Kate Beaton facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Kate Beaton |
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Beaton at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in 2011
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| Born | 8 September 1983 Inverness County, Nova Scotia, Canada |
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Notable works
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Hark! A Vagrant Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands |
| Spouse(s) |
Morgan Murray
(m. 2018) |
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Kathryn Moira Beaton (born September 8, 1983) is a Canadian comics artist. She is famous for creating the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant, which was popular from 2007 to 2018. She has also written children's books like The Princess and the Pony (2015) and King Baby (2016).
The Princess and the Pony was even turned into an Apple TV+ show called Pinecone & Pony in 2022. Kate Beaton helped make the show as an executive producer. In 2022, she also released a graphic novel called Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. This book shares her real-life experiences working in the Alberta oil sands. Publishers Weekly magazine chose Ducks as one of their top ten books of that year.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Kate Beaton grew up in Mabou, Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island. She has three sisters. Her family has Scottish roots. She went to a small school from kindergarten to grade 12, with only 23 students in her graduating class.
In 2005, she graduated from Mount Allison University. She earned a degree in history and anthropology. While at university, she started drawing comics for the school newspaper, The Argosy. After college, she worked as an assistant at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria.
Becoming a Cartoonist
After finishing university in 2005, Kate Beaton worked at an oil sands mining project in Fort McMurray. She did this to help pay off her student loans.
In 2007, while still working at the museum, Beaton decided to share her history-themed comics online. She posted them on her new website, katebeaton.com, and on a LiveJournal blog. Soon, she started publishing popular comics based on ideas from her readers.
Hark! A Vagrant Webcomic
Kate Beaton created and published her webcomic, Hark! A Vagrant, from 2007 to 2018. In 2008, she moved her comics from LiveJournal to her own website, also called Hark! A Vagrant.
Her comics often featured historical figures like James Joyce and Ada Lovelace. She also drew characters from classic Western literature. Sometimes, Beaton even drew herself in her comics. People noticed her simple drawing style, especially how well she showed feelings on her characters' faces. Her ability to tell a story with good timing in her comics was also praised. Hark! A Vagrant won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic.
Published Works and Recognition
Kate Beaton's work has been featured in magazines like Wired and Maclean's. Her comic "The Origin of Man," which celebrated Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, was shown by MySpace Dark Horse Presents in 2009.
In June 2009, she released her first book, Never Learn Anything from History. Some of her cartoons have also appeared in The New Yorker magazine. Her second book, also called Hark! A Vagrant, was released in 2011. Time magazine called it one of the best fiction books of the year.
Beaton's self-published book 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. In 2012, she won three more Harvey Awards for Humor, Online Work, and Best Cartoonist.
She was part of Pizza Island, a studio for cartoonists in Brooklyn, New York. Other cartoonists like Lisa Hanawalt and Julia Wertz were also members.
In 2014, Beaton shared a five-part webcomic called Ducks. This comic told a more serious story about her time working at a remote mining site in Canada.
Her book Step Aside, Pops, which is a collection of her Hark! A Vagrant comics, became a bestseller on The New York Times graphic novel list in 2015.
Children's Books and Recent Work
Kate Beaton's first children's book, The Princess and the Pony, came out in 2015. The next year, in 2016, she published another picture book called King Baby.
In October 2018, Beaton decided to stop making new Hark! A Vagrant webcomics. She felt the project had reached its natural end.
In 2022, an animated TV series based on her book The Princess and the Pony was released on Apple TV+. The show is called Pinecone & Pony, and Kate Beaton was an executive producer for it.
In September 2022, Beaton released her graphic novel memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. This book shares her experiences working in the energy industry before she became a cartoonist. It expanded on her earlier 2014 webcomic. The book won the 2023 Canada Reads competition. The American Library Association also listed Ducks among their top graphic novels for adults in 2022.
Personal Life
Kate Beaton is married to writer Morgan Murray. They have two children. After living in New York and Toronto, Beaton now lives in Nova Scotia with her family.
Awards and Honors
Kate Beaton has received many awards for her comics and books.
- 2009:
- Hark! A Vagrant won the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent.
- Hark! A Vagrant won the Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent.
- 2010:
- Her overall work won the Lulu of the Year Award.
- 2011:
- Hark! A Vagrant won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic.
- 2012:
- Hark! A Vagrant won three Harvey Awards: Best Online Comics Work, Special Award for Humor in Comics, and Best Cartoonist.
- Hark! A Vagrant won the Doug Wright Award for Best Book.
- 2016:
- Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection won the Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication.
- The Princess and The Pony won the CBC Children's Choice Book Award for Illustrator.
- King Baby won a NAPPA Award.
- 2023:
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir.
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands won the Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist.
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands won the Harvey Award for Book of the Year.
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel.
See also
In Spanish: Kate Beaton para niños
