Kate Beaton on creating the best graphic novel of 2022

Kate Beaton is a familiar name for those who paid attention to the webcomics scene of the 2010s. For a long time, Hark a Vagrant was a staple of Best Of lists, whether online or in its two print collections.

An animated series based on one of Beaton's books, Pinecone & Pony, was created earlier this year and is available on Apple TV.

Her newest project is her greatest achievement to date. In her memoir, she describes her time working in the oil sands. One of the most impressive graphic novels of this year, or works of any kind in the past decade, is a serious, moving, and emotional piece of cartooning that is as kind as it is fearless.

WIRED caught up with the author via email to ask about her memoir, the end of Hark a Vagrant, and teaching readers about life in the oil sands of Canada.

The ducks is devastating. As a reader, it feels like you have been working on it for a while. You published an early version of this as a webcomic. It was almost impossible to share what it had actually been like because of the sense of emotional disconnection that both versions share. What did you do to make this book?

Kate Beaton is not sure. I don't know if I agree with the question. I don't believe I have an emotional connection. Too many of the opposite.

I feel bad that I didn't describe three other things to make sure that I am giving the full picture, because there is no one detail that will make it easier to tell.

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I couldn't stop talking about the oil sands because I didn't know what to say. I need editors to help make this book so that it isn't 2000 pages and it's still 500 pages. It is likely for the best. It has to be easy to read.

This was in the works for a while. When you closed Hark a Vagrant, you mentioned that you were working on a graphic novel. Is that the Duck?

In the summer of 2016 I presented the book to Drawn and Quarterly.

It took me a year to finish it. I drew it for a long time. There were a few stops along the way. I lost my sister to cancer when I was a child. The book has a picture ofBecky in it. When I wasn't working on it, it was on my mind. It was helpful, but it was the way it was.

Is now the right time to tell this story compared to last year? Is it a case of you being more prepared to handle it now?

I was in my studio when I was compelled to draw out those comics. At the time, it was just something I was driven to do for their own sake, and as I was doing it, you could see the bigger picture. It was clear to me that this was a book I would make.

I couldn't do it correctly then. I was working on a picture book and didn't want to leave Hark a vagrant immediately. I began winding down to it.

The way it is is something that sticks with me. The experience of working in the oil sands dehumanizes everyone regardless of how they think they are responding to it. Was that attitude you have always had in this situation, or was it something you looked back on?

I've had it for a long time. I didn't come back to think that everyone was perfect. I lived with a lot of people. I can see what I'm looking at even when it's not good. Even if it's painful.

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I have had many years to think about it, too, and I am sure that has made a difference in the way I see things. You care about the people around you.

I didn't know what the oil sands were or what working there was like. The book has a lot of information in it.

Readers won't know much about the oil sands. You might only have a sense of it being a place that is big and ponderous if you don't have a connection to it.

I didn't know a lot about it when I arrived there, but the reader is dropped into those shoes to learn as I learn what they are looking at. A gradual education works out like it did for me.

Are you worried about what people will think of the book? It uses the same tools you used in Hark a Vagrant, but with a different direction and ambition, which was a humor strip.

I am not worried about what people will think of it. Even if this is a different book, anyone who has followed me for a while has a sense of who I am and what I have to say.

I'm worried about making a book about a topic that people think is very divisive in Canada. I don't know what will happen with that. All I could do was say the truth.

What has made you do what you are doing? I feel like If I Cannot Have My Own shows a similar tone as well as a sense of pacing.

That is a story I have had in my head for a long time, so I don't know about it. It is based on an anecdote my dad told me when I was younger.

I think it's more likely that I had these things in me but I kept making Hark a vagrant for a long time. I have no bad things to say. All of us have to change. My sister's death made me lose my will to write jokes for a long while. Maybe that will come back now that I've finished the book.

I want to know how it feels to finish the book. I wonder if it is a relief to be able to share it because of the intense feeling of it.

It is difficult for me to say since the book is not out in the world. Not many people have read it. I have no idea what will happen. It will be good. I am hoping that I have done well.

The story was first published on wired.com.

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