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Kate Beaton

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Kate Beaton
Kate Beaton smiles for the camera
Beaton at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in 2011
Born (1983-09-08) 8 September 1983 (age 41)
Inverness County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Notable works
Hark! A Vagrant
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 2018)​
Signature
Signature of Kate Beaton

Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant, which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books The Princess and the Pony and King Baby, published in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The former was made into an Apple TV+ series called Pinecone & Pony released in 2022 on which Beaton worked as an executive producer. Also in 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, about her experience working in the Alberta oil sands. Publishers Weekly named Ducks one of their top ten books of the year.[1]

Early life

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Of Scottish descent, Beaton grew up with her three sisters in Mabou on the isle of Cape Breton.[2] She went to a small school for K–12, only having 23 people in her class.[3] She graduated from Mount Allison University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in history and anthropology.[4] 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 British Columbia in Victoria.[2][5]

Career

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After graduating from Mount Allison in 2005 Beaton worked at an oil sands mining project in Fort McMurray to pay off her student loans.[6][7] In 2007, while still working at the Maritime Museum of BC, Beaton decided to publish some of her history-inspired comics on the Web.[2] 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.[8]

Beaton published her webcomic, Hark! A Vagrant, from 2007 to 2018.[4] She moved her work from LiveJournal to her new website, also titled Hark! A Vagrant, in May 2008.[9] Its subjects included historical figures, such as James Joyce[10] and Ada Lovelace,[11] or fictional characters from Western literature. In several comics, Beaton caricatured herself, past and present. 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.[12] Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic.[13]

Beaton's work has been profiled in Wired,[5] Maclean's,[14] and Comic Book Resources.[15] "The Origin of Man", her comic celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, was showcased by MySpace Dark Horse Presents in March 2009.[15] In June 2009, she released a book titled Never Learn Anything from History.[16] Several of her cartoons have been published in The New Yorker.[17][18][19][20] Drawn & Quarterly released her second book, also titled Hark! A Vagrant, in September 2011.[21][22] 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."[23]

Beaton's self-published Never Learn Anything from History won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.[24] Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, having been nominated the previous year,[25] and was also nominated for Joe Shuster Awards in 2009 and 2010.[26][27] 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.[28]

Beaton has contributed to Marvel Comics' Strange Tales anthology.[29] 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.[30]

Step Aside, Pops, a collection of her Hark! A Vagrant comics, topped The New York Times graphic novel bestseller list in October 2015.[31] In a 2015 poll, Beaton ranked fourteenth among the top all-time female comics artists.[32]

Beaton's first children's book, The Princess and the Pony, was released in 2015.[33] 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."[34]

In 2022, an animated TV series based on Kate Beaton's The Princess and the Pony, called Pinecone & Pony, was released on the streaming service Apple TV+, with Beaton serving as executive producer.[35]

In September 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form called Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, which documented her experience working in the energy extraction industry for Alberta oil sands before she became a cartoonist. It expanded on her earlier 2014 webcomic Ducks.[36] The book won the 2023 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by Mattea Roach.[37][38]

The American Library Association listed Ducks among their top ten in the 2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults list.[39]

Personal life

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Kate Beaton at NEWW, wearing a Remembrance Poppy
Kate Beaton at NEWW, wearing a Remembrance Poppy

She is married to writer Morgan Murray.[40] She has two children. After living in New York and Toronto, Beaton now lives in Nova Scotia with her family.[41]

Awards

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Year Nominated work Category Result Notes
2009 Hark! A Vagrant Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent Won [42]
Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent Won [43]
Joe Shuster Awards Nominated [26]
2010 Overall body of work Lulu of the Year Award Won [43]
Hark! A Vagrant Joe Shuster Awards Nominated [27]
Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work Nominated [27]
Never Learn Anything From History Doug Wright Award for The Pigskin Peters Award Nominated [42]
2011 Hark! A Vagrant Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic Won [13]
2012 Hark! A Vagrant Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work Won [44]
Harvey Award Special Award for Humor in Comics Won [44]
Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist Won [44]
Doug Wright Award for Best Book Won [45]
2016 Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication Won [42]
Doug Wright Award for Best Book Nominated [42]
The Princess and The Pony CBC Children's Choice Book Award: Illustrator Won [46]
E.B. White Read-Aloud Book Award: Picture Book Nominated [47]
King Baby NAPPA Awards Won [48]
2023 Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir Won [49]
Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist Won [49]
Harvey Award for Book of the Year Won [50]

Bibliography

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Comic collections

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  • 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

