The Enigma that was Vic Prezio

Victor Prezio has a biography that could best be describes as ‘minimalist’

A prolific and dynamic pulp artists who is best known for his work illustrating for Men’s magazines such as Adventure Magazine, True Adventures and All Man Magazine, his eye-popping covers for those magazines and paperback covers cemented his reputation as a versatile artist who could deliver work that was bound to get people’s attention.

But as for the man himself all that’s really known is that he was born in 1924 and died in 1976 at the age of 52.

He was born in the Bronx, New York. He was the third of four children. His father was a store clerk who’d come to America from Italy. He attended college for a year before finding a job with Street & Smith, the famous publisher of pulps, dime novels and comic books. Vic worked as an illustrator.

He registered for the draft on June 30, 1942 just after he turned 18. He enlisted February 18, 1943 and served in Europe. He was discharged on December 16, 1945.

After that he went back to work as an illustrator. He married Josephine Tondo on September 26, 1952. Little else is known about his personal life, but he went on to become one of the most prolific and underrated pulp magazine and dime novel cover illustrators of the post WWII era.

But hold up.

According to a writer named Cathy Hurst, Victor Prezio was one of the men who served in the Ghost Army.

The Ghost Army was a World War II deception unit. About half of this unit was composed of the men of the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, artists recruited from art schools, art jobs, and ad agencies, mostly in New York, Philadelphia, and the surrounding areas.

Vic Prezio was one of these men. He served in the European theatre during the war, helping to fool the Nazis with inflatable tanks and sound recordings of moving armies that were blasted from trucks using wire recording devices.

Imagine that? Prezio spent his time during the war creating illusions to fool the enemy, then returned to civilian life to continue to create illusions.

How must he have felt, painting those lurid and sometimes salacious illustrations for Men’s magazines, knowing that he had done much the same thing in the service of his country?

Prezio painted many covers for men’s adventure magazines. He worked for Dell, Gold Key, and Warren Publishing, among others. He created works with buxom, scantily clad women and dashing heroes, but also with science fiction and western themes. He also illustrated children’s books.

Many of Prezio’s originals have come up for auction in the last couple of years. A record was set for the sale of his art when his gouache on board piece “Corpses are My Business,” a March 1961 cover illustration for Battle Cry magazine, sold for $9,375 at auction in Dallas on April 30, 2021.

Vic died on December 24, 1976 and is interred at Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, NY.