Hark! A Vagrant | Sunny’s Shared Spines | TinyCat |

2024-05-08 6:49 pm

Hark! A Vagrant

by Kate Beaton

Paper Book, 2011

Series

Hark! A Vagrant (1)

Genres

Graphic Novels and Comics

Publication

Drawn and Quarterly (2011), Edition: First Printing, 160 pages

Description

"Hark! A Vagrant" takes readers on a romp through history and literature--with dignity for few and cookies for all--with comic strips about famous authors, their characters, and political and historical figures, all drawn in Kate Beaton's pared-down, excitable style. This collection features favorite stories as well as new, previously unpublished content. Whether she's writing about Nikola Tesla, Napoleon, or Nancy Drew, Beaton brings a refined sense of the absurd to every situation.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten ahold of a physical copy of this yet, but I can vouch for the webcomic. It's hilarious and historical, and I'll recommend it to everybody I know who likes history. I'm completely serious. Look at the silly faces, learn about Canadian prime ministers. I beg you. It's

for your own good.

LibraryThing member JenneB

She is so funny.
The drawings look sort of crude at first but she is a genius at making very specific facial expressions out of like, two dots and a jagged line.

I think my favorite one is p. 40: "SICK MANUSCRIPT BRO"

First monk: That illuminated manuscript is looking niiice. What is it man?

Second

monk: Gospel of Mark.

First monk: Rad.
Check out my Gospel of Mark fanfic.

Second monk: You are not a very good monk.

LibraryThing member lydia1879

Characters: Elizabeth Bennet, Nancy Drew, Napolean Bonaparte, Jules Verne, Jane Austen...

If the first line of the cast list doesn't intrigue and sell you, I don't know what will. I adore Kate Beaton and this review will struggle to be anything but a biased mess of adoration.

She's witty, she's

silly and she tells history the way I wish it were taught. And by that I mean she includes women, first nations people and people of colour in her comics. She calls out Charlotte Bronte's Mr. Rochester and giggles at the problematic lives of peasants in Medieval England.

And I laughed right along with her. Thanks, Ms. Beaton, for taking some of the world's most problematic characters (fiction or otherwise) and making them loveable again.

LibraryThing member lycomayflower

A collection of comic strips on topics historical and literary. Generally hilarious, even if you don't "get" the joke because you don't know the reference. And Beaton's two-or-three-sentence explanations of a few of the strips are informative and just as funny as the strips themselves. As with all

the best comics, the drawings make up at least half the humor. Aside from enjoying the contents, I was also more than usually pleased by this book as a physical object. Something about the size and its hardbackedness combined is just nice. Recommended.

LibraryThing member kgib

These bring me a lot of joy. 1980s business women barking orders into giant cell phones, Brontes crushing on scowling jerks, Nancy Drew covers come to life. The drawings are as funny as the words.

LibraryThing member jen.e.moore

I first saw Kate Beaton's work being reblogged all over tumblr, and I fell in love with it. Literary cartoons! Historical cartoons! Canadian history jokes I don't really understand! This is great stuff. I think my favorites are the pirate nemesis strips, though. I love those.

LibraryThing member Laura400

I am a huge fan of her cartoons online, and was very excited to preorder this. But for some reason it just doesn't work for me as a book. Online, her drawings seem brighter and bigger, and I focus more on the drawings than on the message. Also, I look at the strips one at a time. As a book, the

work seems less interesting, more repetitious and, unfortunately, almost pedantic.

I do think she's a talented artist. I really recommend the website. But her work may be more suited to the medium of the internet than the printed page. I can hardly believe that I, a book and magazine nut, am saying this. As much as I'd like to support her, I can't really recommend this book, personally.

LibraryThing member carma91

I've been following Hark! A Vagrant for a while, and it is easily my favourite web comic, and I knew I'd have to get my hands on her latest book. Her comics are about everything from historical figures to book characters to teenage detectives, and she does it really well, they're really funny, and

you can also learn something from them at the same time. It's just fantastic (also worth a look is her twitter, for occasional comics about her family).

LibraryThing member reakendera

Love Kate Beaton. Discovered her after seeing the brilliant Bronte sisters comic, and I've been mad for her ever since. A really good collection of her comics.

LibraryThing member zzshupinga

I've been following Kate Beaton's "Hark A Vagrant" webcomic for sometime now and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the book. And I wasn't disappointed.

First off yes most of the comics can be found online, but there are times that I want to spend away from my computer and still enjoy something

light, funny, and somewhat educational. And this book meets all three of those qualities. Kate makes the past come alive by poking fun at the light moments or highlighting moments that you've never heard of before (sometimes because she makes them up, but still.) And her artwork...she has a way of capturing expressions on the characters faces, even the fat ponies, that will have you howling with laughter within seconds after seeing them. She makes the characters come alive.

Every time I read one of her comics I have a desire to break out a reference book or website just to found out more about the people/events that she highlights in her strip. After reading some of these comics I even view literature in a new way. The 18th/19th century stuff that I once thought of as boring, such as Anne of Green Gables, has new meaning after I see it through Kate's eyes.

I highly, highly recommend this book for any fan of literature or history.

LibraryThing member cameling

A laugh-out-loud collection of comics that skewer historical figures, events and literature. Providing comic relief in some 'what-if' moments, this is a quick but really fun poke at Shakespeare's Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Jane Austen herself, King Richard, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Kennedy, Conan

Doyle's Holmes and Watson, among others.

It does help, though, if you have some knowledge of history and have read the classics, otherwise, I think the humor would be lost to you. Or perhaps it will encourage the reader to seek out books on those particular chapters in history or add some of the classics to their list.

