Mr. T and Me: About

About Mike Essl

I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974. I grew up in front of the TV.  I remember mornings filled with cartoons and afternoons filled with re-runs of Adam West as Batman. At night it was CHiPs, Dukes of Hazard, and of course, The A-Team. I loved the A-Team and Mr. T. I also loved that Mr. T always tried to keep it real for the kids. His “Just Say No” messages really spooked me into never trying drugs. Ever. Crazy I know.

I did have some T stuff when I was a kid, but I was by no means crazy about it like I am now. In 1993, my love for T came rushing back when Now Comics released “Mr. T and the T Force.” The comic was terrible, probably one of the worst comics ever published, but it came with these great collector cards and I had to have all of them! A few years later I was on this little street in Paris and came across a tiny toy store. In the window, mixed in with the Smurf figures, was a small plastic Mr. T figure. Trying to explain to the French shop keep which figure I wanted was next to impossible. After that experience I had Mr. T on the brain and began buying everything I could find. Armed with a disposable dot-com salary I started muscling my way into all the T auctions on eBay, which lead to meeting Greg and then to the creation of this site.

In the non Mr. T related world I am a freelance Graphic Designer specializing in doing stuff for the web. I am a full-time professor of Graphic Design at The Cooper Union, and do some tech/design stuff for The Smoking Gun.