Step Aside, Pops

Hark! A Vagrant is my favorite webcomic, a random assortment of comic strips about history, literature, philosophical movements, autobiography, and commentary on comics. The artwork is luscious, full of emotive faces, clever dialogue, and smart storytelling. I find myself consistently entertained, surprised, and bemused by the infrequent updates, but I still check in with them whenever I can.

I reviewed the first collection of this webcomic when it was published a few years ago, and I am very happy to report that this volume carries on its high standard of quality and hilarity. This second collection leans more toward a specific type of comics, ones that highlight and parody women's lives, like "straw feminists" or "strong female characters." But there are also clever extrapolations of the images from book covers and a bevy of other comics, including:

Lampoons of superheroes

Cheeky literary adaptations (of Wuthering Heights here)

Snarky, yet respectful profiles of historical figures (Ida B. Wells here)

Commentary/satires of literary tropes

Kate Beaton is a Canadian artist currently living and working in New York. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, such as Marvel Comics' Strange Tales and Dark Horse Presents, and even in the prestigious The New Yorker magazine. She is one of the most popular and celebrated comics artists working today, amassing quite a list of accolades, including the Doug Wright Award, Ignatz Award, and Harvey Award. She speaks about her work on this latest collection in these two interviews.

All of the reviews I have read about this collection have been very celebratory. Writing for NPR, Amal El-Mohtar called it "Sharp, charming, and weird," adding, "I can't recommend it enough." Rachel Cooke wrote that it is "all tremendous fun, eccentric and warm and funny." Tobias Carroll commented that it contained "wonderfully absurd doses of pure comedy" and added that "readers who enjoy smart, irreverent takes on history and literature will find plenty to delight in here."

Step Aside, Pops was published by Drawn & Quarterly, and they provide previews and more information here.

Hark! A Vagrant

Hark! A Vagrant is not really a graphic novel but a collection of comics from Kate Beaton. This history and anthropology graduate has a wide range of interests presented here (with commentary) in warm, idiosyncratic, insightful, and hilarious fashion. Adaptations of classic literature such as Wuthering Heights and Robinson Crusoe brush shoulders with a cigarette-smoking, off-put Wonder Woman. Historical figures like Arctic pioneer Matthew Henson and 15th century peasants are cast in a much different light than usual, not exactly disrespectfully but in a very humanized manner. These comics are full of personality, brilliantly rendered and presented. Also, I should add, some of them feature profanity and/or adult situations, so this is not exactly a book for the general student population.

Kate Beaton is a Canadian artist currently living and working in New York. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, such as Marvel Comics' Strange Tales and Dark Horse Presents, and even in the prestigious The New Yorker magazine. Although she is relatively new to the comics field, she is amassing quite a list of accolades. Her self-published History Comics won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent. She also won the 2011 Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work. She talks more about her influences and work in this interview in the Paris Review Daily.

Thus far, the reviews I have read have been almost totally positive. CBR's Kelly Thompson gushed, "the book is a must have for any comics fan that likes their humor smart and their visuals hilarious." Barnes and Noble's Paul Di Filippo called this book "wonderfully nonsensical and risible, yet somehow seductively educational" and Beaton's art "marvelous, loose-jointed, lively, and not over-perfected." The Comic Journal's Rob Clough wrote that this collection "wobbles at times" but augurs great work to come.

This compilation was published by Drawn & Quarterly. They provide a preview here.

In addition, Beaton has a tumblr of art and "research" you can view here. Her webcomic is still being published on an irregular basis.