“Hark! A Vagrant” by Kate Beaton  (2011) – 166 pages

Once again I feel like I must be the last person in the world to discover something new, different, and exciting.  Many of the comic strips in “Hark! A Vagrant” star historic and literary personages.  There are comic strips about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Moses, young Ada Lovelace, and Jane Eyre, among many others.  Then there are comic strips about no one in particular such as ‘Hipsters Ruin Everything, Parts I and II’ or ‘Sitcom, Victorian Style’.  The comics have an immediate spur-of-the-moment quality that makes them fun.

Kate Beaton, originally from Cape Breton in eastern Nova Scotia, started out making fun of Canadian history and has since branched out to make fun of the rest of the world’s history and literature.  Her work can be seen also at the Hark! A Vagrant website. Her website is enormously popular with over a million hits per month.

The drawings are offhand, quick, and simple.  They give a free, spontaneous, and playful feel to the cartoons.  Many of the cartoons juxtapose modern attitudes on historical figures; the cartoons are irreverent and humorous.   You must see them for yourselves in order to really appreciate them.  Let’s just say that it is hugely refreshing to have a young person interested enough in history and literature so that she can make fun of them.    Beaton started out as a webcomic writer but now has sold her work to the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and other magazines.

These cartoons are very easy to like.  You probably will enjoy this book.