It's all over the intertubes this morning — Drawn & Quarterly announced that it had acquired the rights to publish a hardcover version of Kate Beaton's work. Congrats to Kate Beaton. Given Beaton's enthusiastic fan base I suspect that the odds are really good D&Q will have a huge success with this.
Full press release follows:
Drawn & Quarterly has acquired North American rights to Kate Beaton's next collection, Hark! A Vagrant, it was announced today by Chris Oliveros, Editor-in-Chief, Acquiring Editor and Publisher of Drawn & Quarterly.
"To say that the meteoric rise of Kate Beaton’s popularity is nothing short of a modern-day cartooning tour-de-force is not hyperbole,” said Oliveros. “Her comics revolve around characters and situations drawn from history and classic fiction. And yet, they are utterly contemporary. With their incisive humor and intelligence, they have captured the attention of a world wide audience. We are extremely honored to publish Hark! A Vagrant in book format.”
Hark! A Vagrant will be in stores in Fall 2011 as a hardcover collection of new comics and comics that previously appeared on Beaton's enormously popular website of the same name that receives 1.2 million monthly hits – 500,000 of them unique. Hark! A Vagrant takes readers on a romp through history and literature with dignity for few and cookies for all, with comic strips about famous authors, their characters, political and historical figures, all drawn in Kate Beaton’s pared-down, excitable style. Whether she’s writing about Nikola Tesla, Napoleon, or Nancy Drew, Beaton brings a refined sense of the absurd to every situation. Beaton’s comics have appeared in Harpers, the National Post, and the New Yorker, her caricatures of historical and literary figures, filtered through a contemporary lens, display a sharp, quick wit that knows no bounds.
Seth Fishman represented Beaton in negotiations and has sold UK rights to Jonathan Cape. Hark! A Vagrant will be published in North America by D+Q and will be distributed in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and in Canada by Raincoast Books. International rights are represented by Fishman, who is with the Gernert Company.
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