Mi Gu (1918-1986) was born in Haining, Zhejiang Province. He entered the Hangzhou National Art School in 1934 and later transferred to the Shanghai Art School, where he started drawing cartoons. In 1938, he went to Yan'an, where he entered the Art Department of the Lu Xun Art and Literature Academy (Lu Yi, 鲁艺). At that time, he continued making cartoons and did research on the local popular art forms of Northern Shaanxi. In 1942, he became head of the Art Group of the Cultural Work Corps of the General Office of the New Fourth Army in Northern Jiangsu. At the beginning of the War of Liberation, Mi was in Shanghai, where he contributed numerous political cartoons directed against the Guomindang and reactionary forces to various newspapers and journals.

In 1947, Mi moved to Hong Kong, where he headed the bi-weekly cartoon section of the Wen Wei Po (文汇报); while in Hong Kong, he published numerous topical cartoons on national and international events in various Chinese and foreign language newpapers and magazines. He returned to China in July 1949 to become head of the Art section of the Liberation Daily (Jiefang ribao, 解放日报) published in Shanghai. In 1950, he founded the monthly journal Cartoons (Manhua, 漫画). In the mid-1950s, he was active with the cartoonist Hua Junwu in a campaign against the writer and critic Hu Feng. From 1962 on, Mi headed the Research Department of the China Art Gallery.