Author Guide · Comics & Graphic Memoir
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In 2005 Kate Beaton graduated from Mount Allison University with a degree in history and anthropology and student loans to pay off. So she went west from Cape Breton, to the oil sands of northern Alberta, and spent two years in the camps around Fort McMurray, starting in a tool crib at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site. In between, in Victoria, she began drawing the history jokes that became the webcomic Hark! A Vagrant, which drew about 500,000 visitors a month. In 2022 she turned the oil sands into Ducks, a 436-page graphic memoir that won two Eisner Awards and Canada Reads. This guide covers her nine key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 key books · 2009–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Kate Beaton has published nine books: two collections of her history comics, Hark! A Vagrant (2011) and Step Aside, Pops (2015); the graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022); four picture books, from The Princess and the Pony (2015) to Rebecca (2026); and two shorter works. Start with Ducks, then read Hark! A Vagrant to see how the same cartoonist made her name being funny.
Where to Start with Kate Beaton
If you want her defining book
→ Ducks (2022) — two years in the Alberta oil sands, drawn from memory.
If you want the history comics that made her name
→ Hark! A Vagrant (2011) — the first big collection of the webcomic.
If you want more of the jokes
→ Step Aside, Pops (2015) — the second collection, an Eisner winner.
If you are reading with a child
→ The Princess and the Pony (2015) — the picture book that became Pinecone & Pony.
9 Kate Beaton Books, in Order
Never Learn Anything from History
Her first book, self-published in June 2009, collects the early history comics she had been posting online since 2007, many on subjects her readers suggested. It came out before any publisher had taken her on and is now the hardest of her books to find.
Hark! A Vagrant
Drawn & Quarterly’s collection of the webcomic, published in September 2011: short strips about historical figures, Canadian history and the plots of classic novels, among them the Brontë sisters. Lev Grossman in Time called it “the wittiest book of the year”. The webcomic won the Ignatz and Harvey Awards for online comics, and the book the Doug Wright Award for Best Book in 2012.
The Princess and the Pony
Princess Pinecone, from a family of warriors, wants a big warhorse for her birthday and gets a small, round pony instead. Her first picture book, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, won the CBC Children’s Choice illustrator award and was loosely adapted as the Apple TV+ animated series Pinecone & Pony (2022–2023), on which Beaton was an executive producer.
Step Aside, Pops
The second Drawn & Quarterly collection of Hark! A Vagrant strips: more historical figures and literary parodies, plus pop-culture parodies. It went to the top of The New York Times graphic novel bestseller list in October 2015 and won the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication.
King Baby
A newborn rules his household like a monarch, receiving his admiring subjects and issuing demands; when they cannot keep up, he takes matters into his own hands. A picture book about life with a new baby, published by Arthur A. Levine Books in September 2016.
Ducks
Beaton’s account of the years from 2005 when she worked in the oil sands camps of northern Alberta to pay off her student loans: the tool crib at Mildred Lake, then Long Lake. It deals with loneliness, class, environmental damage, the effect on First Nations land, and the sexual harassment and assault she experienced. The title refers to the hundreds of ducks that died after landing on a toxic tailings pond. It won two 2023 Eisner Awards (Best Graphic Memoir and Best Writer/Artist), the Harvey Award for Book of the Year, Canada Reads 2023 and the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize, and was on Barack Obama’s list of favourite books of 2022.
Shark Girl
A half-human, half-shark girl escapes a trawl net, then disguises herself as a sailor to join the crew of Captain Barrett, the man overfishing her waters, and turn them against him. A 48-page picture book that mixes comic panels with full-page spreads, published by Roaring Brook Press in February 2025.
Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour
The text of the Henry Kreisel Lecture she gave at the University of Alberta in 2024, published by the University of Alberta Press: a short work on art, work and the bodies that do both, from the author of Ducks.
Rebecca
A picture book written by Beaton and illustrated by Sydney Smith, published by Roaring Brook Press in September 2026. Rebecca is a young mother on an island whose husband dies in the icy sea; she keeps working, her children grow up and have children, and in old age she greets Sorrow as an old friend. It is inspired by Beaton’s own family history.
In What Order to Read Kate Beaton
Nothing in Beaton carries over from book to book, so read by mood. The two Hark! A Vagrant collections are short strips you can open anywhere; Ducks is a single long story and best read straight through. The picture books are for reading aloud.
Reading in publication order does show something: the same cartoonist who spent ten years making history funny turned, in Ducks, to her own history, with the jokes kept for the people in the camps rather than for the reader.
A reading path
1. Ducks (2022)
2. Hark! A Vagrant (2011)
3. Step Aside, Pops (2015)
4. Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour (2025)
Forthcoming from Kate Beaton
Beyond the 9 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Announced
1
1 book · 2027
- 2027Meatball: King of the Foresta graphic novel about a house cat who runs off to live in the wild, announced for April 2027
The years · 1983–2026
Quick facts about Kate Beaton
- Known for
- Kate Beaton is known for the history webcomic Hark! A Vagrant and for Ducks, her graphic memoir of two years working in the Alberta oil sands.
