“The
Wonderful Women of Ward” – Video Documentary
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(From
a video review in “Bill Ward’s Bad Girls” No. 1” April 1994)
The full-color video documentary of Bill Ward’s fabulous career –
narrated by Bill Ward himself!
The Wonderful Women of Ward takes you on an incomparable journey
through the great artist’s career – from Torchy, to Captain Marvel Jr. and
Blackhawk, to Ward’s electrifyingly supercharged erotic panel cartoons from
the ‘40s, through the ‘70s!
**Reb’s
Notes on the “Ward” video…
I’ve always felt that most artists do not become
really famous
until after they’re gone. I knew Bill had achieved his fame – he often
mentioned his surprise at his large number of fans. It was like he couldn’t
believe it.
Being a magazine publisher and video producer, I asked Bill if he would
be interested in putting a video documentary together with me. His response was
pure excitement.
So I went to work. I started by sorting through thousands of pieces of
Bill’s work – many were originals in my collection that have never been
published anywhere. I narrowed it down to about 300 pieces of art from all time
periods. The oldest piece I have Bill drew when he was 8 years old. From there
into his WW II work, on through the decades.
I used two ¾” broadcast video cameras, A/B roll and a special effects
generator. I spent nearly 9 months putting the video portion together. Split
screens, scrolling captions, color overlay, posterization, some animation,
colorizing some pieces.
During this time I had Bill draw water color originals for all the credit
and titles, which I edited in.
Then I sent Bill the 60 minute video with no audio. He got a cassette
player, started the video playing, and narrated along with the video. He would
watch some of it, think about what he wanted to say, then rewind the video and
begin to narrate.
A couple weeks passed and the audio cassette arrived. I began to play it
and I freaked out. I could barely make out what he was saying. Sounded like it
was recorded in a washing machine.
So I called Bill and told him about the tape. He finally admitted that he
had a big jawbreaker in his mouth the entire time! (Bill was definitely not a
high-tech guy!) So he re-did it without the jawbreaker, and I’m sure the
stories and content of the second take was much better than the first.
Another friend of mine is an incredible musician, so I gave him a copy of
the tape and he created an original music score to match the content of the
video. And finally, after one year, “The Wonderful Women of Ward” was born!
Bill was thrilled with the results, and I was extremely proud that he
liked it so much. We both sold hundreds of copies. We traded – for each Conte
crayon original Bill sent to me, I sent him 9 videos. We both felt like bandits.
If you would like to obtain your own copy of “The Wonderful Women of
Ward”, please send your money order to:
Reb
Stout
PO Box 1416
Garden Grove, CA
92842-1416 U.S.A.
Cost
is $34.95
US/Canada postage add $6
Overseas Air Mail postage add $12
(Overseas customers please send International money order)