Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert McGinnis🎨, American illustrator, was raised in Wyoming, Ohio. McGinnis🎨 became an apprentice at Walt Disney studios, then studied fine art at Ohio State University.
After wartime service in the Merchant Marine he entered advertising and a chance meeting with Mitchell Hooks in 1958 led him to be introduced to Dell Publishing began a career drawing a variety of paperback covers for books written by such authors as Donald Westlake, Edward S. Aarons, Erle Stanley Gardner, Richard S. Prather, and the Michael Shayne and Carter Brown series.