Benjamin Henry Day, Jr. was an illustrator and printer, he contributed to Mark Twain’s semi-autobiographical traveling journey, “A Tramp Abroad,” published over 100 years ago, in 1880.
Known mainly for his invention of the Ben-Day dot printing process, which consists of small dots spaced at different intervals to achieve certain effects, colors and illusions. Ben-Day dots were used in the pulp comics of the 1950’s and 1960’s as they were an inexpensive method for providing shading, secondary color and most famously, flesh tones.
Roy Lichtenstein is the artist most associated with Ben-Day dots, as his work highlighted the coloring technique by enlarging the dots to enormous levels, highlighting not only pop culture trends at the time but providing commentary to the back lash against the rise of advertising in that era.
His most popular work, Whaam, illustrates his technique (click for higher resolution):
