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Gus Ricca's Comic Artist Nightmare for Punch Comics #9, Up for Auction

Gus Ricca's nightmare vision of a comic artist being destroyed by his own work is just one example of his interpretive approach to comic horror.

Published Mon, 21 Oct 2024 13:42:09 -0500

by Mark Seifert

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Article Summary

Explore Gus Ricca's iconic art in Punch Comics #9, showcasing a chilling vision of artist vs. creation.
Discover Ricca's influence on 1940s comic horror, setting trends for the Pre-Code era.
Uncover Ricca's symbolic cover work, from Dynamic Comics to Punch, blending art with story themes.
Learn about Gus Ricca's role as art director at Chesler, shaping fellow artists like Paul Gatusso.

We've discussed underappreciated artist Gus Ricca several times here in recent years, but it's also worth pointing out that he played a formative role in shaping the direction that comic book horror would subsequently take. The late-1940s horror boom, and what collectors consider the Pre-Code era hadn't started yet when Ricca was creating some absolutely wild and scary covers for Chesler.

Punch Comics #9 (Chesler, 1944) featuring cover by Gus Ricca.

Ricca was an accomplished magazine and book cover artist and newspaper illustrator long before he came to work in comics for Harry A. Chesler. He was also Chesler's art director for a period in the mid-1940s. He often took a symbolic, interpretive approach to the subjects of his cover work, as can be seen on his covers for the likes of Liberty Magazine, The Century Co., What's on the Air, and Colliers among others. It's also apparent that Ricca's approach was influential on fellow Chesler artist Paul Gatusso.

Figuring out Ricca's intentions for his comic book covers is a lot of the fun here. One classic example is his iconic Dynamic Comics #11 cover, which, as it turns out, features the characters from the Echo interior story and is symbolic of the plot there. His intense Dynamic Comics #8 cover is a particularly gruesome take on the Dynamic Man story of that issue. Ricca and his fellow Chesler artists are the victims of the horror of the Punch #13 cover. And perhaps similarly, his amazing Punch Comics #9 cover depicts a comic book artist becoming the victim of his own work as he sits at his drawing board. No help is coming because the phone cord has been cut.

That Punch Comics #9 cover might be one of his best and most interesting, and that is saying something. Always in demand in any grade, there's a CGC FR 1.0 copy of Punch Comics #9 (Chesler, 1944) up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.