Hark! A Vagrant

by Kate Beaton
[volumes 1 and 2]

I have to admit, this is less of a review and more blatant and shameless admiration for these wonderful comics. I was at first simply content to leave both Hark! A Vagrant collections five stars on Goodreads and let that be that, but dammit I just cannot keep quiet about them. Kate Beaton, a history buff and cartoonist, collects favorites of her online comic strip series “Hark! A Vagrant” in these two delightful volumes, both of which I simply never wanted to end.

A considerable amount of Beaton’s cartoons focus on historical characters or events, both the famous (Napoleon, the French Revolution) and the obscure (figures of Canadian history, sorry Canada*), but even if you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge, the comics are still tremendously funny – and Beaton often provides helpful footnotes with some background (which are also, you guessed it, just as funny). In the first volume’s introduction Beaton shares her true belief that history is simply hilarious, you just have to read it that way – and she makes a compelling case.

*I am Canadian and allowed to make this joke as well as apologize for it.

Liszt and Chopin, America’s founding fathers, Mary Shelly and Lord Byron, Lester Pearson and so many more are given the Beaton treatment, not just emphasizing the parts of their personalities that made them interesting and funny (such as Liszt and Chopin’s respectively enormous egos), but also with a dash of modern relativity. (Some of my favorite strips included the founding fathers at an amusement park and a mall.) Beaton’s characters are tremendously expressive and she creates such an interesting balance of accuracy and over the top silliness in her work. It takes a special kind of author to go straight from some excellent butt jokes to Ida B Wells’ experience of racism among the suffragettes. (An extremely important part of American feminist history we can’t forget, especially us white women.)

Beaton’s cartoons aren’t just historical – she also has some phenomenal riffs on book and superhero parodies. The series on Jane Eyre was terribly funny, (I’m sure her Wuthering Heights one is too, but I haven’t read the book, sooo) and she completely eviscerates Edward, as one SHOULD. He is basically the prototype for another Edward whom everyone seems to fawn over but is just a terrible person.

But I have to say my absolute favorites were Lois Lane, Black Canary and Wonder Woman, as perhaps my favorite incarnations of all time – exasperated and giving absolutely zero shits. Lois in particular has no time for Superman/Clark, and at one point basically shouts at him, YOU’RE IN MY GODDAMN WAY. This isn’t just a great feminist reading of Lois – it’s probably how Lois, if she were an actual person and daring, sharp reporter, would actually react to Clark. Additionally, Wonder Woman loves to smoke and poor Storm has to drive out a feral Wolverine from the mansion – he’s tearing up the couches.

It seems that everyone has tried to do some sort of superhero parody, what with all its recent success, but just like her historical comic strips, Beaton’s approach is fresh and genuinely funny, and also historical in their own right. She understands the characters well enough to get at the essence of what makes them funny – or when it comes to the women characters, staring right through what has held them back this whole time.

On that note, Beaton writes Batman the way he is MEANT to be written, silly as all hell (read all the strips here). It’s why I can’t bring myself to read any more Snyder or start King’s Batman run, who try to make Batman all DARK and BROODING when in fact he should be prancing around in a garter. Give Kate Beaton the Batman ongoing immediately and return him to his former Adam West glory where he belongs.

But enough about Batman. Beaton’s overall focus on women – both historical and fictional – create a wonderful opportunity to not only learn more about forgotten or underrated women of history, which can hopefully lead you to several rewarding moments on Wikipedia, as it did me. Sacagawea, Rosalind Franklin, and Ida B Wells are just a few of the many women celebrated in Beaton’s comic, most of whom with more than a little exasperation (a la Lois) towards their male counterparts. But also Beaton puts them on equal, ridiculous footing along with everyone else – the Bronte sisters are just as selfish and silly as Napoleon. Regardless the book feels very feminist while at the same time honoring under appreciated history…especially contributions of women.

