If I were to say that the one of the cleverest and funniest books of the year was a collection of cartoon strips about historical figures, literary characters, and pop culture icons, you would immediately go, “Oh. Kate Beaton has a new thing out.” Drawn & Quarterly brings out the latest collection of “Hark! A Vagrant” comics, and it’s as joyous and hysterical as the first.
Written and Illustrated by Kate Beaton
Ida B. Wells, the Black Prince, and Benito Juárez burst off the pages of Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, armed with modern-sounding quips and amusingly on-point repartee. Kate Beaton’s second D+Q book brings her hysterically funny gaze to bear on these and even more historical, literary, and contemporary figures. Irreverently funny and carefully researched, no target is safe from Beaton’s incisive wit in these satirical strips. Beaton returns with a refined pen, ready to make jokes at the expense of hunks, army generals, scientists, and Canadians in equal measure. With a few carefully placed lines, Beaton captures the over-the-top evil of the straw feminists in the closet, the disgruntled dismay of Heathcliff, and Wonder Woman’s all-conquering ennui.
Talking about humor is such an odd thing: the surefire way to make sure a joke doesn’t get a laugh is to pick it apart and try to explain why it works. It’s like yelling, “GET IT?! GET IT?!” at the end of a delivery or directly pointing out the clever pun you just made. Drawing undue attention to the mechanics of a joke pretty much sucks the magic out of the humor. However, at the same time, when you encounter a piece of text or whatever that achieves its ambitions so well, so perfectly, it’s pretty much impossible not to want to see what went into crafting it. (Think about the endless hours we’ve all spent watching the Mad Max: Fury Road B-roll.)
With her latest collection of “Hark! A Vagrant” strips, “Step Aside, Pops,” Kate Beaton has only reaffirmed that she’s an expert craftsman and ranks among the best in the biz. And to see how she manages to deliver her material so expertly page after page, panel after panel, is staggering.
Much like the first collection, “Step Aside, Pops” takes historical figures, literary characters, and pop culture icons and pokes all kinds of fun at them. The comics are fast-paced, rattling by at Katharine Hepburn speeds with linework so expressive and loose it catches you in this perfectly paced rhythm. Beaton knows exactly how much information to put in each strip, and she finds gags not only in the ridiculous situations but also how the words and images act off each other. (See the ‘Strong Female Characters’ series.)
She brings back a bunch of old favorites — including Napoleon appearances, the Goreys exercises (where she takes a book cover and concocts a story to explain what’s going on), and the 15th century peasant romances. In cases like ‘Julius Caesar,’ she plays off both the historical figure and the Shakespearean character to great effect. She addresses the Rum Rebellion, Ida B. Wells, Wuthering Heights, Chopin and Liszt, Juarez and Maximilian, the American Founding Fathers, and the Greek Pantheon and not only manages to garner plenty of laughs, but also generate interest in these characters’ exploits. Ida B. Wells, for instance, is severely underknown.
And while Beaton has a lot of gag strips, parodies, and jokes going on here, there’s a great deal of respect toward the material. Often, she doesn’t go for cheap laughs from making fun of a character, but instead tries to garner guffaws by exposing a situation. If there’s one consistent motif throughout this collection, it’s women just at the end of their ropes. Like a lot of the best comedies, the jokes work so well because there’s so much goddamn truth to them.
I don’t know about you, but I can empathize with Wonder Woman’s jaded view of the world.
Or Lois Lane’s frustration with being seen only as Superman’s girlfriend.
Or Wells fighting the system.
So when the velocipedestrienne shows up, you gotta cheer when she goes:
There are just so many gags and jokes in this collection and they’re all well-delivered, consistent, and completely exemplary of the strip format. Even if you don’t have a strong familiarity with the source material, there’s enough ridiculousness and truth in this world to keep you rolling. Kate Beaton is literally one of the best at what she does.
Final Verdict: 10.0 – an exceptional collection of comics.
