Frank Cho, born Duk Hyun Cho, is a Korean-American comic strip and comic book writer and illustrator, known for his series Liberty Meadows, as well as for books such as Shanna the She-Devil, Mighty Avengers and Hulk for Marvel Comics, and Jungle Girl for Dynamite Entertainment. The artist is noted for his figure drawing, precision lines, and depiction of well-endowed women.
The second of three children, Cho was born near Seoul, Korea in 1971, but moved to the United States at the age of six, and was raised in Beltsville, Maryland. After graduating from High Point High School in 1990, he attended Prince George's Community College and was offered a scholarship to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, which he declined because he disliked the school's academic focus. Cho ended up transferring to the University of Maryland School of Nursing, which he says was his parents' idea. Cho ultimately graduated with a B.S. in Nursing in 1996.
While at the University of Maryland, Cho met his first wife, Cari, marrying in 1999. The two have two daughters, Emily and Samantha. Cho separated and was divorced by 2009. Cho has been dating Mara Herning, his former intern, since his separation.
Cho received no formal training as an artist. He got his start writing and drawing a cartoon strip called "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" in the weekly Prince George's Community College Newspaper "The Owl" where he was also comics editor. He then started drawing the daily strip University2 for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduation, Cho adapted elements of this work for use in a professionally syndicated strip, Liberty Meadows. Cho signed a fifteen-year contract with Creators Syndicate, which he later realized was unusually long and, perhaps jokingly, blamed on having a bad lawyer. Growing tired of newspaper censorship, Cho severed his contract with Creators Syndicate, and ultimately converted Liberty Meadows to a monthly publication.Cho has also drawn a wide variety of other professional material, including a new version of Shanna the She-Devil in 2005 for Marvel Comics. His Shanna series was originally meant to feature "mature" artwork, including nude drawings of the heroine, but Marvel later decided to have Cho censor his already completed pages for the first five issues, and the 7-issue series did not feature nudity. However, Cho has indicated on his website that Marvel plans to release in a hardcover collection under its MAX imprint, which will contain the uncensored artwork.
Frank Cho pencilled issues 14 and 15 of New Avengers for Marvel Comics. These issues include trademark Cho-isms; the character of Wolverine is depicted wearing a t-shirt that bears the logo "Beltsville", and many Liberty Meadows characters make cameo appearances.
Cho frequently makes use of absurd or anachronistic elements in his work, such as dinosaurs, pin-up girls, and Pogo-style anthropomorphic animals. He also enjoys breaking the fourth wall, frequently inserting himself into his work in the guise of a talking chimpanzee, and on several occasions he has drawn strips that feature his characters interacting with other popular syndicated features (for example, a character stuck in a pipe being ejected into a nearby panel apparently taken from Blondie). The Liberty Meadows denizens have found also themselves sharing their strip with Calvin and Hobbes, Li'l Abner, Hägar the Horrible, Dilbert and Cathy, among others.
He illustrated the first six issues Marvel Comics' 2007 relaunch of Mighty Avengers with writer Brian Bendis. He is the plotter and cover artist of Dynamite Entertainment's Jungle Girl.
Cho drew issues 7-9 of Hulk, which were published in 2009.
