Artists I Like: Rick Geary

I had no idea Rick Geary was born in the 1940s. I guess I assumed he was roughly my age. But that's because I don't do my research and I assume too much.

Geary has a long career spanning back to the early 1970s when he did work for various newspapers. He was in National Lampoon for years. I recall seeing his work for the first time in Heavy Metal when was a teen, so it had to be around 1988 since that is when his first story appeared in the magazine. (Is he in the new Heavy Metal??)

The one book I own of his is Jack the Ripper. Apparently Geary is a bit obsessed with Victorian murder because he did a whole slew of those kinds of books ranging from the Borden murders to the killing of Abraham Lincoln.

His style is iconic. I don't know his tools, but it always felt like he was using technical pens (maybe dip pens) and working with delicate precision over these pages. But I suspect his comic pages are not large scale. I don't know. But the Victorian murder books are digest sized, or around 8.5 x 5.5 inches or something. If I was publishing at that size, I would draw on 8.5 x 11 or something. (Look at me speculating about what I could probably just research.)

Geary does good work. Check it out.