Hark! A Vagrant:

Good morning to you from Toronto! I’m joining the fabulous roster at Tumblr’s Answer Time tomorrow, Sept 10th! Here’s what is going on and what you need to know:

It is happening Thursday, September 10th, at 2pm EST, that’s 11am PST. You go to my ask box, we set it up for this because I don’t usually have one! That is right here. Ask away. Come 2pm tomorrow, I’ll answer as many questions as I can in an hour.

My new book, Step Aside Pops, is coming out next week! It’s a follow up to Hark A Vagrant, which came out in 2011. It is full to the rafters with comics. I’m very excited and I hope you are too.

My picture book, The Princess and the Pony, is in stores now!

Hooray for/sorry for jamming your tumblr feed tomorrow! See you there!

the “lolita” covers

gowns:

here’s a question: if vladimir nabokov’s “lolita” is truly the psychological portrait of a messed up dude and not the girl – let alone a sexualized little girl, as all of the sexualization happens inside humbert humbert’s head – then why do all the covers focus on a girl, and usually a sexy aspect of a girl, usually quite young, and none of them feature a portrait of humbert humbert?
here are nabokov’s original instructions for the book cover:
I want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after rain. And no girls. … Who would be capable of creating a romantic, delicately drawn, non-Freudian and non-juvenile, picture for LOLITA (a dissolving remoteness, a soft American landscape, a nostalgic highway—that sort of thing)? There is one subject which I am emphatically opposed to: any kind of representation of a little girl.
and yet, the representations of the sexy little girl abound.
i became driven by curiousity. why did this happen? why is this happening?
i am not alone – there’s a book about this, with several essays and artists’ conceptions about the politics and problems of representation surrounding the covers of “lolita.” this new yorker article gives a summary of the book and its ideas, and interviews one of the editors:
Many of the covers guilty of misrepresenting Lolita as a teen seductress feature images from Hollywood movie adaptations of the book— Kubrick’s 1962 version, starring Sue Lyon, and Adrian Lyne’s 1997 one. Are those films primarily to blame for the sexualization of Lolita?

As is argued in several of the book’s essays, the promotional image of Sue Lyon in the heart-shaped sunglasses, taken by photographer Bert Stern, is easily the most significant culprit in this regard, much more so than the Kubrick film itself (significantly, neither the sunglasses nor the lollipop ever appears in the film), or the later film by Adrian Lyne. Once this image became associated with “Lolita”—and it’s important to remember that, in the film, Lolita is sixteen years old, not twelve—it really didn’t matter that it was a terribly inaccurate portrait. It became the image of Lolita, and it was ubiquitous. There are other factors that have contributed to the incorrect reading, from the book’s initial publication in Olympia Press’s Traveller’s Series (essentially, a collection of dirty books), to Kubrick’s startlingly unfaithful adaptation. At the heart of all of this seems to be the desire to make the sexual aspect of the novel more palatable.
here’s a couple of kubrick inspired covers:
which very well could have, after tremendous sales, have influenced the following covers:
…straying so far from the intention of nabokov that the phenomenon begins to look more like the symptom of something larger, something sicker.
after a lot of researching covers, it was here, in this sampling of concept covers for the book about the lolita covers, that i found an image that best represents the story to me:
[art by linn olofsdotter – and again, this is not an official cover]
but why aren’t all the covers like that? even the ones published by “legitimate” publishing companies, with full academic credentials, with no intended connection to the film; surely they must have read nabokov’s instructions for the cover. and yet, look at the top row of lolita covers: all legitimate publishing companies, not prone to smut. and yet.
my conclusion is that the lolita complex existed before “lolita” (and of course it did) – a patriarchal society is essentially operating with the same delusions of humbert humbert. nabokov did not produce the sexy girl covers of lolita, and kubrick had only the smallest hand in it. it was what people desired, requested and bought. the image of the sexy girl sells; intrigues; gets the hands on the books.
as elizabeth janeway said in her review in the new york review of books: “Humbert is every man who is driven by desire, wanting his Lolita so badly that it never occurs to him to consider her as a human being, or as anything but a dream-figment made flesh.”
isn’t that our media as a whole? our culture as a whole?
the whole lot of them/us – seeing the world through humbert-tinted glasses, seeing all others as Other and Object, as solipsistic dream-reality. as i scroll through the “lolita” covers i wonder: where’s the humanity in our humanity?