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Non-fiction

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References

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  1. ^ "Best Books 2022: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 24 October 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Medley, Mark (25 September 2015). "Canadian cartoonist Kate Beaton cleverly combines history and humour". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  3. ^ "'I'm a Careful Person': An Interview with Kate Beaton - The Comics Journal". www.tcj.com. 4 November 2015. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  4. ^ a b "About". Hark, a vagrant. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  5. ^ a b Hodge, Nathan (11 March 2009). "Web Comic Artist Redraws Military History". Danger Room. Wired.com. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  6. ^ "Why This Famous Cartoonist Moved to a Secluded Canadian Island". 16 May 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  7. ^ "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton". 24 September 2021. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  8. ^ Hark! A Vagrant History Comics by Kate Beaton - MetaFilter (13 Feb 2008)
  9. ^ Beth Dunn. "Interview with Kate Beaton". Bethdunn.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  10. ^ "Hark, a vagrant: 32". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  11. ^ "Hark, a vagrant: 141". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  12. ^ Weldon, Glen (22 September 2011). "Cartoonist Beaton's "Hark! A Vagrant!" Finds Drollery in Drawing Rooms". NPR: Monkey See.
  13. ^ a b "Ignatz Awards 2012". SPX. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  14. ^ Shimo, Alexandra (13 March 2009). "Making fun of Canadian history". Maclean's. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  15. ^ a b Manning, Shaun (25 March 2009). "Kate Beaton Debuts w/ Darwin at MySpace DHP". CBR News. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  16. ^ Wolfe-Wylie, William (2 June 2009). "History in the making". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
  17. ^ Beaton, Kate (7 June 2010). "I thought we agreed—no moms!". The New Yorker.
  18. ^ Beaton, Kate (28 June 2010). "I accidentally picked up my daughter's backpack this morning". The New Yorker.
  19. ^ Beaton, Kate (10 August 2015). "Uninvited". The New Yorker.
  20. ^ Beaton, Kate (28 February 2011). "My eulogy is, of course, contingent on the will". The New Yorker.
  21. ^ "D+Q to Publish Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant". Drawn & Quarterly. 12 January 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2011.
  22. ^ Hark! A Vagrant. Amazon.com. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  23. ^ Grossman, Lev (7 December 2011). "7. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton". Time. Archived from the original on 7 January 2012.
  24. ^ Wong, Jessica (10 May 2009). "Outsider tale Skim, quirky History Comics nab cartooning awards". CBC News. cbcnews.ca. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  25. ^ "2010 Harvey Awards Ballot". Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  26. ^ a b "Nominations for the 2009 Joe Shuster Awards". The Joe Shuster Awards. 2 April 2009. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  27. ^ a b c joeshusterawards (17 March 2010). "Nominations for the 2010 Joe Shuster Awards". The Joe Shuster Awards. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  28. ^ Ward, Katherine (3 April 2011). "Books". NYMag.com. New York. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  29. ^ "Kate Beaton - Comics - Marvel.com". Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  30. ^ Jackson, Fannie (17 December 2014). "The 20 Best Webcomics of 2014". Paste Magazine.
  31. ^ "Hardcover Graphic Books - Best Sellers - October 4, 2015 - The New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  32. ^ "Top 25 Female Comic Book Artists #15-11 - Comics Should Be Good @ CBR". 25 March 2015. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  33. ^ "Why This Famous Cartoonist Moved to a Secluded Canadian Island - VICE". Vice. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  34. ^ "Hark, a vagrant: 404". www.harkavagrant.com.
  35. ^ Milligan, Mercedes (17 March 2022). "Trailer: Kate Beaton's 'Pinecone & Pony' Charges to Apple TV+".
  36. ^ Balkissoon, Denise (13 September 2022). "'Money jail': Cape Breton cartoonist Kate Beaton reflects on her time in the oilsands". The Narwhal. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
  37. ^ "Meet the Canada Reads 2023 contenders". CBC Books, January 25, 2023.
  38. ^ CBC Books (30 March 2023). "Mattea Roach, championing Ducks by Kate Beaton, wins Canada Reads 2023". CBC Books. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  39. ^ "2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List". 25 April 2021.
  40. ^ Elizabeth Patterson, "Mabou-based writer happy his novel included on 2021 Canada Reads". SaltWire Network, 18 January 2021.
  41. ^ Armistead, Claire (15 September 2022). "'We had to leave home for a better future': Kate Beaton on the brutal, drug-filled reality of life in an oil camp". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 December 2022.
  42. ^ a b c d "Doug Wright Awards: Past Winners". Archived from the original on 23 October 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  43. ^ a b "Lulu Award". Comic Book Awards Almanac. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013.
  44. ^ a b c "Congratulations to the Harvey Award Recipients!". Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
  45. ^ "2016 Eisner Award Winners". The Booklist Reader. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  46. ^ "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.
  47. ^ "2016 Indies Choice and E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Winners Announced". The Children’s Book Council. 13 April 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  48. ^ "King Baby by Scholastic / Arthur A. Levine Books". NAPPA Awards. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  49. ^ a b "Eisner Awards Current Info". Comic-Con International: San Diego. 17 December 2014. Archived from the original on 25 July 2023.
  50. ^ Chiu-Tabet, Christopher (14 October 2023). "NYCC '23: Harvey Award Winners Announced". Multiversity Comics. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
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