The advertising illustration of Gill Fox (1915-2004) was "nearly ubiquitous on pizza boxes in the 1980's" and, to my delight, still makes the occasional appearance today. This may not have been Fox's first pizzaiolo; his obituary describes a winking chef making an A-OK, a gesture to which some cultures have assigned vulgar meanings. It's possible that the artwork shown here was redrawn to be more universally palatable.
Of all his work, Fox was reportedly proudest of his political cartoons, which won him two Pulitzer nominations. Early in his career, however, he garnered early fame during the Golden Age of Comics. Compared with his two-tone pizza artwork, Fox's covers during this period were laboriously colored.
