After more than a decade of building a following through comedic, often viral comics online, Luke McGarry is bringing his work into print with his first proper collection. Known for his fast-paced output and sharp, absurd humor, McGarry has spent years developing a voice that resonates with readers across social media.
Now, with his newest crowdfunding campaign, he’s compiling years of material into a single volume while also stepping further into self-publishing.
In this interview, The Beat caught up with McGarry to talk about the process behind the collection, working across social media and print, and what it means to finally have his work in one place.
DIEGO HIGUERA: To jump right into it, do you want to explain the project for readers who might not be familiar?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess mainly it’s the first time my work has been kind of collected. My kind of comedic Instagram comics have been collected in one spot. I’ve done books and stuff before, and standalone comics, but it’s the first time all of my jokes from the last 10 years of social media have been compiled into one place, which I’m really excited about. So it’s the first proper collection, I would say.
I’m kind of trying to get away from just being on social media. Before it all collapses, might as well compile them all into a book somewhere so it’s not just Mark Zuckerberg that owns them somewhere.
DIEGO HIGUERA: I feel like now more than ever, that’s the best move, especially with the resurgence of physical media.
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, absolutely. I just moved apartments, and I’ve got so many books. I find myself digging through boxes as I’m restocking my bookshelf and just kind of getting distracted, sitting down and reading through them. So yeah, it is nice to have physical media. There’s been a very particular resurgence for me in the past week.
HIGUERA: What was the best part about putting this together?
LUKE MCGARRY: In typical Luke fashion, it’s still being put together. Everything’s done last minute with me. But it really is nice. It’s kind of like a best of my social media stuff, but if it’s 120 pages, there’s about 10% new stuff that people won’t have seen.
I’ve also gone back and reworked and revamped some of my earlier cartoons, so it’s been a lot of fun seeing stuff from 10 years ago that I’d forgotten about that still makes me laugh. And if it makes me laugh, then that’s really all I care about.
If you’ve followed my work, you’d know a good chunk of it is just making me laugh. I don’t worry too much about what the audience is going to think. Through that, I’ve found an audience of like-minded weirdos who like niche references.
DIEGO HIGUERA: Your work often reacts to current events in pop culture. How do you feel that immediacy translates when the comics are placed in a more permanent format?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, well, that’s it. I’ve been trying to avoid some of the more immediate, topical stuff that I’ve done over the past 10 years, even though that’s what I’m known for to an extent. I’ve been trying to stick with more classic stuff.
You’re never flipping through a Far Side cartoon and there’s a reference to whatever happened on the news that day, because four years later you’re wondering what was he talking about? Some of the stuff I’ve done, even two years old, I look at it and go, what the hell was I talking about?
So I’ve tried to avoid some of the more topical stuff. But working in social media and working as fast as I do, it has been very rewarding to be able to address stuff as it happens. I really love that aspect of my work. But for the book, I’m trying to leave that out unless it’s a major event.
DIEGO HIGUERA: You’ve been doing a comic a day for years. What was that process like, narrowing it down?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, I mean, the ordeal in itself is that I’ve been doing this for 10, 12 years, a comic a day, every day. So that’s 3,600 cartoons, if not more. So in a 120-page book, it’s easy to fill the book, but it’s impossible to pare through almost 4,000 cartoons.
DIEGO HIGUERA: Your humor walks a line between absurd, satirical, and sometimes confrontational. How do you decide what hill is worth dying on creatively?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, I don’t. That’s a good question. My brother would probably say I don’t put that much thought into it. I just kind of go for it. Very rarely is there backlash I can’t handle. I’ve found an audience that agrees with me. The hills I decide to die on are just gut feelings. There probably should be more thought at this point about whether I’ll get in trouble for something, but I just go for it and worry about dying on the hill later.
HIGUERA: Has that approach shaped how you think about your audience?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, exactly. A lot of the time, i feel that, especially on social media, the followers I’m losing weren’t really going to be along for the ride anyway.
I feel like I’ve got an audience that’s there for the long haul. But if you’re following me because I had a viral cartoon about something random, I appreciate you being here, but if you can’t handle my hot Umberto Ehco takes, then you know.
I think the most important thing is staying true to myself and my own vision and not letting viral success influence what I do. You see, creators have a hit with something and then they keep doing that.
Almost perversely, if I have a hit with something, I’ll do the complete opposite the next day. It’s kind of a litmus test for who’s a real fan.
DIEGO HIGUERA: Why Zoop for this project?
LUKE MCGARRY: Yeah, so we’ve been talking about working together for a while, probably three or four years. I’ve always been kind of wary of crowdfunding. I’d rather just finance something myself and put it out there.
But more and more, it’s becoming a really viable way to get stuff out there. Zoop appealed to me because it’s specifically comics and graphic novels. You’re not competing with random tech or anything like that.
I’m also becoming more interested in being my own imprint. I have my own record label with my brother, so why not my own publishing company? This seemed like a fun way to approach it.
There’s stuff I want to do that’s outside the mainstream, and a mainstream publisher isn’t going to touch it. So why bother trying to water something down when I can just tell the stories I want to tell and make the jokes I want to tell?
DIEGO HIGUERA:I always ask this before the end of an interview, but is there a question you wish I had asked you, or even something you want to touch on?
LUKE MCGARRY: No, and I’ll tell you why. I always joke that I’m not naturally inquisitive. I love to learn and go down Wikipedia rabbit holes, but I once had to moderate a political cartoons panel at the LA Times Festival of Books, and it was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done because I had to think of questions.
So I definitely can’t think of questions I’d want to ask myself. I’m not naturally very introspective.
DIEGO HIGUERA: Before we wrap up, what do you hope readers take away from the book?
LUKE MCGARRY: I’m excited for fans to see it and dig back through some of my old stuff and see the evolution of my work. I’m also excited for new people to find it. If you’re just discovering me, you’ve got a load of stuff to dig through. I’m just really excited about the project and to have everything in one place.
I had a book with Chronicle called Keep It Down Up There, but it was more loosely narrative. I’ve done other comics and collections, but this will be the first physical collection of my jokes.
This is my Gary Larson-style collection. I’m very excited about it.
Make sure to check out McGarry’s project before it’s too late, now in its final week!
For more interviews, check out our collection here!
