This Witty Comic Strip Makes Classics Chuckle-Worthy

Literature has a way of bleeding into other mediums. Movies, TV, comics, etc. However, when readers turn their eyes to classics, they usually don’t give them funny spins. Canadian comic artist Kate Beaton does her own thing, though, portraying classic books as hilarious comic strips.

 

_{Via Warren Smith}

 

Since about 2007, Beaton has produced an online comic strip called Hark! A Vagrant. She has produced hundreds of comic strips, covering a wide variety of subjects including literature, history, superhero stuff, and everything in between. Her work has been featured in notable magazines and newspapers from Time to Wired. After taking a look at her work, it’s no wonder why!

 

Here are just five of the hundreds of comic strips that Beaton created. These 5 pieces re-create literary titles and authors in a hilarious, shocking, and downright awesome way.

 

1. The Great Gatsby

 

_{Via Hark! A Vagrant}

Read the full comic here.

 

2. Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelly…and Lord Byron

_{Via Hark! A Vagrant}

 

3. Jane Austen

 

_{Via Hark! A Vagrant}

 

4. Wuthering Heights

 

_{Via Hark! A Vagrant}

 

This comic is one of a five part series. The full first comic strip can be found here, part two here, part three here, part four here, and part five here.

 

5. The Brontës

 

_{Via Hark! A Vagrant}

 

These incredible comics were drawn with a combination of pencil and pen. Her website states, “I draw it with pencils and then I use a pen on top, it is terribly simplistic. I use brush pens for lines and I use greyscale markers and sometimes watercolour to shade it.”

 

And, if you’re wondering about that very unique name of her website, you’ll be interested to find that it has absolutely no meaning. Beaton told Time:

 

I just wanted a title that didn’t mean anything but also sounded a little bit bizarre and archaic, a little bit funny. It’s one of those things where you make a decision and then you live with it forever. For a while I was like, I kind of wish I named it something normal.

 

Beaton updates her website, though she admits, infrequently. Nevertheless, check out more of her incredible work here. If you prefer to see the comics up close, her works can also be founded in these printed books, Hark! A Vagrant, Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, Never Learn Anything From History, and A Collection of Comics. 

 

Featured Image Via Kate Beaton