The other series in Beaton’s two books that I simply adore (told you this would be unabashed) is completely unique to Beaton, as far as I know, where she riffs on old book covers or theater posters, showing them in the first panel and taking it completely out of context in the next three. Often weird or ridiculous – this is where Beaton really let her imagination go wild – and always, always funny.

Beaton’s style is just like her art – flexible, expressive, at once stretching the bounds of reality while still maintaining a sense of accuracy. There are also some comic strips that are clearly delicate and took an additional level of work and care – such as this one about Nero and Agrippina. (Check out below the promo image Beaton did for AGO’s Turner exhibit to see another side of her work.)

Where her art really gets me is the comedic timing. How do you create comedic timing in a comic? I have no idea, and she is certainly not the first person to be good at it, but Beaton has it down to a science – an expression, the size or placement of the punchline dialogue, knowing exactly how long it takes to take your eyes from one panel to another. I don’t know how she does it, and more than once after laughing I had to just admire how Beaton made it happen.

READ THE BOOKS!

Woman World

by Aminder Dhaliwal

Due to a mysterious genetic disorder, fewer and fewer men are being born. Dhaliwal’s hilarious and heartwarming graphic novel (adapted from her webcomic on Instagram) imagines men completely die out, and a generation that has never known men set out to establish themselves as the newest iteration of the human species – complete with a flag modeled after Beyonce’s thighs. 

Woman World is essentially a combination of Kate Beaton’s Hark: A Vagrant!, Noelle Stevenson’s Lumberjanes, and Brian Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man. A scientist discovers men are dying out, but the world leadership ignores him until it’s too late – it’s a bold commentary on the response to climate change, (or lack of, especially here in America nowadays) and like Y, we never really learn the cause of man’s extinction. But the point is that the women are just fine on their own, thank you very much.

The women worry about the future of the human race beyond sperm banks, to be sure, but it’s more of an existential worry – most of the focus is on relationships. There are a few jabs at men and the sexism of the pre-extinction world – the women adorably wonder how we were taken care of on our periods – but nothing so devastating that it reads like a satire. Instead, it’s a heartfelt story about women, with each half or full page spread dedicated to a different vignette that are sometimes one-shot jokes, others help move the narrative along. They are more concerned with building hospitals, correcting each others’ grammar, and tackling their crippling anxiety – things that have literally nothing to do with the absence of men – and that’s also the punchline. Women in this book aren’t shooting each other down or competing for a man’s attention. They mostly skew bi, anyway.

And it was absolutely fantastic how all identifying women survive – as one (trans) woman puts it, “Not every woman gets a period, not every woman gets breasts, not every woman bears children.” PREACH.

And Woman World is very funny, with quite a few well-timed jabs at Paul Blart, dildo factories, and dilapidated Starbucks chains. The village’s youngest girl, Emiko, has a majority of the heartwarming moments with the oldest, her grandmother Ulaana. Dhaliwal’s style is in the same realm as Noelle Stevenson, Kate Beaton and Adventure Time and it works beautifully here. Dhaliwal’s expressions are absolutely fantastic especially her use of color peppered throughout.

The cast of characters were nice to follow but also at times annoyingly docile – even the village’s mayor Gaia finds it impossible to ask for a vote, even if she’s the sole candidate. The greatest interpersonal conflict is one woman’s unrequited crush on another, who is already in a relationship. According to the village’s doctor, the Capital is where all the advanced technology exists, so the village feels almost like a utopian return to the Garden of Eden, sans Adam. (The prologue mentions that due to a cascade of natural disasters the world was also thrown into chaos, accounting for their lack of technology.) Not one of the women in this story were complicated or aggressive – though most have typical insecurities that are the subject of humor in the story – but those traditionally masculine qualities still exist in women, and I would imagine so even without men. Is the point that the women are learning to just be women in a man-less world? Maybe.

Even if a lack of struggle also made it a bit less engaging, Woman World was a quick enjoyable read with a lot of laughs throughout, and some deeper questions about feminism (does it exist without men?) and how certain systems might change if more women were in charge – better maternity leave and compassion for menstrual cramps, for example. Recommended – and not just for the female-identifying crowd.