I walk outside in the New York heat and I melt like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.īUSIS: I wanted to ask you about Canada. In my parents’ house, the coffee never stops.īUSIS: You picked a good time to not be in New York-we’ve been having a lot of natural disasters lately.īEATON: Yeah, you have! Also it’s hot and gross there, and I’m… Canada. You’re going to hear the microwave go off. Is he rich and hot? I’m in.īEATON: Oh man. KATE BEATON: Ah, that’s hilarious! Excellent. HILLARY BUSIS: I told one of my friends that I was going to be interviewing you, and he told me that you’re his biggest celebrity crush. She spoke with us from her parents’ house in Nova Scotia as her sister slept on the couch in the next room.

To mark the occasion, we caught up with Beaton over the phone. Yesterday, an eponymous collection of Beaton’s comics was released by Drawn & Quarterly. Her loose, free style and cheeky, occasionally vulgar sense of humor-Johannes Kepler: “What if the earth orbits the sun?” Tycho Brahe: “What if your wife orbits my dick?”-has won her legions of fans, as well as publication in outlets like The New Yorker and Harper’s. Beaton is the creator of “Hark! A Vagrant,” an irreverent web comic that has skewered everyone from Jane Austen to the Zhou Dynasty. Kate Beaton is living proof that it is, in fact, possible to do something with an undergraduate history degree. PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM JAVANROUH/TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL

Kate beaton website