He was born on January 1, 1956 in Bosnia. He is a comic book artist based in New York City. He graduated from the Zagreb School of Applied Arts. He published his first works in 1973 and since then he publishes comics and illustrations in magazines such as “Omladinski Tjednik”, “Modra Lasta”, “Tina”, “Pitanja and Start” and since 1976 he became art and comics editor of the student magazine "Polet". It was then that he organized an informal organization of comic creators “Novi kvadrat” (The New Square), which has been widely associated with the “Novi val” music movement in Zagreb. That connection also made Ilic design album covers for some of the most prominent Yugoslav bands of the time, such as “Bijelo Dugme”, “U Skripcu”, “Prljavo Kazaliste”, “Parni Valjak”, “Azra”, “Film” and many others and even wrote the lyrics for the song Covjek za sutra. In addition, he designed covers for the Croatian political weekly “Danas”, as well as posters for theaters like “Teatar & TD” and posters for movies. In 1995 he founded “Mirko Ilic Corp.”, a studio for 3D computer graphic design and movie titles. In 1998, he created the main sequence of the romantic comedy "You've Got Mail" with Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard. Since 1999, Ilic has been a professor at the School of Visual Arts of its Master's program in Illustration. In 2015, 38 pieces of his artwork were included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).