Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ward grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where his father was an executive with the United Fruit Company.[1]


Torchy #5 (July 1950). Cover art by Ward.
Still rooming at his college fraternity house, he received a call from Pratt regarding another job, assisting comic book artist Jack Binder. He joined Binder's small art studio, a "packager" that supplied outsourced comics pages to fledgling comic-book publishers, where Pete Riss was an assistant. The studio was relocating from The Bronx to Ridgewood, New Jersey at the time, to the upstairs loft of a barn; there, Binder drew layouts for Fawcett Comics stories, for which Riss penciled and inked figures and Ward drew the backgrounds. Features included "Mister Scarlet and Pinky", "Bulletman", "Ibis the Invincible", "Captain Battle", the "Black Owl", and the adapted pulp magazine features "Doc Savage" and "The Shadow". The studio grew to approximately 30 artists, with Ken Bald as art director.
Ward's first credited works are writing and drawing an episode each of the two-page humor feature "Private Ward" in Fawcett's Spy Smasher #2 (Winter 1941) and Bulletman #3 (January 14, 1942), published closely to each other.
Shortly thereafter, Quality Comics editor George Brenner hired Ward to write and pencil the hit World War II aviator feature "Blackhawk"; Ward confirmably did Military Comics #30-31 (JulyΓÇôAugust 1944), with the next several issues generally but unconfirmably credited to Al Bryant.[2]
Torchy[edit]
Torchy made her comic-book debut as star of a backup feature in Quality Comics' Doll Man #8 (Spring 1946), and continued in all but three issues through #28 (May 1950), as well as in Modern Comics #53-89 (September 1946 - September 1949). A solo series, Torchy, ran six issues (November 1949 - September 1950).
Several Torchy stories, including some Fort Hamilton strips, were reprinted in Innovation Comics' 100-page, squarebound comic book Bill Ward's Torchy, The Blonde Bombshell #1 (January 1992). Others have been reprinted in fy Pages #1 (1987); AC Comics anthology Good Girl Art Quarterly #1 (Summer 1990), #10 (Fall 1992), #11 (Winter 1993), and #14 (Winter 1994), and in AC's America's Greatest Comics #5 (circa 2003). Comic Images released a set of Torchy trading cards in 1994.[3]
Ward drew an original cover featuring Torchy for Robert M. Overstreet's annual book The Comic Book Price Guide (#8, 1978).