Born in New York City in 1927 it was Mike's dream to become an animator for walt Dsiney Studios, but when his parents wouldn't let him move to California, he decided to enter the comics industry.
He met his good friend later collaborator Ross Andru while attending the Music and Art High School in Manhattan. After graduation he was drafted into the army where he illustrated comics and posters for the armed services.
He went to work at Fiction House and then DC after being demobilized, and then in the early fifties he and Andru opened up their own studio producing comics for various publishers and then for their own company, Mike/Ross Publications. The team produced some of the wildest and horrifying comic covers of the period. During this period they continued to work at DC, particularly on the war series' and at Stndard Publishing, a company that produced horror comics almost as good as EC.
When the comic industry faltered after the Frederic Wertham witch hunt on comics, the collaborative duo discontinued their production studio and for the next 15 years, almost all of their work was at DC Comics.
The most memorable titles the duo worked on were the Star Spangled War Stories series with the dinosaur battles, a fabulous series of Wonder Woman issues and the fan favorite..Metal Men.
For a short period in the middle sixties at Marvel, where he inked numerous stories including several memorable issues of the Hulk in Tales to Astonish, under the alias of Mickey Demeo. Everyone remembers those great stories from TTA in the #60's.
In the early seventies, Sol Brodsky persuaded the team to jump ship to a new stsrtup company called Skywald publications. But the company didn't last. With poor properties and worse circulation, Skywald was soon forced in bankruptcy.
After this collapse, Mike went back Marvel and Ross went back to DC, ending the collaboration of over 25 years in the comics business.
At Marvel, Mike Esposito worked on the Spider-Man comic for several years and the comic strip as well. He also worked on numerous other titles under the pseudonym Joe Gaudioso. During this time Marvel & DC decided to team up their two most popular characters for a one shot comic book, Superman vs. Spider-Man. There was at first an attempt to have the team of Andru & Esposito work on the book, but scheduling made this impossible.
He worked as art director at Marvel for several years and finally Andru & Esposito collaborated on a Spider-Man graphic novel called Fear Itself which drew acclaim from fans.
In the eighties, Mike went to Archie to become art director, where he continues his career of fifty years in comics.
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* Ron Pussell, Incline Village, Nevada. It is in no way connected with the COMIC ART & GRAFFIX GALLERY, Virtual Museum and Encyclopedia, or Richard Halegua.
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