John McGuire - How far will you go for family?

• Writer of The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, The Echo Effect, and more
• Comic credits with The Gilded Age, Tiger Style, The Crossing, and more

Keeping it Geekly - Hello John, welcome to Keeping it Geekly. I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today. How are you?

John McGuire - Thank you for setting this all up. I am in that strange haze of the early Kickstarter campaigns, where you restrain yourself from hitting refresh constantly.

KiG - You have an outstanding amount of writing credentials, both in prose and comics. What were your first steps within the writing industry? Were you always destined to be a writer, or did you fall into it?

JM - I think I was always going to be a writer of some sort. I wrote the occasional short story in high school and had grand plans in college of producing either a movie script that floored everyone or a comic book script that would get every comic book company wanting my services.

Neither happened, but I managed to work with a local comic book company in Atlanta, Georgia (Terminus Media) to do some early comics. We started with 8-page short stories and publishing anthologies until it came time to try and start a couple of series. For my part, I created The Gilded Age, a steampunk world that focused on different members of a carnival troupe.

In the meantime, I think constructing those stories and working with other creatives gave me the confidence to try my hand at writing some prose as well. When I was laid off after the 2008 recession, I was pitching this idea to my wife during dinner one night of a fortune teller who had someone come in, and he saw only darkness for the person. Her response was “Well, you have time… you should write that”. Four months later, I managed to get a new job and had the first draft of The Dark That Follows written.

KiG - What inspired the creation of You Must Be This Tall To Ride? I had the opportunity to read issue one and felt you really nailed the family atmosphere. It made me feel like a kid again with my siblings, only this time with transportation to PORTALS?!

JM - I’m glad to hear you connected with it. The biggest initial influence is certainly the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. But at its core, You Must Be This Tall To Ride is my love letter to all those 80s style movies and tv shows where the kids seemed to not only know more about what was going on in the world, but they were the ones who had to save the day.

In addition, I really wanted to have a comic book available that would be ok for 10-13 year olds to read. Most of my work in comics and prose is not rated R by any means, but it skews more toward older teen and adult. When the pieces of this story started to fall into place, it felt like it was the perfect YA comic idea.

KiG - So, without spoiling too much, what can readers expect with the first issue of You Must Be This Tall To Ride?

JM - The setup is that the Samual family has inherited a rundown amusement park from a long missing uncle. While the parents see this as an opportunity to maybe bring the park back to life and make some money, the kids begin to realize that this place is much more than it seems. That each of the worlds of the park also contains portals to other worlds!

When the youngest ends up missing, it is up to the rest of the kids to overcome their own fears and save him… all before mom and dad get home.

KiG - I really enjoyed reading through this issue. The character designs and different environments were a lot of fun, and it’s a refreshing concept. Can you tell us more about the creative team involved?

JM - Ivan Rehzi is the artist/colorist for the comic and has managed to bring this story to life. I knew that the feel and tone of the story really wanted someone who could draw a little more cartoony, and Ivan really knocked it out of the park.

Tanner Eddleman is the letterer and has the unenviable task of trying to fit all my dialogue and narration on the pages (easier said than done on some panels). He has managed to do that in a way that not only serves the story being told, but without blocking the art behind walls of text.

Finally, Amauri Morales is the artist//colorist for the variant cover. His style seemed to complement Ivan’s interiors. And his cover also has a nod to one of those influences I mentioned earlier.

KiG - You are currently live until April 10th with a campaign on Kickstarter to print the first issue. The campaign design is just as fun as the book! What are some of your favorite rewards and tiers?

JM - For this Kickstarter, I tried to keep things as simple and direct as I could with the Reward tiers. I think the two that are my favorites are the one where you can get both the standard cover and the variant cover ($20). The other is at the same price level ($20) but is a digital reward where you can get all of my comics sent to you (Gilded Age, In Our Dreams Awake, and You Must Be This Tall To Ride). That allows you to get your own John McGuire Comic Book Starter Library!

KiG -  With the first issue already completed, what can we look forward to within the series next?

JM - The nice thing is that I just got the final letters for issue 2 last week, so hopefully there won’t be a huge delay between issue 1 and issue 2.

Storywise, we’ll find the kids separated among three different worlds with each group finding unlikely allies to potentially help them in their mission to find Connor (the youngest) and get him home. In the meantime, while issue 1 showed us what happened to Connor initially, things are about to take a turn for the worse as some powerful figures take a particular interest in him.

KiG - Do you have any other projects or work coming out in 2026? Feel free to link to anything that my readers can stay up to date with!

JM - Aside from getting You Must Be This Tall To Ride #2 out this year as well, I’ll be finishing up the Dreampunk series In Our Dreams Awake with issue #4. We ran a Kickstarter for issue #3 at the end of last year, and are about 80% finished with the final issue.

With any of my releases, I have a newsletter where I talk about my process, show artwork from upcoming comics, and try to give insights into exactly why I wrote a particular story. You can sign up for that directly on my website: www.johnrmcguire.com.

And of course, You Must Be This Tall To Ride #1 is currently live on Kickstarter. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ioda/you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride-1

KiG - I appreciate you coming on to chat with me today. I wish you the best of success on your campaign, and I can’t wait to see what you put out next. 

JM - Thank you for taking the time to chat with me about the comic. I really appreciate Keeping It Geekly for helping to shine a light on my project!

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