Bill Peckmann &Comic Art &Illustration &Rowland B. Wilson 09 Feb 2012 06:13 am
RBW – TVGuide
Bill Peckmann continues to open up his collection of Rowland Wilson artwork. These are illustrations he did for a couple of magazines, predominantly, TV Guide. Bill’s comments follow with the images.
1This is a self caricature, circa 1970.
2
When Rowland came back to NYC after his stint at Richard Williams in
1975, he did this mailer when he was at Phil Kimmelman & Associates.
3
Here are the first of the TV Guide spreads
4
Sadly, I should have craved/saved a lot more of Rowland’s TV Guide illustrations
than I did but alas, when you’re young and stupid you just assumed there would
always be a TV Guide and there would always be a RBW illustration in it.
5
6
7
8
9
A slight break in the RBW action to give then TV Guide art director, Jerry Allen,
kudos for using the great illustration and great cartoon talent that he did.
(Applause, applause!)
Here are a few of them.
10First Charles Saxon. (After seeing this illo, you have to
wonder what a Sesame Street book would have looked like if Saxon had
illustrated it. The characters wouldn’t have been 100% on model, but that
book would have been one of the most beautiful on the bookstore shelves!)
11
This is Bob Weber
12
This is a Jack Davis spot.
The following are 8 of Rowland’s illustrations for the second New England Life campaign.
13
This is for those of us old enough to remember -
Unfortunately with their second ad campaign New England Life switched from
selling life insurance to pushing financial planning and the gags lost a lot their edge.
Combine that with stifling “hands on” art direction they also lost a lot of Rowland’s
design sense. RBW didn’t have an easy time of it but he persevered.
14
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18
19
20
Even though Rowland did this New England Life illustration long before
he worked at Disney, I always felt it had a Disney charm about it, and
it was around this time that he was setting his sights to get a gig at
the mouse factory. It just didn’t happen right away.
21
For Popular Mechanics Magazine.
22
Logo design for animation studio.
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Tomorrow, a number of rough sketches for TV Guide spot illustrations.
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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann.
on 09 Feb 2012 at 10:06 am 1.Elliot Cowan said …
Not sure if it’s a mistake or simply unlabeled but #12 is, of course, Mr Jack Davis.
on 09 Feb 2012 at 7:31 pm 2.Tom Ruegger said …
Love Wilson’s work. Beautiful stuff.