Comics for All Ages: Hark A Vagrant!

Beaton, Kate. “Hark! A Vagrant!” Hark, a vagrant. Kate Beaton, 2006. Web. < http://harkavagrant.com >

Hark! A Vagrant! is an online comic that talks about various historical and literary topics. Beaton takes readers through different eras and books on her journey to show the humor within different histories. She adds her own twist to different historical events, historical characters, and literary pieces, so that readers are unaware that they are actually learning new things. Her humor is so on point that no one escapes her wit and gets a comedic pen-lashing.

Visual and textual style: gray scale, black and white, historical, literary, simple art, expressive facial expressions, humor

Potential readers/appeal factors: history buffs, literature, fictional characters from literature, satire, parody

Awards

• Hark! A Vagrant spent five months on the New York Times Bestselling Graphic Novels list
• It was also on Time Magazine’s Best of 2011 list.
• This comic has appeared in The New Yorker, the National Post, and Harpers Magazine.
• 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 and was also nominated in the same category in 2010
• It won three Harvey Awards in 2012 for Humor, Best Cartoonist, and Online Work.
• The book, Hark! A Vagrant was named one of Time Magazine’s top ten fiction books of the year.

Other pertinent information

• Two books have been published: Never Learn Anything from history in 2009 and  Hark! A Vagrant in 2011.