Hark! A Vagrant

<p>Since Kate Beaton appeared on the comics scene in 2007 her cartoons have become fan favourites and gathered an enormous following, appearing in the <i>New Yorker</i>, <i>Harper </i>and the <i>LA Times</i>, to name but a few. Her website, <i>Hark! A Vagrant</i>, receives an average of 1.2 million hits a month<i>, 500 thousand </i>of them unique. Why? Because she's not just making silly jokes. She's making jokes about everything we learned in school, and more. <br><br>Praised for their expression, intelligence and comic timing, her cartoons are best known for their wonderfully light touch on historical and literary topics. The jokes are a knowing look at history through a very modern perspective, written for every reader, and are a crusade against anyone with the idea that history is boring. It's pretty hard to argue with that when you're laughing your head off at a comic about Thucydides. They also cover whatever's on her mind that week - be it the perils of city living or the pop-cultural infiltration of <i>Sex and the City</i>, featuring an array of characters, from a mischievous pony, to reinvented superheroes, to a surly teen duo who could be the anti-Hardy-Boys.<br><br>Perceptive, sharp and wonderfully irreverent, <i>Hark! A Vagrant</i> is as informative as it is hilarious, and a comic collection to treasure.</p> <p>Since Kate Beaton appeared on the comics scene in 2007 her cartoons have become fan favourites and gathered an enormous following, appearing in the <i>New Yorker</i>, <i>Harper </i>and the <i>LA Times</i>, to name but a few. Her website, <i>Hark! A Vagrant</i>, receives an average of 1.2 million hits a month<i>, 500 thousand </i>of them unique. Why? Because she's not just making silly jokes. She's making jokes about everything we learned in school, and more. <br><br>Praised for their expression, intelligence and comic timing, her cartoons are best known for their wonderfully light touch on historical and literary topics. The jokes are a knowing look at history through a very modern perspective, written for every reader, and are a crusade against anyone with the idea that history is boring. It's pretty hard to argue with that when you're laughing your head off at a comic about Thucydides. They also cover whatever's on her mind that week - be it the perils of city living or the pop-cultural infiltration of <i>Sex and the City</i>, featuring an array of characters, from a mischievous pony, to reinvented superheroes, to a surly teen duo who could be the anti-Hardy-Boys.<br><br>Perceptive, sharp and wonderfully irreverent, <i>Hark! A Vagrant</i> is as informative as it is hilarious, and a comic collection to treasure.</p>