- 1983
- Born in Inverness County, Nova Scotia; grows up in Mabou
- 2005
- Goes to work in the Alberta oil sands
- 2011
- Hark! A Vagrant in print
- 2022
- Ducks
- 2026
- Publishes Rebecca, from her family history
- Born
- 8 September 1983, Inverness County, Nova Scotia; grew up in Mabou, Cape Breton, with three sisters
- Education
- BA in history and anthropology, Mount Allison University, 2005
- Worked
- Oil sands camps in northern Alberta, from 2005; Maritime Museum of British Columbia, Victoria
- Webcomic
- Hark! A Vagrant, online from 2007 until 2018
- Honours
- Eisner Awards 2016 and 2023 (two); Harvey Book of the Year 2023; Canada Reads 2023; Jan Michalski Prize 2024
- Lives
- Nova Scotia, with her husband, the writer Morgan Murray, and their two children
The red mark is 2022: Ducks, her graphic memoir of the Alberta oil sands.
How Kate Beaton Writes: History, Jokes and the Oil Sands
Beaton studied history and anthropology, and Hark! A Vagrant came out of that: short strips, usually a few panels, in which famous figures or the characters of classic novels talk like people now. The jokes rely on knowing the history, and the drawing is loose and quick, with the punchline often in a face rather than the dialogue.
Ducks uses the same economy at book length. It is told in plain, mostly small panels from her own point of view, with the camps, the trucks and the tailings ponds often drawn at a scale that makes the people in them tiny. She told Publishers Weekly she wanted the reader “dropped into this world in the way that I was dropped in”, and the book rarely explains in advance: the harassment and the assault arrive as they did, among ordinary shifts.
Her picture books keep the timing of the comics. The Princess and the Pony and King Baby are built on one comic reversal each, while Shark Girl mixes panels with full-page spreads, and in Rebecca she wrote the text for another illustrator, Sydney Smith.
Frequently asked questions about Kate Beaton’s books
How many books has Kate Beaton written?
Nine so far: two collections of Hark! A Vagrant comics plus her self-published first book, the graphic memoir Ducks (2022), four picture books and the lecture Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour (2025). A tenth, the graphic novel Meatball: King of the Forest, is announced for April 2027.
What are Kate Beaton’s books in order?
Never Learn Anything from History (2009), Hark! A Vagrant (2011), The Princess and the Pony (2015), Step Aside, Pops (2015), King Baby (2016), Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022), Shark Girl (2025), Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour (2025) and Rebecca (2026).
Where should I start with Kate Beaton?
With Ducks — her own two years in the Alberta oil sands, and the book that won her two Eisner Awards and Canada Reads. If you would rather start with something short and funny, open Hark! A Vagrant anywhere.
What is Kate Beaton’s most famous book?
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022). Before it she was best known for the webcomic Hark! A Vagrant, collected in 2011 and 2015.
Is Ducks a true story?
Yes. It is a memoir of the years from 2005 when Beaton worked in oil sands camps in northern Alberta, first in a tool crib at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site and later at Long Lake, to pay off her student loans. She first told part of it in a five-part webcomic in 2014.
Why is the book called Ducks?
The title refers to the hundreds of ducks that died after landing on a toxic tailings pond at an oil sands site, a story that runs through the book alongside the damage to the workers themselves.
What awards has Ducks won?
Two 2023 Eisner Awards (Best Graphic Memoir and Best Writer/Artist), the 2023 Harvey Award for Book of the Year, Canada Reads 2023, where it was championed by Mattea Roach, and the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Barack Obama named it one of his favourite books of 2022.
Has Kate Beaton’s work been adapted?
Yes. The Princess and the Pony was loosely adapted as the animated series Pinecone & Pony, which ran for two seasons on Apple TV+ from April 2022, with Beaton as an executive producer.
Is Hark! A Vagrant still online?
Beaton ended the regular webcomic in October 2018, saying it was “a project that has run its course”. The strips are collected in Hark! A Vagrant (2011) and Step Aside, Pops (2015).
Where does Kate Beaton live?
After years in New York and Toronto she moved back to Nova Scotia, where she grew up. She is married to the writer Morgan Murray and they have two children.
Footnotes
- Kate Beaton — Wikipedia
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands — Wikipedia
- A Debt Repaid: Kate Beaton’s Ducks — Publishers Weekly, 2022
- The 35th Eisner Awards — Book Riot, 2023
- Shark Girl — Kirkus Reviews, 2025
- Pinecone & Pony — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I wanted to be honest about everything, and have the reader dropped into this world in the way that I was dropped in.”
— Kate Beaton on Ducks, interview with Publishers Weekly (2022)
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