Jesse Santos was born in Teresa, Rizal, the Philippines, and began drawing professionally at the age of 14.
[2] His other influences include Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, Jack Kirby, Alex Raymond, and Tony Velasquez.
[1] He moved to the United States in 1969 and began working for Western Publishing's line of Gold Key Comics after a chance meeting with editors Chase Craig and Del Connell.
[5] That same year, Santos and writer Donald F. Glut co-created Dagar the Invincible[7] and Tragg and the Sky Gods.
[9] Santos received an offer from Marvel Comics to work on their Conan the Barbarian series, but turned it down.