Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. Anthony is, of course, a 'Samantha,' and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. No era or tome emerges unscathed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. Hark! A Vagrant is an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens of New Yorker cartoonist and comics sensation Kate Beaton. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is more than a memoir, it’s also an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.FEATURED ON MORE THAN TWENTY BEST-OF LISTS, INCLUDING TIME, AMAZON, E! AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY! Her wounds may never heal.īeaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates.Īrriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies.

Her first full-length graphic narrative follows Beaton after university as she heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. Join us live online for an Author Talk through the Library Speakers Consortium with highly-acclaimed Kate Beaton, the New York Times bestselling author of Hark! A Vagrant! And Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.īefore there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant! fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs.

Kate beaton hark