Torchy (comics)


Torchy is a comic strip and, primarily, a series of comic books featuring the ingenue Torchy Todd, created by the American "good girl art" cartoonist Bill Ward during 1944. The character was ranked 97th of the 2011 Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.

Publication history

After Bill Ward's drafting into the World War II military, the artist created the tall, blond, busty ingenue Torchy Todd for the base newspaper of Brooklyn's Fort Hamilton, where Ward was deployed. The comic strip in which she featured soon became syndicated to other Army newspapers worldwide.
Torchy made her comic-book debut as main character of a backup feature of Quality Comics' Doll Man #8. Her feature was later published in all but two issues through #30, resuming in #35 through #47, as well as in Modern Comics #53-102. A solo series, Torchy, had six issues, some with art by Gill Fox.
Several Torchy stories, including some Fort Hamilton comic strips, were reprinted in Innovation Comics' 100-page, squarebound trade paperback Bill Ward's Torchy, The Blonde Bombshell #1. Others have been reprinted in The Betty Pages #1 ; AC Comics anthology Good Girl Art Quarterly #1, #10, #11, and #14, and in AC's America's Greatest Comics #5. Comic Images released a set of Torchy trading cards in 1994.
Ward drew an original cover featuring Torchy for Robert M. Overstreet's annual book The Comic Book Price Guide.

Character biography

Torchy Todd is a ditsy but goodhearted young blond woman who frequently finds herself in humorous, mildly risqué encounters with lustful men.