"Some people are really out of line," she explains. Most of her fans are complimentary, but some of them are "jerks," she says. The speed of her success took her "by surprise." Sometimes it has been too much. Moving to Toronto in September 2008, she tapped into a community of cartoonists, who helped her find sponsorship for her site, which sells merchandise. In October 2007, she started putting them online where they quickly attracted a following. The work was "difficult and lonely," she says during the days, she would do office or manual work and at nights, she would draw her comics. After she finished her bachelor's degree at Mount Allison in New Brunswick, she went to work in Fort McMurray to pay off her student loan. Summers were spent working at different museums, as an archivist or researcher. The style has been a trademark since she started drawing as a child her school didn't have an art department, so she would buy supplies online with her pocket money, and sketched in the hallways during breaks. In another, Pierre Trudeau scolds Margaret for partying too much, and is then rebuffed with an impudent "You're not my dad."Įach panel is drawn in a simple, uncluttered style that looks childlike, almost unfinished. In one cartoon, Brian Mulroney has a secret fetish for all things American. Her subjects are often long dead, yet they seem like real people, albeit with oversized personalities or embarrassing foibles. Rather than sticking to the facts, she imagines the inner lives of her characters, making them say things that sound modern, says John Martz, chair of the Canadian chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. Then again, if you know these subjects too well you might be irritated by her generous use of artistic licence. And if you're not a history buff and don't know, for instance, who Edwin Booth is, you probably won't get all the jokes. from McDonald's is a challenge, she says. Making history funny to people who don't know their Sir John A. Beaton's work is "delightful, funny and endearing even if I have no idea what in the world this crazy Canuck is referencing." The otherness makes her "vaguely otherworldly," says Seattle-based Larry Cruz, who writes reviews on the website, The Webcomic Overlook. Their reactions to (for them) unknown, obscure figures such as Wilfrid Laurier range from bemusement to gratitude for an introduction to a culture and history outside their own. If you've seen a Beaton comic, it might have been on the comics pages of the National Post, or perhaps through a link to her website, Although she has thousands of Canadian fans, the readers of her website are mainly American. Also, since she hasn't yet drawn enough to fill a book, she doesn't want to become "overwhelmed." Still finding her feet, Beaton wants to find out more about the industry so she doesn't get shortchanged. About 10 other agents and publishers have asked her to write a book, but so far she's refused. In the little over a year she's been doing the comics, her work has been talked about on the website Wonkette and in Bitch magazine a reviewer for Wired magazine called Beaton's the "funniest comic that I've read in awhile." Recently Daily Show writer Sam Means approached her to illustrate a children's book he is writing. Originally from Cape Breton, Beaton is a Toronto-based cartoonist who has fans ranging from award-winning graphic novelists to geeky comic nerds. Pearson too nice to be prime minister? Was John Diefenbaker a mad, bug-eyed egotist? And was Pierre and Margaret Trudeau's marital relationship a little like that of father and daughter? These are the sorts of questions 25-year-old Kate Beaton gently probes in her series of comics on Canadian history, which are unusual enough to have sparked the sort of praise most writers spend a lifetime cultivating. "Making fun of Canadian history: Kate Beaton Cartoons," by Alexandra Shimo, Accessed August 30, 2022, Article published ApLast Edited May 28, 2014. "Making fun of Canadian history: Kate Beaton Cartoons." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Making fun of Canadian history: Kate Beaton Cartoons. The Canadian Encyclopedia,, Historica Canada. "Making fun of Canadian history: Kate Beaton Cartoons".
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