Michel Mulipola

Mulipola is a New Zealand born Samoan raised in Mangere, South Auckland.[10] His Samoan heritage traces back to the villages of Lefaga and Vaimoso,[10] with the Mulipola name hailing from Manono. He has strong familial ties to the Mau Movement with his Great-Grandfather Mata'utia Karauna Solomona having been the secretary for the Mau Movement as well as a musician.[5] Born into a strong musical family, he gravitated more toward visual art from an age as young as four years old.[5] At five years old, he discovered his uncle's collection of classic superhero comic books, which is the touchstone for Mulipola's art today.[3] A few years later, he would develop the same affinity for Professional Wrestling through watching the WWE and WCW as a child. His love of superhero comic book characters and storytelling within comics found its physical reality in Professional Wrestling.[3] He connected the similarities between comic book storytelling and professional wrestling – the bold colours, larger than life characters, explosive moments – very quickly with passion.[3]

Throughout his teen years Mulipola attended Onehunga High School.[11] He realised as his love for the comic book artform grew as well as his artistic skill that there was no place in New Zealand at the time that taught the skills required to become a professional comic book artist.[12] He taught himself and has refined and deepened his craft independently since.[12]

Mulipola, being a self-trained artist, has had a rich and unique artistic journey. His love for comics and the art form led him to work at and help establish Arkham City Comics in Onehunga where he met the owner and longtime friend Jeremy Bishop.[13] In 2004 after Bishop saw the need to display and publish these pieces of original comic art people would share with him in the store.[13] Bishop developed Dealer Man Comics to publish, display and sell local art in his comic book store.[14] Bishop created an anthology comic strip series called New Ground[14] to house all of this local art. Mulipola was among the artists who were featured in the 2004 publication of the anthology. This was Mulipola's first published comic work.[4]

Mulipola continued to create comics for this anthology from 2004 to 2008.[4] During that time he won The Gibson Award for Best New Zealand Comic Book Artist 2006.[3] The following year Mulipola would continue to create comics strips and be an invited guest artist for a comic Knuckles the Malevolent Nun: She Might Get Rather Crude#1 written by Cornelius Stone.[15] He also was a storyboard artist for advertisements with prominent New Zealand brands Memphis Meltdown[16] and Waikato Draught Beer during this time.[4]

A hearty fan of Professional Wrestling already, Mulipola illustrated a comic strip in 2008 for Impact Pro Wrestling.[4] Driven by his longtime love of the sport and longtime love of comics he illustrated himself as a Professional Wrestler and named his persona "Kid Liger".[17] Inspired by this he happened to see that the Pro-Wrestling organisation had tryouts coming up.[17] Mulipola entered himself in having no previous experience. He discovered a talent for the sport and defined his character as a villain, dropping the "Kid" from his name.[17]

Mulipola has been wrestling as the Villainous Liger with Impact Pro Wrestling in Auckland for 18 years and continues to this day.[4] In 2016 he participated in the Heavy Weight New Zealand Championship through Impact Pro Wrestling, partnering with King Haku to become New Zealand's Pro-Wrestling Tag-Team Heavy-Weight Champions.[18] Mulipola also designed the Heavy-Weight Championship Winners' belt for this event.[4]

Winner of the V Energy Drink Pimp My Life Competition and the $10,000 reward. An already-established comic artist Mulipola used his prize money to take him and a friend to San Diego Comic-Con.[19] He took a portfolio of his work to engage and share with the international community of comic book artists at the convention.[19] There, he was given positive affirmations on his work by the professionals at the DC Comics Booth as well as made valuable connections with the WWE.[19]

There he introduced himself to Micheal Kingston, the author of Headlocked who was impressed with Mulipola's artistic skill as well as his deep respect and first-hand experience in Pro-Wrestling.[19] They began collaborating on Headlocked in 2010 and continue to release issues of the comic book to this day.[4] They have garnered praise from WWE and TNR; Legends including Donovan Dijak, Trent Seven, Ken Anderson, The Addiction, Gangrel, MVP, Cody Rhodes, Hurricane, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Mick Foley, Ric Flair and many others have contributed art or stories to the Headlocked comic book series.[20]

In 2017 Mulipola was commissioned by WWE through BOOM! Studios to illustrate their 13th issue of a comic book series focusing on different WWE legends.[21] The 13th issue being centered around Samoa Joe. A Samoan comic book artist and pro-wrestler illustrating the iconic Samoan Pro-Wrestler.[21]

Mulipola also lent his talents to Pasifika clothing brands. In collaborations with Overstayer Clothing, Juggernaut Clothing (2008) and Nesian Clothing (2012.)[4]

Through his art, Mulipola has been a consistent illustrator for the WWE (2017–2019) and Marvel studios (2017–2021) illustrating trading cards, comics, and special edition stories.[4][22] He has done various works of promotional art, ad campaigns, and poster art for advertisement, film production, established media, and gaming companies including Colenso BBD (2007), SKY TV (2015), SmokeFree RockQuest (2019), BMC Productions (2020), 2K Games ANZ (2020) and Clemenger BBDO (2021).[4]

Mulipola is an active member of his community and contributes to New Zealand's education system through illustrating empowering and educational books for the country's large and marganlised Pasifika community.[23] His books celebrate and educate the youth about the Pacific, these are accessible in schools across the country.[23] These are published through Reading Warrior (2015–2018) and Lift Education (2015–2021). Titles of these books include Samoan Heroes, Tongan Heroes, Cook Island Heroes, Once a Panther, Fanene Peter Maivia: Son of Samoa and many more.[23][4] In 2020 he collaborated with Nafanuatele Lafitaga Mafaufau and her course Nafanua Communications and Culture Classes to create and publish the first ever comic series entirely in Gagana Samoa, "O le Aiga".[24][4][25]

Mulipola is a role model for the Duffy Books in Homes Charitable Foundation.[8] He has been involved with them since 2015 to the present day.[4] Visiting schools and inspiring and educating our younger generations with his expertise, experience, and generous spirit.[8]

In 2020 Mulipola was a recipient of Tautai FALE-ship home residency.[10]

Mulipola is currently contracted by Walt Disney Animation Studios as a storyboard artist and cultural consultant on an upcoming project.[9]

• 2006 – Gibson Award for Best New Zealand Comic Book Artist
• 2010 – Winner of V Energy Drink's Pimp My Life Competition
• 2011 – Top 25 finalists for the Stan Lee Foundation 'Create a Superhero' competition
• 2013 – Grand Finalist for Secret Walls X Aotearoa Live Art battles
• 2016 – Storylines Notable Book Award for Samoan Heroes with author David Riley[26]
• 2016 – Heavy-Weight Tag-Team Champion of New Zealand with teammate King Haku
• 2018 – Winner of the Zowie BenQ Tekken 7 Ladder tournament at EVO2018
• 2020 – Recipient of the Tautai FALE-ship home residency

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