Book-It 'o11! Book #66
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Details: Copyright 2011, Drawn & Quarterly
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Hark! A Vagrantis an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens of New Yorker cartoonist and comics-sensation Kate Beaton. 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. 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. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha", and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 500,000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilariously as Beaton."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, this was yet another stumble-upon.
How I Liked It: I'd vaguely heard of Beacon and seen her work a few places, but I'd never actually read a significant portion at a stretch.
That's a shame, because Beacon is utterly hilarious. Her commentary offered along with the drawings is frequently as amusing if not more so, and she avoids the trap so favored by "mainstream" cartoonists today in their collected works: a DVD extras-esque running feature that once used to only be available (and should still only be available) in a rare anniversary edition. And that's only one way Beacon bucks the system, even as a web comic.
While her style is staid enough to be obvious New Yorker quality, she generally doesn't follow the traditional final panel punchline kick. The joke is the comic itself, the situation, or, if you're a stickler, it occurs somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes the format works, sometimes it doesn't, but the former far outweighs the latter. Beacon's work is frequently genuinely hilarious and actually crosses a spectrum of humor from the bro-frat variety to historic and literary critique (and frequently blends them).
Overall, the book is a win and definitely a tribute to Beacon's considerable talents as well as a recruiting tool to reel in former non-readers to her regular web feature (worked for me).
Notable: Another noteworthy feature of Beacon's work is the sheer quality of style. While the cartoons could function (and would be largely expected to function, given their subject matter) as just so much dotted scribble suggestion, Beacon's characters are drawn with care and high expression (which frequently sells a joke, particularly in the dryer strips).
Throughout the book while I was admiring her style, I realized it reminded me of something and I could quite place what it was. And then it hit me: Beacon's characters are frequently dead-ringers for the style of the short-lived cult television show The Critic. I suggest researching for yourself and marveling at the similarity.
Title: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Details: Copyright 2011, Drawn & Quarterly
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Hark! A Vagrantis an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens of New Yorker cartoonist and comics-sensation Kate Beaton. 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. 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. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha", and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 500,000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilariously as Beaton."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, this was yet another stumble-upon.
How I Liked It: I'd vaguely heard of Beacon and seen her work a few places, but I'd never actually read a significant portion at a stretch.
That's a shame, because Beacon is utterly hilarious. Her commentary offered along with the drawings is frequently as amusing if not more so, and she avoids the trap so favored by "mainstream" cartoonists today in their collected works: a DVD extras-esque running feature that once used to only be available (and should still only be available) in a rare anniversary edition. And that's only one way Beacon bucks the system, even as a web comic.
While her style is staid enough to be obvious New Yorker quality, she generally doesn't follow the traditional final panel punchline kick. The joke is the comic itself, the situation, or, if you're a stickler, it occurs somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes the format works, sometimes it doesn't, but the former far outweighs the latter. Beacon's work is frequently genuinely hilarious and actually crosses a spectrum of humor from the bro-frat variety to historic and literary critique (and frequently blends them).
Overall, the book is a win and definitely a tribute to Beacon's considerable talents as well as a recruiting tool to reel in former non-readers to her regular web feature (worked for me).
Notable: Another noteworthy feature of Beacon's work is the sheer quality of style. While the cartoons could function (and would be largely expected to function, given their subject matter) as just so much dotted scribble suggestion, Beacon's characters are drawn with care and high expression (which frequently sells a joke, particularly in the dryer strips).
Throughout the book while I was admiring her style, I realized it reminded me of something and I could quite place what it was. And then it hit me: Beacon's characters are frequently dead-ringers for the style of the short-lived cult television show The Critic. I suggest researching for yourself and marveling at the similarity.