[3][4] He found inspiration in Depression-era comics such as Prince Valiant and Li'l Abner, and in the work of artists such as Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Loomis, Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta.

[4][7] Cho wrote and drew 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.

[5] During his final year in college, in 1994 or 1995, Cho received his first professional comic book assignment, doing short stories for Penthouse Comix with Al Gross and Mark Wheatley.

The trio conceived of a six-part "raunchy sci-fi fantasy romp" called The Body, centering on an intergalactic female merchant, Katy Wyndon, who can transfer her mind into any of her "wardrobe bodies", empty mindless vessels that she occupies to best suit her negotiations with the local alien races that she encounters while traveling the galaxy trading and seeking riches.

Writer Ed Brubaker, one of the original jurors and developers of the award, criticized that year's jury for their lack of support and acknowledgment of independent works, and for allowing self-nomination.

Brubaker also questioned whether the guidelines he and Expo board member Chris Oarr had developed for the Awards were provided to that year's judges.

Marvel Comics' then-senior editor Axel Alonso, who had been impressed by Liberty Meadows, approached Cho about revamping the third-string character Shanna the She-Devil, a scantily clad jungle lady who first appeared in the early 1970s, as a college-educated defender of wildlife and opponent of firearms.

Cho, seeing possibilities, recast Shanna in a seven-issue, 2005 miniseries as an Amazonian naïf, the product of a Nazi experiment with the power to kill dinosaurs with her bare hands but an unpredictable lack of morality.

[6] The miniseries was originally meant to feature uncensored nude drawings of the heroine, but Marvel later decided against this, and had Cho censor his already completed pages for the first five issues.

The "Lost World"–type story that comprises the first five issues is intended to evoke a "classic adventure feel", and is inspired by the Indiana Jones films and the pulp horror of H.P.

[14][15] In April the following year, Cho revisited the controversy by illustrating the character Cammy in the same type of pose on the cover of Udon Studios' Street Fighter Legends #1.

Cho drew the first four issues of the series, his final page of which represented the end of his 14-year exclusivity contract with Marvel.

At the time Cho was also writing and drawing another creator-owned book, World of Payne with his co-creator, Tom Sniegoski, for Flesk Publications.

World of Payne stars Lockwood Payne, a psychic private investigator, and modern day sorcerer from an ancient society of witches and wizards who with his urgent care expert friend Doctor Hurt, and the beautiful witch-in-training Michelle, find themselves embroiled in strange misadventures in the world of the occult.