LibraryThing member shabacus

A collection of comics that rewards lovers of history, but is perfectly accessible to anyone with an enjoyment of human nature and an touch of the absurd. In particular, Beaton loves to poke fun at those who take themselves, and the subject matter of history and literature, too seriously. I cannot

recommend this comic highly enough!

LibraryThing member Cariola

Several years ago, a student emailed me a link to one of Kate Beaton's cartoons of Mary Shelley; we were reading Frankenstein at the time. Since then, I've browsed the Canadian cartoonist's work online, and I decided to indulge in this hardcover collection. Spending an afternoon reading Hark! A

Vagrant was pure delight. Beaton takes on a number of literary and historical figures, including the Brontes, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kerouac, Elizabeth I, Montcalm, Ben Franklin, and more. I particularly enjoyed the section where she reproduces a popular book cover, then creates a three-frame comic of what the cover suggests the book might be about. If history and literature are not your thing, never fear: there are plenty of pop culture comics here, too: Wonderwoman, Wolverine, pirates, Canadian sterotypes, and hipsters, to name just a few. Beaton's comics display a wry, somewhat sardonic humor. Many of them are accompanied by brief background comments which are often just as clever.

If, like me, you're not a regular reader of comics, give Beaton a chance--she's hilarious. You can browse them by topic on her Hark! A Vagrant website.

LibraryThing member scote23

LOVE HER! So upset that LUC and ME Comic Arts Festival and my reunion are all the same weekend so I probably won't meet her :(

LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn

I love Kate Beaton's comics. They usually involve history, literature, Canadians, or some commentary on the female experience. Sometimes its all of these. If you don't follow her blog already, I highly recommend it. This collection gathers a lot of her earlier work including the Edward Gorey book

covers and the Nancy Drew book covers which are hilarious. There is some comic book hero spoofs as well as some digs at Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. I look forward to picking up copies of her future books.

LibraryThing member Bodagirl

Hilarious and now I have to go look up a bunch of stuff.

LibraryThing member TheMadHatters

Graphic novels are a great way to teach historical moments. It provides a visual aid and an amusing take on history. This one in particular was not only comical, but also informative as it prompted me to look up people in history that I had not been interested in previously.

LibraryThing member Big_Bang_Gorilla

Being a collection of droll cartoons, often on literary or historical subjects, which are drawn in the Gary Larson/James Thurber tradition of whimsy which strives more for the wry insight than the belly laugh. Obviously, this style of
'tooning doesn't appeal to everybody, and surely even this

book's fanbase would have to admit that there are more than a few headscratchers here. When this works, though, it's a pure joy. One quibble would be the cartoonist's running commentary under most of the drawings, reproduced in excruciatingly fine print, which add little to the 'toons and often come dangerously near that deadest of dead zones, explaining a joke.

LibraryThing member LaneLiterati

Likes: Witty and irreverent comics that poke fun at history and literature. Plenty of laugh out loud moments, as well as some huh? moments. I also really love the notes Kate Beaton provides under some of the cartoons.

Dislikes: I probably wouldn't recommend this to teens, as you would have to have a

fairly broad familiarity with world history and literature to get many of the jokes (although I didn't have a clue about a lot of it, but still found it amusing). Maybe older teens with a high level of interest in those subjects.

Warnings: Prevalent language.

Bonus points: Canada!

LibraryThing member annbury

Unlike most readers, I don't find this book hysterically funny -- mildly amusing, is more like it. This may, in part, be because I'm not Canadian, which means some of the material isn't embedded in my brain. But the rest of the history material, and the literary stuff, definitely is in there, so

it's not entirely a question of missed references. Chacun a son gout.

LibraryThing member 4hounds

Some of the strips made me laugh or smile, but most of them didn't do much for me. I think I'm getting old :)

LibraryThing member pussreboots

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton is a collection of her webcomics in print form. When the book was first published (2011) I was following the webcomic semi-regularly when Google Reader was still a thing.

The comics are three panel comics that go for a few sets in a theme before moving onto the next

thing. These are running gags, or variations on a theme.

Now as a semi-regularly read webcomic, these on going gags are funny. Read back to back in print form, the gags do become repetitive. As I was reading a library book in the course of a weekend of reading before the start of reading for the CYBILs, I didn't give myself enough time between themes.

LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

If you are interested in comics about the Bronte sisters, Hamlet, Dracula, and Nancy Drew then you may just enjoy Hark! A Vagrant by cartoonist Kate Beaton. This young Canadian has made waves in the likes of the New Yorker, Harper’s and the National Post and she continues to skewer both people

and things that have long been considered literary, historical and political icons in this collection.

There isn’t much that is not considered fair game by Kate Beaton and paging through her simple caricatures and funny, witty writings is an enjoyable activity. She has studied history and now turns her knowledge into irreverent and hilarious 3 panel cartoons that manage to satire both the past and the present. An excellent blend of pop culture and history.

LibraryThing member jorgearanda

Among the many things I like about Beaton's comic strips, the two that stand out the most are her sense of timing (her dialogue bubbles are perfectly timed, if that makes sense) and her removal of the mask of historical and literary glory to show its petty and mundane core.

Her strips seem to work

better online, though. It's probably the commentary at the bottom of some pages, which tends to explain some obscure references or to offer some sassy opinion on the subject of the comics, but which on the page is distracting and a bit of a rant. Still, a very funny book.

LibraryThing member -Eva-

A collection of cartoons that pokes fun at various people from history and literature. I've read a few of Beaton's cartoons before and the ones about literature are quite funny. I know very little about Canadian history, so those cartoons missed the mark. Reasonably amusing collection that didn't

do it for me 100%. The Gorey's were quite funny, though.

ISBN

1770460608 / 9781770460607

UPC

884266664585

More

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