Hark! A Vagrant

Hark! A Vagrant #1

by Kate Beaton

Hark! A Vagrant is 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 unscathbed 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 5600.000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilarious as Beaton.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Humor, History, Historical, Graphic Novels Comics, Nonfiction

166 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2011

About the author

Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario for a while to draw pictures, then Halifax, and then New York, and then back to Toronto.

Reviews

[Andy Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very, very funny book, a book that pokes fun at a host of historic leaders, revolutionaries and general arseholes, as well as some of history's most interesting authors and the characters they created. A good number of the jokes are likely to go over your head, especially if you're not much into history and literature. If I'm honest, I only half understood quite a number of the comics, despite having a degree in history and a full-blown love affair with books. Despite this, I giggled like a little child at even the most obscure pages. It's strange to find yourself laughing out loud at a joke you don't fully comprehend, but there's something quite liberating about it, too. So, embrace your ignorance*! Embrace the absurdity! Read this book! And laugh yourself silly, just like I did.

* unless you're a genius, in which case you already know Brahms fell asleep while listening to Liszt, and all about Susan B. Anthony.

[Felicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you just get excited that a person found their calling with their art. This is one of those books. It’s so witty and unique and lol and insightful and fascinating. What a joy for the world to have a wit like Kate Beaton writing comics.

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus] · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so silly and funny and I love it. Kate Beaton’s style of humor really lands for me and I giggled endlessly reading these. I was blown away by her graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, and knew I had to try her comics out. I think having read about her environment from when this comic series first began made me appreciate it all more—I’m very familiar with having gone directly from years in college where talking about literature and art was something you did all the time to a new place where nobody wants to talk about that kind of thing and doing so marks you as a weirdo. I can certainly see how making these full of esoteric jokes and dumb history humor would be very healing during that time.
But mostly this is just a blast. And I can’t resist some Dostoevsky jokes:

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This comic is totally awesome and nerdy and I have nothing but good things to not articulate about it. Instead, here is my favorite H,AV! of all time:



You can basically read this entire book at Kate's site for free, but this is a really nice physical object. It weighs like two pounds, because it is full of literary references.

Hee hee. Balls.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a book of intelligent comics for eggheads! I mean really, when was the last time you read a good cartoon about regicide?

Here be funnies about Macbeth, the Brontes, St. Francis, and Jane Austin.

Chortle pleasantly as Jules Verne writes a squealy, mushy "let's-be-friends" letter to Edgar Allan Poe.

Snort aloud at the 15th Century Peasant Romance Comics.

Convulse with merriment as John Adams, after not being invited to any Founding Father Parties, decides to "lighten up" and ultimately scores more chicks than Ben Franklin.

And, titter with glee at the Les Miserables panels, where Javert works in the Bread Crimes Division.

Pages of highbrow hilarity await you. Beaton's book is crammed full of smart, funny, and (shhh! educational) art that will entertain and leave you wanting more.

[Deborah Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent half this cartoon collection laughing and the other half feeling like a complete idiot. Beaton is a history/lit heavyweight who can't stop riffing on her obsessions. Yes, plenty of her humor shot straight over my head; but I would adore her for the comic about all three Brontë sisters even if the rest of the book failed (which it way didn't).

I hope all my Canadian friends read this book and explain some of the Canadian history jokes to me.

[Suad Shamma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I seem to be in the minority here. It's not that I didn't enjoy reading this book, but I don't seem to have found it hysterically funny or even laugh-out-loud funny. At most it was mildly amusing, a chuckle here, a snort there.

It isn't that I didn't get the references, I am fairly familiar with all the characters referred to in the book, the literary references, the historical figures, and so on. I did enjoy the illustrations and the cleverness behind some of the twists in literary and historical events, however, for the most part, I just found it to be...well, a bit meh.

I certainly don't think it deserves to be published in a book, it is funnier in pieces, funnier in small installments perhaps in a magazine or newspaper, but as a collection, it eventually gets a bit redundant, I'm afraid.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have not yet been exposed to harkavagrant.com then I can only surmise that all the time you've spent on the internet to date has been wasted. Go rectify the situation immediately and while you're at it, go buy Kate Beaton's first book Hark! A Vagrant, a compilation of comics from the site with some book-exclusive comics tossed in to the mix.

