He attended Belfast College of Art in the early 1970s, an experience he does not speak highly of, graduating in fine art in 1974. After graduation he worked as a graphic designer and became involved in a small community press. In 1976 he created and published a comic called The Hand: A Tale of Old Belfast, a snapshot of life in north Belfast in which a young man named Sammy hangs around with the "corner boys", causing trouble, until he is killed in a drive-by shooting. A follow-up, The Three Graces, was never completed. Around the same time he contributed to the Belfast People's Comic, drawing Belfast hardman Jimmy Ripshite ("the man that ate the cooked ham raw"), and satirical strips about a Loyalist Navy and about how to tell the difference between Protestants and Catholics. He also drew