Kate Beaton

Mullinger meets one of the greatest Canadian comic book artists of all time, Kate Beaton.

 

She is best known as the creator of Hark! A Vagrant, the book of which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and was named one of the top ten fiction books of the year by Time magazine, and Rolling Stone magazine placed the same collection on its list of “The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels Ever”.

 

More than half a million people each month visited her website harkavagrant.com to devour her hilariously smart absurdities of history and literature and has contributed to Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales anthology.

 

She also wrote one of James’ favourite children’s books ever, The Princess and the Pony. The Guardian newspaper in England reviewed the book thus: “In a new children’s book, Kate Beaton gently subverts the idea that ‘strong female heroes’ have to kick ass – and provides a lesson for adults too. Most importantly for me, it features a farting horse.”

 

Of Scottish descent, Beaton grew up in Mabou on Cape Breton Island. She went to a small school and then graduated from Mount Allison University in 2005. She began drawing comics for the university newspaper, The Argosy and after college worked in Victoria, British Columbia. She has also lived in Toronto and New York but is now happily back in Mabou, a town with a population of just over a thousand people.

 

Mullinger Meets Canadians is brought to you by the Cape Breton Partnership.