I first came to know Kate Beaton's work after discovering her "Dude Watchin' with the Brontes" strip, where Emily and Charlotte ogle assholes and when Anne identifies them as such, her sisters respond "No wonder nobody buys your books." This might be her most famous strip and it kicks off the collection, but all of her work is like this -- smart, funny, and rather irreverent. The subject of her comics usually find their origins in literature or history, even if the interactions shown here may not have actually happened. (Case in point, when Tycho Brache responds to Johannes Kepler's suggestion of the earth orbiting the sun with "What if your wife orbits my dick.") Beaton expects her audience to be educated and to pick up on her clues as she's not about to waste time and valuable comic-space explaining subtleties to you. There are the occasional themed strips -- such as her exercise in guessing the plots of novels with covers drawn by Edward Gorey or Nancy Drew novels based solely on the jacket art -- and certain characters will reappear, depending on their popularity with readers. Some of my favorites include Sherlock Holmes and his Watsons, pirate nemeses, and the various French Revolution figures. Because Beaton is a Canadian, folks from the US might do a terrier head-tilt of confusion at a few of the strips, but even those comics will usually result in a chuckle (and a quick trip to Wikipedia to learn something about Canadian history).

For those of you thinking, "I love Kate Beaton's online comics, but is this book full of new ones or couldn't I just read most of it online?" my honest answer is that there isn't a lot of new stuff and most of what's in the book is what you've seen before, but I still think you should buy the book. Tally up the amount of time and the intensity of laughter provoked by her webcomics and I think you'll find that the price of this book is actually quite a steal. I will happily give Kate Beaton money with the knowledge that it's going toward supporting such a fantastic cartoonist. Think of it as compensation for the great amount of amusement we've had as a result of reading comics on her site bundled with a down payment on future work that will be just as delightful. So I hope that if you've enjoyed Beaton's work as I have that you'll go support her and buy her book. Just think -- now Charles Dickens and his simpering heroine fetish will always be on your bookshelves for your reading delight. So hot.

[Seth T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It takes a steady hand to string together an intricately woven, deeply nuanced plot. The number of authors who can take a handful of seemingly contrived elements and produce an elegantly composed narrative admixture are few and rare. Plot-heavy literature, when it succeeds, is a wonder to behold; but in its failure, we find little to surprise us. So when I describe Kate Beaton's Hark A Vagrant! as paean to complex plot structures and hail it as deviously devised, I hope you'll pay attention. The book is a marvel.

Of course some might blanch at seeing Beaton's book described as plot-driven, but those are simply people who have not yet grasped the book's primary aim, the goal to which it aspires and ably reaches. If Hark A Vagrant!'s single-minded storyline is to be described in succinct terms, here is probably the simplest explanation: Hark A Vagrant!'s plot is the story of how Kate Beaton made me laugh more than any author. Seriously.

I have been been known, when reading a funny book, to let out a single "Heh" at particular points when humour and mood collide to produce tangible joy in the microcosm of my soul. I'm no opponent of mirth by any means. It's just that my expression of comic release is rather reserved when it comes to reading. While I'll laugh heartily at some amusing circumstance or other while watching the ninety-third funny thing to grace YouTube this month, for some reason — that probably has to do with the auditory lack connected to the written word — my response to comedy in books is muted by comparison.


[Poor Verne. He could write all the Poe fanfic he wanted,
but Poe would never ever understand.]

Kate Beaton, for whatever reason (I suspect witchcraft), has reversed the current on this count. She is a funny, funny author and the volume and duration of my audible response to Hark A Vagrant! bears able witness to this truth. In fact, I am almost certain my wife was annoyed by the series of sustained chuckles, low guffaws, and outright laughs that from across the room continually interrupted her own reading of The Anti-Federalist Papers. Or it could have just been that she was reading The Anti-Federalist Papers. Regardless, the history I was reading was much more entertaining that the history my wife was reading.

