suggestive (and sometimes very improbable) situations and locations, such as outer space. The artwork sometimes involves bondage or damsel-in-distress scenarios.
In the United Kingdom, the genre of Good Girl Art was also popularized by several notable artists. Arthur Ferrier, renowned for his work in British magazines such as Blighty (magazine) and his comic strip "Our Dumb Blonde," was a prominent figure. Norman Pett gained fame through his creation of Jane , a comic strip character who became an iconic figure in British pop culture during World War II, often credited with boosting morale among troops. Reginald Heade brought a distinctly British flair to Good Girl Art as one of the finest British pulp fiction cover artists.
Two creators of GGA for science fiction magazine covers were Earle Bergey ( Startling Stories , Thrilling Wonder Stories ) and Harold W. McCauley ( Imagination , Fantastic Adventures ). In the '70s pulp fiction, Hector Garrido drew the GGA book covers of The Baroness spy thriller series by Paul Kenyon and The Destroyer men's adventure pulp novels by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir.
In 1985, Bill Pearson edited and published Good Girls, a collection of artwork by himself, Vince Alascia, Richard Bassford, John Beatty, Stan Drake, Brad W. Foster, Frank Frazetta, Frank Godwin, V. T. Hamlin Roy Krenkel, Bob McLeod, Ed Paschke, Willy Pogany, Trina Robbins, Wally Wood, Mike Zeck and others. [9]
From 1990–2001, AC Comics published 19 issues of Pearson's Good Girl Art Quarterly (incorporating several issues of Good Girl Comics), featuring a mixture of photos and new comics with reprints of vintage stories. [10] [11] Other artists in the series include Nina Albright, Dick Ayers, Frank Bolle, Gill Fox, Jack Kamen, Bob Lubbers, Pete Morisi, and Bob Powell.
Neal Adams was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. During his career, Adams co-created the characters John Stewart, Man-Bat, and Ra's al Ghul for DC Comics.
Ronald Joseph Goulart (; was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, widely known for his work on EC Comics's titles such as Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and MAD Magazine from its inception in 1952 until 1964, as well as for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and work for Warren Publishing's Creepy. He drew a few early issues of Marvel's Daredevil and established the title character's distinctive red costume. Wood created and owned the long-running characters Sally Forth and Cannon.
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Xero was a fanzine edited and published by Dick Lupoff, Pat Lupoff and Bhob Stewart from 1960 to 1963, winning a Hugo Award in the latter year. With science fiction and comic books as the core subjects, Xero also featured essays, satire, articles, poetry, artwork and cartoons on a wide range of other topics, material later collected into two hardcover books.
witzend, published on an irregular schedule spanning decades, is an underground comic showcasing contributions by comic book professionals, leading illustrators and new artists. witzend was launched in 1966 by the writer-artist Wally Wood, who handed the reins to Bill Pearson from 1968 to 1985. The title was printed in lower-case.
Leonard Starr was an American cartoonist, comic book artist, and advertising artist, best known for creating the newspaper comic strip On Stage and reviving Little Orphan Annie.
William Pearson, known professionally as Bill Pearson, is an American novelist, publisher, editor, artist, comic book scripter and letterer, notable as the editor-publisher of his own graphic story publication, witzend.
Earle K. Bergey was an American artist and illustrator who painted cover art for thousands of pulp fiction magazines and paperback books. One of the most prolific pulp fiction artists of the 20th century, Bergey is recognized for creating, at the height of his career in 1948, the iconic cover of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) for Popular Library.
The catch-all term adult comics typically denotes comic books, comic magazines, comic strips or graphic novels that are marketed either mainly or strictly towards adult readers. This can be because they contain material that could be considered thematically inappropriate for children, including vulgarity, morally questionable actions, disturbing imagery, and sexually explicit material.
Ralph Reese is an American artist who has illustrated for books, magazines, trading cards, comic books and comic strips, including a year drawing the Flash Gordon strip for King Features. Prolific from the 1960s to the 1990s, he is best known for his collaboration with Byron Preiss on the continuing feature "One Year Affair", serialized in the satiric magazine National Lampoon from 1973 to 1975 and then collected into a 1976 book.
Richard Bassford is an American illustrator who has worked in both advertising and comic books.
The Funnies is the name of two American publications from Dell Publishing, the first of these a seminal 1920s precursor of comic books, and the second a standard 1930s comic book.
Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister. By the late 1930s, the publisher was Thurman T. Scott. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Planet Comics was a science fiction comic book title published by Fiction House from January 1940 to Winter 1953. It was the first comic book dedicated wholly to science fiction. Like most of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories. Like the magazine before it, Planet Comics features space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who are quick with their "ray pistols" and always running into gorgeous women who need rescuing from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.
Famous Funnies is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955 with two precursor one-shots appearing in 1933–1934. Published by Eastern Color Printing, Famous Funnies is considered by popular culture historians as the first true American comic book, following seminal precursors.
William Hess Ward, was an American cartoonist notable as a good girl artist and creator of the risqué comics character Torchy.
The Comic and Fantasy Art Amateur Press Association (CFA-APA) was founded in 1985 by Roger Hill. Its membership consists of knowledgeable fans, creators, and collectors of comic and fantasy art who write about various subjects related to those genres. The group self-publishes approximately three times a year and each issue has a theme relating to a specific creator or subject. Currently, membership is limited to 40 persons at any one time and circulation is limited to 55 issues, making the publication itself highly collectible.
Harry Shorten (1914–1991) was an American writer, editor, and book publisher best known for the syndicated gag cartoon There Oughta Be a Law!, as well as his work with Archie Comics, and his long association with Archie's publishers Louis Silberkleit and John L. Goldwater. From the late 1950s until his 1982 retirement, Shorten was a book publisher, overseeing such companies as Leisure Books, Midwood Books, Midwood-Tower Publications, Belmont Tower, and Roband Publications.
The Steranko History of Comics is a multi-volume history of American comic books written by cartoonist and comics historian Jim Steranko. Originally planned as a six-volume series, only two volumes were ever produced, which were respectively published in 1970 and 1972 by Steranko's publishing imprint Supergraphics. Combining elements of art history, oral history, and personal anecdote, the series is sourced from firsthand interactions with multiple influential figures in early comics, notably Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Will Eisner, and Jack Kirby. The Steranko History of Comics has been described as the first piece of cultural analysis on American comic books, and was awarded the Shazam Award for Outstanding Achievement by an Individual in 1970.
Media related to Good girl art at Wikimedia Commons
