Kate Beaton’s outstanding Hark! A Vagrant comics make learning really, really fun

Kate Beaton changed comics. Part history lesson, part lit crit, her Hark! A Vagrant strips cast a wry eye over the past to reveal the sillier thoughts of kings, queens and characters of the canon. Quite rightly adored by millions, they are among the wittiest and most charming comics to have appeared in ink in the last decade.
 
Whether detailing the travails of courtly love-making, eavesdropping on two Brontës ogling hunks or mocking the over-appreciated subtexts of Macbeth, Kate Beaton makes things funny in a whole new way. In economical pen lines and a splash of wash she nails period costume, hand gestures and arched brows perfectly. Bestowing a comic irreverence on the dustiest of subjects, her flippant tone mixed with a real knowledge of the areas she gently satirises make Hark! A Vagrant comics an educational pleasure to visit, revisit and then direct everyone else to, too.