Hark A Vagrant! presents a collection of historically- and literary-minded humour strips that run the range from dry witticism to baudy toiletries. Being a fan of both history and literature probably helps a reader appreciate the particular kind of crack that Beaton's cooking up, but there's a lot of low-hanging fruit as well. Some of my favourite bits were a series of strips in which Beaton takes covers of Nancy Drew mysteries and extrapolates a scene or plotline based on those singular images. As well: there's a bunch of Canadian stuff I didn't get. Sorry Canada for knowing next to nothing about your history or culture (though I did recognize Louis Riel!). Beaton also does this wonderful thing where she'll add commentary to select strips, somehow further ennobling the experience (and sometimes actually educating or at least piquing curiosities).



Hark A Vagrant! is a rare work in that it shows what the newspaper comics page ideally could have become if it hadn't been overrun with uninspired and unfunny legacy comics for years and years and years. If Beaton makes you laugh only half as much as she made me laugh, Hark A Vagrant! is still very much worth your time, money, and whatever effort you'll have to expend to click BUY on Amazon (or whatever online provider of bound paper wonders you prefer).

______________________________

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this on a few lists of 'best graphic novels', which is really strange since this is not a novel, it's a collection of short strips and drawings around the theme of history (?) - maybe it's less broad than that.

I thought a few of the jokes were really clever, some were funny. But overall this was an exhausting read and the content would be better served in daily/weekly doses as an online comic or newspaper feature. And to be fair to the author, that was the original use of these strips (
http://www.harkavagrant.com/ ).

I would recommend reading a few of the pieces on that website.

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of comic strips like the Sunday funnies. The subject is all people from history and jokes dealing with everything from the revolution to the Bronte sisters. Kate has a sharp wit and they are funny. I gave this three stars because I missed a storyline throughout. It was amusing bits. The jokes are at times sexual, juvenile and high brow. She makes fun of death and class and race and just about everything. I don't know that this is for everyone - if you don't appreciate history much many of these people won't be familiar. I'm glad I read it and it's not my favorite funny.

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hark! A Vagrant Dec 01, 2011
I've read a few of Beaton's comics before and been mildly amused. But last night I had the pleasure of reading her collection and actually cackling out loud. Who knew that what the world desperately needed was for someone to bring a modern view to history, classic literature, classic music, etc. through the gently mocking form of comics? Well, Beaton knew.My favorite sequence would have to be the journey of Lewis and Clark, but the ones starring the Bronte sisters were equally outstanding. One on St Francis earned a full guffaw, and I bookmarked it to force the Spouse to read it, too. Reader, he laughed.Recommended for the bluestocking on your gift list.

July 12, 2016
I don't know how many times I've read this. The kids and I all love her stuff, so there's one setting around on the table most of the time. Kate Beaton is brilliant with the Funny history/literature jokes. And some of it is true history of overlooked Canadians or women or POC, and part of it is just the nerdiest jokes ever. Library copy.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came upon this in the bookstore last week and bought it on a whim. The only Kate Beaton comic I can remember reading online is the one about the Bronte sisters, so virtually all of this was new to me, and I found it hilarious. I laughed out loud many, many times. My favorites were the retellings of The Great Gatsby and Hamlet, and if Beaton wanted to do a whole book on the "Mystery-Solving Teens" I would buy it, because they made me laugh like a crazy person. I am definitely on the hook for her second collection.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Beaton does a great job of infusing the classics and history with irreverent humor. Great picnic book...lay out a blanket and share with someone you want to make laugh. One of those books that you will long remember; give it as a gift to someone who is going through college and is having to read classics for a literature class!

[Diz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of a webcomic that focuses on history and literature. For those with some background knowledge in those fields, it is both hilarious and intelligent at the same time. I particularly like the comics where the author takes a book cover and makes a short story based on what is on that cover. I highly recommend this for history fans.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hark! A Vagrant is a delightful and quirky webcomic (which has sadly discontinued). It delightfully pokes fun at such wide ranging topics as classic literature, Canadian History, super heroes, and random underappreciated historical figures (especially badass women) among many, many other topics. They are typically short, delightful, and offer a... unique take on the subject matter. While the art isn't the highest quality, its rough and whimsical style really lends itself well to the comic's tone. Everything is just good, absurd fun and the past is way weirder than we typically give it credit for. These comics are well worth your time and you will probably learn stuff along the way.

