Blast from the Past: Rick Geary’s History in the Making
Rick Geary combines history, action, and mystery in his fun-filled (and beautifully drawn) books. That’s evident in works like The Adventures of Blanche and in his ongoing Victorian Murders and Twentieth Century Murders series. With a style that harkens back to the golden age of comics illustrators—but a sense of pacing that embraces quick turns of events and breakneck plotting—Geary is somewhat of an anomaly, but a delightful one: His stories are as clean as the fine lines of his artwork, but without ever seeming stuffy or outdated. In fact, for work so steeped in history, they’re decidedly current.
Geary recently talked to GNR about his work on Blanche and his historical murder series for NBM and what goes into his history-based works.
The fictional Blanche is somewhat based on your actual grandmother. Can you describe your real grandmother and explain how the character of Blanche came to be associated with her?
My actual grandmother was named Blanche and she taught music for many years in her small Kansas town. As a young woman at the turn of the century, she spent a period in New York studying piano. These facts are the only connection that the fictional Blanche has with my real grandmother, aside from a certain independence of spirit that I tried to capture in the stories.
Tell us a little bit about how you draw these settings with historical accuracy. With so much to provide detail for, you must do a lot of research.
I’ve always been a student of history, not only great characters and events but the small details in the lives of ordinary folks. To this end, I’ve kept a library of picture reference for things like clothing, hairstyles (male and female), furniture, architecture, harnesses, wagons, and carriages. Old Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs are an especially valuable resource. Also, these days I can find just about anything I want on the internet.
This book has a very cinematic quality and feel to it. Did you intend that?
Comics and movies are very closely related in that they both use words and pictures sequentially to tell a story. In addition, both have to solve the same formal problems in terms of pictorial composition, point of view, narrative pace, etc. I’ve always been a movie lover and at one time hoped to make my career in cinema. I fell into comics, I suppose, as a more solitary way of making films.
Will Blanche have more adventures?
I have two more Blanche adventures in the works, though it’s uncertain when or if they’ll see publication. In one she goes to San Francisco in 1923 and rubs elbows with the likes of Harry Houdini and Dashiel Hammett. The other is a murder mystery set in Kansas during the Great Depression.
Over the years, you’ve worked on several historical projects. What’s your background in history? Are you a scholar, amateur enthusiast, or something in between?
I would definitely put myself in the amateur enthusiast category. I don’t have a scholarly background in history, but I have a healthy respect for the rigors of historical research.
Who were some of your influences in the comics field?
As a kid, I was never a huge comic fan or collector, but I really loved The Adventures of Uncle Scrooge. His outlandish exploits in faraway lands were certainly an influence on Blanche. (I responded to the clean simplicity of Carl Barks’ linework and storytelling, though at the time I didn’t know who he was). As a teenager, I was an avid reader of Mad, and those artists gave me my first inkling that I could make a living as a cartoonist. Later on, the quaint and quirky work of Edward Gorey was a major inspiration. My current idols are those creators, like Chris Ware, Jim Woodring and Tony Millionaire, who go their own way.
How did you first break into comics?
My first work in comics came about in 1977, when my friend Scott Shaw! invited me to contribute to an anthology comic based on the exploits of the hip journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The story I did was an account of an actual unsolved murder in Wichita, Kansas, which had nothing to do with the subject of the book. Two years later, I was taken on at the National Lampoon as a regular contributor, and things took off from there.
You’ve worked all over the comics industry, from Mad magazine to National Lampoon to mainstream comics publishers. What’s been your favorite experience in the field?
I guess the most satisfying experience I’ve had in comics is the 22-year relationship I’ve had with NBM Publishing in producing the 12-book (so far) series of Victorian and Twentieth Century Murders. Terry Nantier has been very generous in giving me the freedom to develop these stories in my own way.
You’ve done several books adapting classic novels to graphic works, such as The Invisible Man and Great Expectations. What makes this format work well for these classics? Can comics help make these stories more accessible to new generations of readers?
I very much enjoyed working on the three adaptations I did for Classics Illustrated, as well as the shorter pieces I did for the series of publications called Graphic Classics (Poe, Twain, O. Henry, etc). Works that we call “classic” literature, meaning pre-20th century, are particularly adaptable to the comics medium for their straightforward narratives, vivid characters, and clear action. And comics, in their turn, can be very useful in introducing young readers to the pleasures of books whose length and language might at first seem intimidating.
What are you working on next?
My new book in the Twentieth Century Murder series will be out this summer. It’s called Famous Players and is about the unsolved 1922 murder of the Hollywood film director William Desmond Taylor. I’m currently at work on the next in the series, The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans, about the serial killer who menaced the city in 1918–1919 and was never captured. In addition, my graphic biography of Leon Trotsky, for Hill & Wang, will be out in the fall.
-- John Hogan