pretty interesting read here

(via victorianmodesty)

'Hark! a Vagrant' cartoonist Kate Beaton releases new comic book →

A visit to the CBC today!

learning new things

I never liked that cat.

Hey I’m coming on tour, POSSIBLY NEAR YOU, with my new book, Step Aside Pops!

so see you THERE (maybe)

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WORD Presents: Kate Beaton’s STEP ASIDE, POPS: A HARK! A VAGRANT COLLECTION Launch - Events — Housing Works →

housingworksbookstore:

Oh heyyyy by the way don’t forget about this amazing night, OK? wordbookstores beatonna

(Source: housingworks.org, via housingworksbookstore)

librairiedrawnandquarterly:

Librairie D+Q’s 2015 Fall Events

Kate Beaton | Make It Then Tell Everybody →

A new interview on Make It Then Tell Everybody! Dan is the host with the most!

Native-Land.ca →

Super interesting and easy to use!

drawnandquarterly:

Kate Beaton is on tour this fall for Step Aside, Pops!
New York, NY: Wednesday, September 16th, at 7pm
Housing Works Bookstore Café
in conversation with Alexandra Zsigmond, Art Director for the Opinion section, New York Times
This event is free and open to the public. Arrive early to ensure entry!
Bethesda, MD: Saturday, September 19th + Sunday, September 20th
Special guest of Small Press Expo
Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, 5701 Marinelli Road
Signing and panel schedule to come.
SPX admission is $15 Saturday, $10 Sunday, or $20 for a weekend pass; available on-site.
Toronto, ON: Tuesday, September 22nd, at 7pm
Toronto Reference Library
in conversation with Emily M. Keeler, Books Editor at the National Post
Free tickets required. Reserve yours here beginning August 25th at 9am
Montreal, QC: Sunday, September 27th, at 7pm
Rialto Hall w/Librairie Drawn and Quarterly
Tickets are $5, or free with the purchase of Step Aside, Pops from Librairie D+Q. Purchase yours here or in store beginning August 21st at 11am, at which time the book will be available for pre-purchase.
Cambridge, MA: Monday, September 28th, at 6pm
Brattle Theatre w/Harvard Bookstore
Tickets are $22 and include a copy of Step Aside, Pops. Purchase yours here or in store beginning August 25th at 9am.
Columbus, OH: Special guest of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, Cultural Arts Center, 139 W Main Street
Panel discussion Friday, October 2nd, at 7pm
The Wexner Center for the Arts
in conversation with Craig Thomspon, moderated by Jeff Smith
Ticketed event.

Come and see! Let’s meet!

(Source: drawnandquarterly.com, via drawnandquarterly)

This was a sketch under the original Straw Feminist comic but I redrew it for the book. Those crazy gals! You never know where they are lurking! Moon colony here we come!

Speaking of feminists on the moon, I would be remiss not to mention this: have you been reading Bitch Planet? I read the first one, I need to get more!

Step Aside Pops is coming soon! Drawn and Quarterly has a preview here!

The first starred review is in from Publisher’s Weekly.

Pick up the August 3 issue of The New Yorker because I have a cartoon in it!

And lastly, here is an interview at Comic Book Resources where we talk about kids books and more!

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Voice on her

Kate Beaton Unleashes "The Princess and the Pony" - Comic Book Resources →

In which I have advice for writers such as “give me poo.”

Cartoons from the August 10 & 17, 2015, Issue →

Pick up the New Yorker this week! I have a comic in the mix. Yeehaw!

the usual noise