[Rincey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get it, it's just not for me. Watch me briefly discuss this book in this video: https://youtu.be/_nmxcgpqa7I

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good Anne Brontë joke! Also some excellent Andrew Jackson, Ada Lovelace, and just general historical hilarity. The series of Edward Gorey book covers made me realize that the copy of Conrad's The Secret Agent I have (from my mom's olllllld book club) has an Edward Gorey cover, and I pretty much assume the plot is what Kate does. Now I'm not sure I'll ever read it, as it couldn't possibly be as funny as I'm imagining.

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars — Took my sweet time with this collection of cartoons based on history and literature and featuring well known historical figures and characters from great classic novels and plays. Clever humour and lots of inside jokes so it’s best to come to this with some reading of the classics under your belt. Love fellow Canadian Kate Beaton’s spontaneous sketchy drawing style which is vibrant and shows a wonderful range of facial expressions. It’s taken me so long to get to this book, I wanted to make it last, so got my own copy and read just a few pages at a time now and again which actually worked in giving me the impression this book might never end—in a really good way though!

Next up: Volume 2: Step Aside, Pops!

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty darn good. Quite a few off the comics made me laugh, and I liked the subtle humor I them. Really enjoyed the section on judging books by their covers. Good stuff.

Highly recommended if you enjoy smart humor in historical and literary contexts.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Went to the Brooklyn Book Festival today wearing my Kate Beaton shirt



got to the Drawn & Quarterly stall and stood around waiting for them to be impressed

they were never impressed

Kate Beaton wasn't even there

I bought this book anyway

[fatma · Rating 3 out of 5]

kate beaton is clearly very funny, i just wish i had the historical background to understand most of her comics--because when they didnt go over my head, i actually really loved them.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hark! A Vagrant is an online comic of short strips written and drawn by Canadian artist Kate Beaton, centred mostly upon her interests in literature and history. Oh and they're incredibly funny! If, like me, you remember the "Horrible Histories" series by Terry Deary and loved the cartoons in the books, it's like that minus the text, and similar to Nicolas Gurewitch's "Perry Bible Fellowship" in terms of length of strip and humour.

Beaton riffs on staples of literature by inserting 21st century sensibilities and contemporary comedy styling to make fun of them. Like "Dracula" is about a slut-loving Count and the efforts of Van Helsing and co. to put down women's independence, or Poe is beset by fan letters from Jules Verne, or "Robinson Crusoe" is about Friday putting up with a retarded Englishman washing up on his island.

Jane Austen is depicted as irritated by the Austen mania of recent years including the monster mash-ups and requests to write slushy sequels to "Pride and Prejudice". The Bronte sisters, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald, Hugo, Shakespeare, Hawthorne and countless other classic writers are made fun of as well as their works, and then there's loads of history stuff too, like the Tudors, US Presidents, Napoleon, and tons of other things too.

What I have to get across though is how damn funny these strips are. "Sexy Batman" is hilarious as are riffs on other superheroes from Wonder Woman to Wolverine, Nancy Drew is a brilliant character as Beaton re-writes her as this inquisitive girl who gets everything wrong and makes things worse. "The Facebook sirens" is great and "Hipster Battalion" is about a WW2 regiment and had me laughing like a madman on the train ("Sir, H-Battalion have only liberated the cafes!").

Anyway, do you like comics? Do you like literature and history? Do you like to laugh? Buy this book. For an idea of the kind of stuff you can expect, go to Beaton's website, google Hark a Vagrant and see for yourself.

