Geary was initially introduced to comics readers in the late 1970s with his contributions to the Heavy Metal and National Lampoon magazines.[2][3]
He has also created a number of postcards as well as illustrations for all kinds of publications. In 1982, he created the Toucan mascot for San Diego Comic-Con until its retirement in 1995. Additionally, he created Expo Boy, the mascot for the San Diego Comic Book Expo, a comics industry trade show Comic-Con held from 1984 through 2001. But perhaps his most widely circulated illustration is his logo for the audiobook publisher Recorded Books.[citation needed]
His most extensive project is his ongoing non-fictioncomic book series, A Treasury of Victorian Murder,[3] published by NBM Publishing. The series chronicles such 19th-century criminals as H. H. Holmes, Lizzie Borden, Charles Guiteau, and Jack the Ripper. In the series, he often uses literary devices characteristic of 19th-century popular literature. For example, The Borden Tragedy is narrated through excerpts of a period diary, and The Fatal Bullet didactically contrasts the lives and morality of Guiteau and his victim, President James Garfield.
Geary's distinctive cartooning style evolved from his early imitations of Edward Gorey.[citation needed] His drawings typically consist of stark clean black lines against a white background, with a total absence of half-tone or shading.
Even more distinctive is Geary's method of panel art. Most comics artists will draw several consecutive sequential panels of the same characters in the same setting. Geary, uniquely, almost never devotes two consecutive panels to the same locale or character. This creates a constant impression of jumping from one image to another.
In reviewing Geary's graphic novel The Lindbergh Child: America's Hero and the Crime of the Century (2008), Wired magazine noted that Geary had "little interest in psychology or interiority, relying instead on his dispassionate pen and the public record to stir up needed drama."[5] Geary himself commented, "I feel that with true crime stories, the material is sensational enough on its own without my adding another layer of gruesomeness... I affect a detached narrative voice and back away from the graphic depiction of violence not because I'm squeamish,... but because I enjoy creating a tension between form and content."[5]
Geary has won two awards from the National Cartoonist Society: a Magazine and Book Illustration Award in 1994,[2] and a Graphic Novel award in 2017.
His book Gumby, written by Bob Burden, was given the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Title for Younger Readers/Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience[3]
