Robert W. Richards was an American illustrator, journalist, and fine artist. Born in 1941 in a small town in Maine where dreaming was not encouraged, Robert W. Richards soon learned to live a private, interior, solitary life. He immersed himself in drawing an imaginary world of beautiful men and women Gary Cooper, Garbo, Dietrich, and Marilyn. At 16, he wrangled a full scholarship to the prestigious School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Too young to appreciate the academic discipline of the classical curriculum, Richards quit school and started doing advertising artwork. After moving to New York, he plunged into the world of fashion, sketching collections in Paris, Rome, Milan, and Los Angeles for three American newspapers and doing beauty illustrations for L’Oreal, Clairol, and Revlon. After many seasons in this fashion world, fatigue set in, and his long suppressed desire to draw men took over. It was then that a career in male erotica began. Mandate, Honcho, Torso, Stallion, Menall became home to his artwork throughout the 1970s and 1980s.