Michel Mulipola (born 1981) is a comic book artist and trained professional wrestler of Samoan descent who lives in South Auckland, New Zealand.[1][2][3] He is more commonly known by his artist pseudonym Bloody Samoan[4] or as his supervillain pro-wrestling character Liger.[5] For his comic artist work Mulipola was awarded the Gibson Award for Best New Zealand Comic Book Artist (2006), Winner of V Energy Drinks Pimp My Life competition (2010) and awarded Storylines Notable Book Award for the book Samoan Heroes with author David Riley (2016). He has also provided illustrations consistently over the years for Lift Education, Upper Deck, BOOM! Studios and Reading Warriors.
Mulipola is an active member of the Impact Pro Wrestling community, participating in the 2016 Heavy-Weight New Zealand championship with WWE legend Tonga Fifita / King Haku to become New Zealand's Tag Team champions (2016).[5][6] Over the years he has and continues to serve his wider community through comic and illustration workshops[7] for interested youth in across the country as well as school visits with Duffy Books In Homes.[8] Mulipola is currently working on his popular US pro wrestling graphic novel series Headlocked with long-time collaborator and author Micheal Kingston. Currently, Mulipola is contracted by Walt Disney Animation Studios as a Story Artist and Cultural Consultant for an upcoming project.[9]
Early life
Mulipola is a New Zealand born Samoan raised in Māngere, 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]
Biography
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]
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]
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 centred around Samoa Joe. A Samoan comic book artist and pro-wrestler illustrating the iconic Samoan Pro-Wrestler.[21]
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][neutrality is disputed]
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