His parents Abraham Check and Ida Applebaum-Check were Polish immigrants who had come to the United States in 1926.
By 1940 he was living in Coney Island, Brooklyn where he befriended Frank Frazetta with whom he would collaborate in comic books a decade later.
In 1948 Check graduated from the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan, and the following year he broke into comic books, working with Wally Wood, as well as on solo assignments.
His work appeared in EC's New Trend titles: Crime SuspenStories, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror and Weird Science.
He drew for several Marvel Comics series, including Weird Wonder Tales, Battle Action, Journey into Unknown Worlds.