Born in New York City, Kotzky studied at Pratt Institute and attended the Art Students League on a 1941 scholarship.
While still a student, he answered a newspaper ad for a comic book artist and worked in 1940 with Chad Grothkopf on features for National/DC Comics, including such characters as Johnny Quick, Sandman, Three Aces and Detective Chimp.
"[2] With Allen Saunders, he did a Philip Morris comic strip advertisement series, "Duke" Handy (which launched March 30, 1958,[3] and ran until September 14 of that year[4]) while also ghosting for newspaper strips (Steve Canyon, The Heart of Juliet Jones, Big Ben Bolt).
Kotzky, who drew and inked in a tight and crisp realistic style, was the artist of Apartment 3-G for more than 30 years.
Kotzky received the National Cartoonists Society Story Comic Strip Award for 1968 for his work on Apartment 3-G.