Thursday, March 6, 2014

Reform School Art!


Here's a bit of slightly forbidden fun from Bill Ward. It's his own personal take on the classic cover art for Avon's 1951 comic Reform School Girl!. Ward transformed the iconic comic cover into a very clever ad for a bookstore, a store I'd love to check out.


After doing a bit of internet research I learned that vintage photo cover had a curious origin itself. It first appeared on the comic but on a paperback


This cover is for the novel House of Fury by Felice Swados published by Avon in its paperback line. It's a very tough dame here, simultaneously tugging at her stocking and sucking a fag. That cigarette dangling precariously from her ruby lips speaks volumes about the nature of this corrupted chick, not someone to cross in the slam or out.



And here are couple of other comics for the same novel, with its original title. Both have their own pulp rooted merits. One offers a young woman appealing to heaven through prayer with her very bars forming a makeshift shadowy cross on the wall behind, while the other gives us an enticing caged and hard-bitten dame who fears neither man nor god.

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8 comments:

  1. that last one is my new favourite Robert Maguire painting! what a cracker!

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    1. I was so Ward centric when I made this post that I didn't realize this was a Robert McGuire painting. Good catch! Thanks.

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  2. I didn't realize until now you were from the U.K., Rip. The term "sucking a fag" doesn't mean quite the same thing over here.
    Kinda like 'The Last Airbender."

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    1. Rip's from the midwest? Arent you?

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    2. Right-o! I live the Northern part of Kentucky and for the record I was trying to evoke that British slang for the post for the double entendre effect. I'll have to look up "last airbender" now.

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  3. Those are my kinda gals. That's how I met my wife!

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  4. Canadian model and ice skating star Marty Collins posed for the cover of Reform School Girl. Her father sued the publisher for defamation and won.

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