In 2002 while I was at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, I was meditating a lot at the time and really into James Jarvis’ work at the time – my dad had brought me an in-flight magazine with his ‘World of Pain’ illustration on the front cover and inside – and he drew one image of himself in his room, which I loved:
So, I put pen to paper and what came out was ‘Mike’s Universe’ – a cartoon version of me.
At Rhodes we were doing a Photoshop module, and I completely took to it – scanning my images in and digitally colouring them. It was the springboard that got me started with digital art, and I spent a lot of time alone in the computer lab trying to figure out how Photoshop worked. So, I drew some pics of daily life things and digitally coloured them, which you can see above.
Over the years I’ve done more autobiographical Mike’s Universe comics, trying to draw as much from real life as possible. Below is my old studio, where I had an iMac, my Adam monitors and sub, my little Wacom Cintiq… it’s a nice reminder of moments in time. I can even remember those Paladin shoes, Nike cap, water bottle etc.
I guess I made a couple of these little books and still have some.
