[2] Lutes went to college at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1991.

[3] During this period, Lutes began writing and self-publishing his own comic work with Penny Dreadful Press.

In 1993 Lutes began serializing a strip for The Stranger, which was collected in 1996 in the critically acclaimed graphic novel Jar of Fools.

When Berlin's original publisher Black Eye Productions closed in 1998, Drawn & Quarterly took over the series.

[6] In 2007, Hyperion published the graphic novel Houdini: The Handcuff King, written by Lutes and illustrated by Nick Bertozzi.