Born in Bow, London, Mick Anglo was educated at the Central Foundation School and John Cass Art School, both in London. On leaving school he freelanced in fashion and commercial art until 1939, and first drew cartoons for "SEAC", the official army newspaper for South East Asia Command in 1942, then for newspapers in Singapore in 1945. After completing his National Service, he became an author for a small publishing company, Martin & Reid, producing westerns, romance books and crime thrillers with titles such as "Guns & Gamblers", "My Gun Speaks For Me"/"Muscles For Hire" (1951), and "Broadway Glamour", under the pen-name Johnny Dekker. He also drew a small number of short humorous comic strips for the publisher John Matthew during 1946, and for two other companies, Rayburn and A. Solway in 1948. After illustrating the book jacket for one of his own novels, Martin and Reid suggested he developed strips for their comics line, and he worked on their comics imprint between 1948 and 1950; editing the line and writing and drawing western, adventure and science fiction strips and titles. He also produced a number of one-off stories contemporaneously with his Martin and Reid work for Paget Publications, one of the smaller British comics imprints of the day; producing short run, often single issue, titles containing a number of stories. Although contributing mainly short humor strips, Anglo's creations for Paget Publications included an early British superhero, Wonderman, who appeared for 24 issues in his own title from 1948 to 1951.