about the creator

I played Major League Baseball. Then I made a kid in a space helmet.

I’m Micah Johnson. I’m an artist, former MLB player and girl dad.

Micah Johnson as a young boy in a navy baseball cap, holding a bat over his shoulder and smiling.

Where Aku came from

“Can astronauts be Black?”

I overheard a young boy ask that question. Aku is my answer.

His full name is Arthur Keaton Underwood, and he wears an astronaut helmet that never comes off. That’s on purpose. If you can’t see who is inside, it could be anyone. It could be you.

Becoming an artist

I got into painting by accident.

It was 2016, spring training with the Dodgers. During rookie initiation our manager, Dave Roberts, went around the room and asked every new guy what he did outside of baseball. I said I painted. I had barely painted in my life.

So they made me prove it. The assignment was a portrait of Maury Wills, a Dodgers legend and a stolen base record holder, and he was sitting right there in the room.

I went to Walmart and bought watercolors. I finished the painting at the table in my spring training rental, and I handed it to him.

It wasn’t good. But the way that room reacted is the reason I’m an artist. I did the embarrassing thing in front of everybody, and it turned out to be the thing.

I kept painting through the rest of my playing career, and I haven’t stopped.

From the clubhouse to the studio.

In 2018, I left baseball to become an artist. In 2022, my art was on the cover of TIME Magazine.

Micah Johnson, in a vintage baseball jersey, is interviewed in front of a large Satchel Paige baseball card bearing his artwork, with a mural of ballplayers behind them.

“Build worlds around dreams, not dreams around the world.”Micah Johnson

Some dreams are 20 feet tall.

Aku is a sculpture now, too. The largest stands 20 feet tall in Swarn Park in Plainfield, Indiana, where anyone can walk right up to it.

A large Aku sculpture with a yellow backpack, seated and looking up at the sky beside a bare tree at dusk.

Bringing Aku into the world

Then Aku became a book.

Aku: Journey to Ibra came out in 2026, and Aku: Battle for Pyra follows on January 12, 2027.

Now I spend a lot of my time talking with students.

“Kids don’t want to be preached to, they want to feel seen and an adult to be present. I talk about failure as much as I talk about success.”

Virtual school visits are free.

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Micah Johnson signs books at a table while a group of children watch.

Crazy dreams can be caught.

My mission is simple: prove that to millions of kids.

Micah

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