Kate Beaton

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Kate Beaton
Kate Beaton smiles for the camera
Beaton at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in BMO Centre, Calgary (19 June 2011)
Born (1983-09-08) September 8, 1983 (age 38)
Nova Scotia, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Notable works
Hark! A Vagrant
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 2018)​
Signature
Signature of Kate Beaton
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php

Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadian comics artist and the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant.

Early life[]

Of Scottish descent, Beaton grew up with her three sisters in Mabou on the isle of Cape Breton.[1] She went to a small school for K-12, only having 23 people in her class.[2] She graduated from Mount Allison University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in history and anthropology.[3] Beaton began drawing comics for the university newspaper, The Argosy, during her third and fourth years at school. After college, she worked as an administrative assistant in the Maritime Museum of BC in Victoria.[1][4]

Career[]

After graduating from Mount Allison in 2005 Beaton worked at Fort McMurray to pay off her student loans.[5] In 2007, while still working at the Maritime Museum of BC, Beaton decided to publish some of her history-inspired comics on the Web.[1] She posted comics to a new website, katebeaton.com, and to a LiveJournal blog. In December of that year, she published the first of two popular batches of history-themed comic strips, whose subjects were ones suggested by at least twenty of her readers.[6] She moved to her new website, Hark! A Vagrant, in May 2008.[7]

Beaton published her webcomic, Hark! A Vagrant, from 2007 to 2018.[3] Its subjects included historical figures, such as James Joyce[8] and Ada Lovelace,[9] or fictional characters from Western literature. In several comics, Beaton caricatured herself, past and present. All were drawn by Beaton using MS Paint during her breaks at work.[3] Beaton has a simple artistic style, with particular attention to detail paid to her characters' facial expressions; her skill at comic pacing has also been noted.[10] Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic.[11]

Beaton's work has been profiled in Wired,[4] Maclean's,[12] and Comic Book Resources.[13] "The Origin of Man," her comic celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, was showcased by MySpace Dark Horse Presents in March 2009.[13] In June 2009, she released a book titled Never Learn Anything from History.[14] Several of her cartoons have been published in The New Yorker.[15][16][17][18] Drawn & Quarterly released her second book, also titled Hark! A Vagrant, in September 2011.[19][20] Time magazine named it one of the top ten fiction books of the year, with Lev Grossman calling it "the wittiest book of the year."[21]

Beaton's self-published Never Learn Anything from History won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.[22] Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, having been nominated the previous year,[23] and was also nominated for Joe Shuster Awards in 2009 and 2010.[24][25] Beaton followed up her 2011 Harvey win by taking home three Harveys in 2012, for Humor, Online Work, and Best Cartoonist.

She is a former member of Pizza Island, a cartoonist's studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which was formed by herself and cartoonists Lisa Hanawalt, Domitille Collardey, Sarah Glidden, Meredith Gran, and Julia Wertz.[26]

Beaton has contributed to Marvel Comics' Strange Tales anthology.[27] In 2014, Beaton uploaded the five-part webcomic Ducks, which presents a more serious and complex story based on Beaton's experiences working at a remote mining site in Canada.[28]

Step Aside, Pops, a collection of her Hark! A Vagrant comics, topped The New York Times graphic novel bestseller list in October 2015.[29] In a 2015 poll, Beaton ranked fourteenth among the top all-time female comics artists.[30]

Beaton's first children's book, The Princess and the Pony, was released in 2015.[31] In 2016, she published the picture book King Baby.

In October 2018, Beaton ended the ongoing serialization of her webcomic, saying, "I feel like this is a project that has run its course."[32]

Personal life[]

She is married to Morgan Murray, a writer whose debut novel Dirty Birds was published in 2020.[33]

Awards[]

Year Nominated work Category Result Notes
2009 Hark! A Vagrant Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent Won [34]
2009 Hark! A Vagrant Joe Shuster Awards Nominated [24]
2010 Hark! A Vagrant Joe Shuster Awards Nominated [25]
2010 Hark! A Vagrant Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work Nominated [25]
2010 Never Learn Anything From History Doug Wright Award for The Pigskin Peters Award Nominated [34]
2011 Hark! A Vagrant Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic Won [11]
2012 Hark! A Vagrant Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work Won [35]
2012 Hark! A Vagrant Harvey Award Special Award for Humor in Comics Won [35]
2012 Hark! A Vagrant Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist Won [35]
2012 Hark! A Vagrant Doug Wright Award for Best Book Won [36]
2016 Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication Won [34]
2016 The Princess and The Pony CBC Children's Choice Book Award: Illustrator Won [37]
2016 The Princess and The Pony E.B. White Read-Aloud Book Award: Picture Book Nominated [38]
2016 King Baby NAPPA Awards Won [39]
2016 Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection Doug Wright Award for Best Book Nominated [34]

