Career
In 2007, at her friends' insistence, Beaton decided to publish some of her history-inspired comics on the Web. She posted comics to a new website, katebeaton.com, and to a LiveJournal blog. In December 2007 she published the first of two popular batches of history-themed comic strips; the subject of each comic was one that at least twenty of her readers suggested. She moved to her current website, Hark! A Vagrant, in May 2008.
Beaton publishes her webcomic, Hark! A Vagrant, occasionally. Its subjects are usually historical figures or fictional characters from Western literature. In several comics, Beaton caricatures herself, past and present. Althwere drawn by Beaton using MS Paint during her breaks at work. Beaton's art style is simple, with great importance given to characters' facial expressions; her skill at comic pacing has also been noted.
Beaton's self-published Never Learn Anything from History won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent. Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, having been nominated the previous year, and was also nominated for Joe Shuster Awards in 2009 and 2010. Beaton followed up her 2011 Harvey win by taking home three Harveys in 2012, for Humor, Online Work, and Best Cartoonist.
Her work has been profiled in Wired, Macleans, and Comic Book Resources. "The Origin of Man", a comic strip by Beaton celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, was showcased by MySpace Dark Horse Presents in March 2009. In June 2009 she released a book titled Never Learn Anything from History. Two of Beaton's cartoons have been published in The New Yorker. She released her newest book, also titled Hark! A Vagrant, in Fall 2011; it was published by Drawn and Quarterly. 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."
Beaton has also contributed to Marvel Comics's Strange Tales anthology.
Read more about this topic: Kate Beaton
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