Regarding the question I got about tattoo artists around the same time as Sailor Jerry (Norman Keith Collins)...
It was not uncommon to see members of the Navy tattooed heavily tattooed, especially after WWII, on the West Coast.
The Australian R.M. Reynolds is the tattoo artist who, along with "Sailor Jerry", influenced the majority of the tattoo world, well through the 1980s, and again with those who crave the "vintage" and "historical"-type tattoo designs. Both R.M. Reynolds and Norman Keith Collins were heavily influenced by the tattoo culture of South-East Asia, and throughout their career, would often take the designs of one another and make them their own. Ed Hardy and Rollo banks took over for "Sailor Jerry" in the United States, but in Australia and the rest of the world, R.M. Reynolds' designs had been so widely seen and copied, that his legacy was carried on without any one designated "heir".