Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, Heatley graduated from Teaneck High School in 1993. He graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000.
Comics
Though he studied painting and filmmaking at Oberlin, Heatley started drawing comics regularly in the late 1990s. Since then, his comics and illustrations have appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Mome, and Kramers Ergot, among others. He has been featured three times in the Best American Comics series. Fantagraphics has published two issues of his solo comic book series, Deadpan, and Pantheon Books released his first full-length book, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, in September 2008.
Music
Heatley's high school band Velvet Cactus Society released two albums on Shimmy Disc in the early 1990s.
Personal life
Heatley now resides in Jackson Heights, New York with his wife Rebecca Gopoian.