The second of three children, Cho was born in 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.
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. He works with one assistant named Mara Rose. She consults with convention comic fans and has started recoloring Liberty Meadows Sunday strips.
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, Marvel plans to release in 2008 a hardcover collection, which will contain the uncensored artwork.
Frank Cho pencilled issues 14 and 15 of The 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.
His artistic style is generally detailed and realistic, but he 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.
As of 2007, Cho lives in Elkridge, Maryland. 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.
In October 2008, he started drawing half of Hulk with issue #7.
Starting 2009 he will be drawing New Ultimates written by Jeph Loeb.
