Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and made a name for herself in the world of webcomics. Appearing on the scene in 1997, Beaton has subsequently been nominated for several awards in the world of webcomics, ranging from being nominated for a Harvey Award, in the category of Best Online Comics Work in 2010, and two Joe Shuster Awards in the category of Webcomics, both in the year of 2009 and 2010 respectively. Beaton also won the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent in 2009 for her History Comics work.
Known for her quirky, fun and expressive stylings, Beaten is also known for infusing her work, with a strong degree of humor, and often delves into and makes a subject of history, and various historic figures, no doubt influenced by the History and Anthropology degree she holds .
Kate Beaton's website Hark! A Vagrant, is very popular among the comic community and holds the largest collection of her webcomic work, it is often updated, usually bi-weekly, and at times has featured humorous and clever nods to more well known DC and Marvel characters, including Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Wolverine.
Beaton has had work featured in a number of magazines, and newspapers. She has also published a book Never Learn Anything From History, which was released in 2009. It had a small print run, of only 1000 copies, but sold out rapidly. Subsequent larger runs of the book, also continued this trend, also selling out. More recently, Beaton has had two short stories published by Marvel comics, under its Strange Tales anthology title, Beaton's contributions being highly humorous takes on Kraven the Hunter and Rogue of the X-Men.
In 2011, Beaton won the Harvey award for Best Online Comics Work. She also released Hark! A Vagrant as a book, collecting many of her satirical history and hero comic strips from her website of the same name, with the addition of some unpublished works. The book debuted with strong sales on the charts, and has been touring in support of the work doing signings and readings. She is currently teamed with fellow comic satirist, Michael Kupperman for a series of monthly reading events at the Luca Lounge in Alphabet City, New York. The events will be held every third Thursday of each month, starting October 25th, 2011.
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