Weird-Ohs
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009One of my favourite artists is Bill Campbell. Quite a strange but common name, you might think it was just plain weird. Not too many people remember Campbell’s work, but I remember the resurrection of his work in the form of a 3D animation show on YTV (see below).
Bill Campbell is best known for his work on HAWK Model box covers in 1963. Such a creative genius when blending a 1952 Ford Pick-up, that’s “Tricked-out to the tits” with a monster behind the wheel. From what I recall reading on the Net, Bill was born to draw. Of course he started off using watercolors. But Bill’s path took quite a different turn and he was left to look for work. Bill finally landed a gig where he produced brochures and color art pages for Sears and Blomgren Brothers.
1943. Bill was inducted into the army, of course that didn’t stop Bill from drawing. During a leave from the service he got married, she gave birth to a baby girl months later, and Bill continued the fight. Afterwards Bill settled back into civilian life…whew…then got to work on a new portfolio. Eventually a little company called Hawk put out a call for artist. A few artists turned down the offer, but somebody suggested Bill Campbell.
He signed with the Hawk Company and stared cranking out wicked cool model box covers for all kinds of aircrafts, trains, cars, the works! While at Hawk, Bill met some interesting people. One of which was a man names John Andrews who was an already established designer. They had some pretty radical ideas, good thing that the Hawk company was a risk taker. The two paired up and turned out some of the most insane work of polystyrene you’ve ever seen! “39 Horrible Parts of Fine Molded Polystyrene”. I believe Bill Campbell and John Andrews work superseded “Big-Daddy” Roth’s work…Rat Fink…moving on! The collection of that particular work I’m referring too was ‘The Weird-Ohs’, which the 3D animation show went by the same name. He had a long stint with Hawk, as well as freelancing himself out to numerous other studios before he decided to retire. He would be 90 this year…
Live free, be weird and speak out!