Mike Esposito was born in New York City, New York, with a musician father who in 1928 fronted the band Ralph Perry and His Orchestra, and later was a grocer.Esposito, Best, p. 14 Esposito graduated from The High School of Music & Art, then in Harlem, where one of his classmates and friends was future comics artist Ross Andru,Esposito, Mike, in Additional, June 16, 2012. with whom he would collaborate on flip-book animation. One early artistic influence was Milt Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, while another was Lev Gleason Publications crime comics artist George Tuska, of whom he said,
