Andi Watson was born in the Wakefield Infirmary and raised in Kippax, West Yorkshire by working-class parents.
For his final degree show Watson produced the small press comic Samurai Jam along with T-shirts and bubble-gum cards.
Three issues were produced by 1993, photocopied with covers spray-painted with a stencil, which generated some interest within the British small press comics scene.
After Skeleton Key Watson moved to Oni Press with Geisha, a graphic novel about a robot girl artist.
The Geisha one-shot comic marked a dramatic shift in Watson's style, bringing in stylistic influences from European creators such as François Avril and Dupuy and Berberian, but retaining the slow pacing of long-form Manga.
He followed that with a one-shot featuring the fox spirit Kitsune from his earlier series Skeleton Key, this time in a tale set in medieval Japan, scripted by Woodrow Phoenix.