Enlarge / Kate Beaton (credit: Corey Katz / Kate Beaton)
For those who paid attention to the webcomics scene of the 2010s or simply enjoy good humor writing, the name Kate Beaton is likely a familiar one. The Canadian cartoonist’s Hark a Vagrant—a dizzying mix of the literary and historical references, lack of respect for institutions that didn’t deserve any, and gleeful silliness that ran through 2018—was a staple of Best Of lists for years, whether online or in its two print collections.
Outside of that work, Beaton has created kids’ books (The Princess and the Pony and King Baby, which both won awards) and earlier this year an animated series based on one of those books: Pinecone & Pony on Apple TV+.
This week her latest project hits shelves, and it’s arguably her greatest achievement to date. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is a memoir of her experiences working in the Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta. It’s a serious, moving, and heartfelt piece of cartooning that is as kind as it is fearless and easily one of the most impressive graphic novels of this year, or works of any kind in the past decade.
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