Bibliography[]

Comic collections[]

  • Never Learn Anything From History (2009)
  • Hark! A Vagrant (Montréal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2011, ISBN 978-1770460607)
  • Step Aside, Pops (Montréal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2015, ISBN 978-1770462083)

Children's books[]

  • The Princess and the Pony (New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2015, ISBN 978-0545637084)
  • King Baby (New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2016, ISBN 978-0545637541)

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Canadian cartoonist Kate Beaton cleverly combines history and humour". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  2. ^ "'I'm a Careful Person': An Interview with Kate Beaton - The Comics Journal". www.tcj.com. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  3. ^ a b c "About". Hark, a vagrant. Retrieved 2012-02-17.
  4. ^ a b Hodge, Nathan (March 11, 2009). "Web Comic Artist Redraws Military History". Danger Room. Wired.com. Retrieved March 28, 2009.
  5. ^ "Why This Famous Cartoonist Moved to a Secluded Canadian Island". 16 May 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  6. ^ Hark! A Vagrant History Comics by Kate Beaton - MetaFilter (13 Feb 2008)
  7. ^ Beth Dunn. "Interview with Kate Beaton". Bethdunn.org. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2012-02-17.
  8. ^ "Hark, a vagrant: 32". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  9. ^ "Hark, a vagrant: 141". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  10. ^ Weldon, Glen (September 22, 2011). "Cartoonist Beaton's "Hark! A Vagrant!" Finds Drollery in Drawing Rooms". NPR: Monkey See.
  11. ^ a b "Ignatz Awards 2012". SPX. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  12. ^ Shimo, Alexandra (March 13, 2009). "Making fun of Canadian history". Maclean's. Retrieved March 28, 2009.
  13. ^ a b Manning, Shaun (March 25, 2009). "Kate Beaton Debuts w/ Darwin at MySpace DHP". CBR News. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved March 28, 2009.
  14. ^ Wolfe-Wylie, William (June 2, 2009). "History in the making". Toronto Sun. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
  15. ^ Beaton, Kate (June 7, 2010). "I thought we agreed—no moms!". The New Yorker.
  16. ^ Beaton, Kate (June 28, 2010). "I accidentally picked up my daughter's backpack this morning". The New Yorker.
  17. ^ Beaton, Kate (August 10, 2015). "Uninvited". The New Yorker.
  18. ^ Beaton, Kate (February 28, 2011). "My eulogy is, of course, contingent on the will". The New Yorker.
  19. ^ "D+Q to Publish Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant". Drawn & Quarterly. January 12, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  20. ^ Hark! A Vagrant. Amazon.com. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  21. ^ Grossman, Lev (December 7, 2011). "7. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton". Time. Archived from the original on January 7, 2012.
  22. ^ Wong, Jessica (May 10, 2009). "Outsider tale Skim, quirky History Comics nab cartooning awards". CBC News. . Retrieved May 22, 2009.
  23. ^ "2010 Harvey Awards Ballot". Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 25 Feb 2012.
  24. ^ a b "Nominations for the 2009 Joe Shuster Awards". The Joe Shuster Awards. Retrieved 2012-02-17.
  25. ^ a b c joeshusterawards (2010-03-17). "Nominations for the 2010 Joe Shuster Awards". The Joe Shuster Awards. Retrieved 2012-02-17.
  26. ^ Ward, Katherine (April 3, 2011). "Books". NYMag.com. New York. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  27. ^ "Kate Beaton - Comics - Marvel.com". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  28. ^ Jackson, Fannie (2014-12-17). "The 20 Best Webcomics of 2014". Paste Magazine.
  29. ^ "Hardcover Graphic Books - Best Sellers - October 4, 2015 - The New York Times". Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  30. ^ "Top 25 Female Comic Book Artists #15-11 - Comics Should Be Good @ CBR". 25 March 2015. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  31. ^ "Why This Famous Cartoonist Moved to a Secluded Canadian Island - VICE". Vice. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  32. ^ "Away From Desk".
  33. ^ Elizabeth Patterson, "Mabou-based writer happy his novel included on 2021 Canada Reads". SaltWire Network, January 18, 2021.
  34. ^ a b c d "Doug Wright Awards: Past Winners". Archived from the original on 23 October 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  35. ^ a b c "Congratulations to the Harvey Award Recipients!". Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
  36. ^ "2016 Eisner Award Winners". The Booklist Reader. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  37. ^ "NINTH ANNUAL CHILDREN'S CHOICE BOOK AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED DURING THE 97TH ANNUAL CHILDREN'S BOOK WEEK". The Children’s Book Council. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  38. ^ "2016 Indies Choice and E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Winners Announced". The Children’s Book Council. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  39. ^ "King Baby by Scholastic / Arthur A. Levine Books". NAPPA Awards. Retrieved 25 April 2021.

External links[]

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