RICK GEARY was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1946 and grew up in Wichita, Kansas.  He graduated from the University of Kansas  in Lawrence, where his first cartoons were published in the University Daily Kansan.

 

He worked as staff artist for two weekly papers in Wichita before moving to San Diego in 1975.  For 36 years he illustrated the “Straight from the Hip” column for the San Diego READER.

 

He began work in comics in 1977 and was for thirteen years a contributor to the Funny Pages of National Lampoon.  His comic stories have also been published in Heavy Metal, Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics/Paradox Press and American Bystander. His early comic work has been collected in Housebound with Rick Geary from Fantagraphics Books.

 

During a four-year stay in New York, his illustrations appeared regularly in The New York Times Book Review.  His illustration work has also been seen in MAD, Spy, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, The Old Farmer's Almanac, and American Libraries.

 

He has written and illustrated three children's book based on The Mask for Dark Horse and two Spider-Man children's books for Marvel.  His children's comic "Society of Horrors" ran in Disney Adventures magazine (1996-2006). He was the artist for the 2006-7 series of GUMBY comics, written by Bob Burden, for which they received the 2007 Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Publication for a Younger Audience.

 

His graphic novels include three adaptations for Classics illustrated, and he has completed nine volumes in the series A Treasury of Victorian Murder and four volumes of A Treasury of 20th Century Murder, the most recent of which is "Black Dahlia."  His other historically-based graphic novels include J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography and Trotsky: A Graphic Biography, both for Hill & Wang. A fictional murder mystery, Louise Brooks: Detective, was released in 2015.

 

Under his imprint Home Town Press, he has written and illustrated eight graphic novels:

The Elwell Enigma, A is for Antichrist: Obama's Conspiracy Alphabet, The True Death of Billy the Kid and Murder at the Hollywood Hotel, The Story of the Lincoln County War, Chester and Grace:The Adirondack Murder, The Wallace Mystery and Carrizozo: An Illustrated History.

 

Rick has received the Inkpot Award from the San Diego Comic Convention (1980) and, from the National Cartoonists Society, the award for Best Book and Magazine Illustration (1994) and for Best Graphic Novel (2017).  His work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Japanese and Croatian.

 

In 2007, Rick and his wife, Deborah, moved to the town of Carrizozo, New Mexico.