| Kate Beaton | |
|---|---|
 Beaton at theCalgary 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) | |
| Signature | |
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Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadiancomics artist best known as the creator of thecomic stripHark! A Vagrant, which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's booksThe Princess and the Pony andKing Baby, published in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The former was made into anApple TV+ series calledPinecone & 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 theAlberta oil sands.Publishers Weekly namedDucks one of their top ten books of the year.[1]
Of Scottish descent, Beaton grew up with her three sisters inMabou on the isle ofCape Breton.[2] She went to a small school forK–12, only having 23 people in her class.[3] She graduated fromMount Allison University in 2005 with aBachelor 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 theMaritime Museum of British Columbia inVictoria.[2][5]
After graduating from Mount Allison in 2005 Beaton worked at an oil sands mining project inFort 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 theWeb.[2] She posted comics to a newwebsite, katebeaton.com, and to aLiveJournalblog. 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 titledHark! A Vagrant, in May 2008.[9] Its subjects includedhistorical figures, such asJames Joyce[10] andAda Lovelace,[11] or fictional characters fromWestern 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 2011Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic.[13]
Beaton's work has been profiled inWired,[5]Maclean's,[14] andComic Book Resources.[15] "The Origin of Man", her comic celebratingCharles Darwin's 200th birthday, was showcased byMySpace Dark Horse Presents in March 2009.[15] In June 2009, she released a book titledNever Learn Anything from History.[16] Several of her cartoons have been published inThe New Yorker.[17][18][19][20]Drawn & Quarterly released her second book, also titledHark! A Vagrant, in September 2011.[21][22]Time magazine named it one of the top ten fiction books of the year, withLev Grossman calling it "the wittiest book of the year."[23]
Beaton's self-publishedNever Learn Anything from History won the 2009Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.[24]Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, having been nominated the previous year,[25] and was also nominated forJoe 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 ofPizza Island, a cartoonist's studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which was formed by herself and cartoonistsLisa Hanawalt,Domitille Collardey,Sarah Glidden,Meredith Gran, andJulia Wertz.[28]
Beaton has contributed toMarvel Comics'Strange Tales anthology.[29] In 2014, Beaton uploaded the five-part webcomicDucks, 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 herHark! A Vagrant comics, toppedThe 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 bookKing 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'sThe Princess and the Pony, calledPinecone & Pony, was released on the streaming serviceApple TV+, with Beaton serving as executive producer.[35]
In September 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form calledDucks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, which documented her experience working in the energy extraction industry forAlberta oil sands before she became a cartoonist. It expanded on her earlier 2014 webcomicDucks.[36] The book won the 2023 edition ofCanada Reads, where it was championed byMattea Roach.[37][38]
The American Library Association listedDucks among their top ten in the 2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults list.[39]
She is married to writerMorgan Murray.[40] She has two children. After living in New York and Toronto, Beaton now lives in Nova Scotia with her family.[41]
| 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] |
