Mike Okamoto

By then he had broken into comic books, illustrating writer Mike Barr's The Maze Agency #15 (Aug. 1990) and Hero Alliance #11–12 (Nov.-Dec. 1990) for Innovation Comics, where he later did painted covers for the licensed series Lost in Space and the painted series Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality: On a Pale Horse. For Marvel's Epic Comics imprint in 1990, he and writer Frank Lovece created the four-issue miniseries Atomic Age, a 1950s-style science fiction story reimagined from a contemporary perspective. The journal Nuclear Texts & Contexts said of the "series dealing with alien invaders set during the Sputnik era" that "[a]lthough no nuclear war is featured, there is plenty of wry satire on Cold War paranoia, and on racism". Inker Al Williamson, one of Okamoto's role models, won the 1991 Eisner Award for Best Inker for his work here and elsewhere the preceding year. His other comics art includes the story "Nursery Crime" in Epic's Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Dark Holiday Special; and the painted covers and stories for the Chaos Comics miniseries Suspira: The Great Working #1 and #4 (April & Aug. 1997). Of that last, a critic at the New Age magazine The Monthly Aspectarian, wrote, "[T]his mini-series is worth a look-see for two reasons: the engaging story, and lavish airbrushed painted art which is gorgeous. Artist Mike Okamoto visualizes demons that are truly creepy". Okamoto is among the artists whose work appears in poet Hart D. Fisher's 1998 book Still Dead.

For his painted work on Issue #1 of Innovation's adaptation of the Piers Anthony novel On a Pale Horse in 1991, Okamoto won the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, given annually at San Diego Comic-Con. From 1999 to 2004, and then again in 2006, Okamoto won the International Network of Golf Illustrator of the Year Award, for his work in Golf Illustrated magazine. He additionally won for Outstanding Achievement in Illustration in 2004.