[Ken-ichi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful content, but nothing new for fans of the eponymous web comic. A very beautiful physical object, of course, as one would expect from Drawn & Quarterly, considerably nicer than the previous self-published Never Learn Anything From History. Sadly the book is lacking the autobiographical doodles Beaton posts on Twitter, which, aside from being some of the funniest things she produces, are also some of the most heartfelt and touching. For me, many of her most amusing historical comics are simple cocktails of staunch historical or cultural figures and modern cussin' (e.g. "That's Pretty Old", "Tycho"). I love that stuff, but it's the awesome and often exceedingly Canadian interactions with her family that have me laughing the most, and feeling that awkward Internet celebrity sensation of knowing someone when you're really just a voyeur.

So, if you like history and comics and the Internet you should buy this book to prove that at least one person in the world can make a living combining those things.

[Punk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comics. Beaton mixes history, butts, and pop culture like no one else. When she has Anne Bronte call someone a dickbag, you believe it, and whether she's drawing sexy Batman or Jules Verne, her characters are so expressive you can practically see them rolling their eyes.

This has all my favorites: Fat Pony, the Gorey covers (KIERKEGAARD), Canadian Stereotype Comics, Holmes and the Watsons. And it's not just the 6-8 panel pieces, or the 3 panel sets; it also has some of her quicker, 3 panel one-offs, like "Sweater Issue" or the inexplicably wonderful "Fiber Craze." There are about ten new comics, but if you follow Beaton's website, you've already seen most of the strips in this book. That's okay with me. I bought it to support the artist and have a hard copy of her work. It's a really nice book, too. Hardcover, with thick paper, and an index by subject.

Five stars. Highly recommended.

[Agnė · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hark! A Vagrant is a collection of comic strips that poke fun at a wide range of historical events and classic literature. Since I am not an expert in (or a huge fan of) either, most of the jokes went straight over my head, especially the ones about Canadian history. Unfortunately, I didn't care enough to look things up because even the jokes that I did get weren't that funny to me.

Of course, there were a few exceptions that made me smile a little:


I also suspect that I would have enjoyed these comic strips a little bit more if I encountered them individually rather than in a collection, as reading them one after another was rather tiresome.

Looking on the bright side, although Kate Beaton's drawing style is not my favorite personally, it is expressive and seems to fit the content of the comic strips quite well.

[Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in tears reading this because I was laughing so hard. It is practically perfect. Special mention for the section where she presents an Edward Corey cover & takes three panels to guess what the book is about. Also the weird farting pony thing - who has a kid's book of its own now! - and hilariously highlighted examples of historical sexism.

"To be or not to be, that is - Ophelia! This is my soliloquy! Get lost!"
"No! I'm in this scene too!

Everyone forgets!"

[Yasmin]

I CAN'T WAIT OMFG

Edited: Everything I had hoped for

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of comics that treat us to a joke filled look at various historical and literary characters (and authors). Best perused slowly, a few pages at a time, at least for me (I read about one graphic book a year so this is different for me).

I enjoyed the drawings, the stories and jokes. I admit I didn’t always get the joke or historical reference but enjoyed even those and sometimes was even inspired to look up things. Who knew Brahms fell asleep during an energetic concert performance by Liszt? Not me.

Robinson Crusoe, Hamlet, the Brontë sisters, The Great Gatsby, Nancy Drew, Batman, the Vikings, Benjamin Franklin, etc. all show up here. If there’s a second volume ever published, I will be reading it . . .

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hark! A Vagrant has awesome riffs on history and literature and is done so in an intelligent and hilarious manner.

Author Kate Beaton who is now a regular contributor to the New Yorker, was formally a history major and worked in museums for a time, now takes her sharp wit and skewers historical and literary figures with a modern lens.  Beaton illustrates mostly in black and white and sketches out caricatures of recognizable people in absurd situations. Her ironic strips point out the foibles of the past, and how that would play out in modern day. No one is immune from her humor- as she pokes fun at Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, David Bowie, St. Francis, Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson, many European kings and queens, plus so many others.  I found the satire surrounding the characters of well-loved novels the most amusing.

Check these smart cartoons out yourself on her blog: http://www.harkavagrant.com/ I would definitely recommend this witty collection of strips, especially if you have rolled your eyes at a ridiculous plot point, literary trope, or questionable historical fact. Enjoy!

This review can also be found on my blog: https://graphicnovelty2.com/2017/03/1...