The CanCon Catalogue

It's been a good, long while since I posted here, and yet I'm still getting something like twenty visitors a day, so I should probably start up again. Before we get to today's post, let me just point you in the direction of a new, pan-Canadian music blog I've been writing for, called North by East West, and which seems to be taking off very nicely.

So, what I want to direct your attention to is the online comic Hark, A Vagrant by Kate Beaton. Basically, Ms. Beaton riffs on history, mostly Canadian but a fair amount of British and American, as well, in simple-yet-detailed line drawings. The more familiarity you have with the people and events being depicted the better, but many of them are accelssible to anyone who ever saw those Heritage Minute bits during their Saturday morning cartoons, one of my favourite Beaton pieces is a direct take-off on the Heritage Minute depiction of the invention of basketball.

According to the Maclean's profile on her she has no interest in writing a book, but according to her homepage caption a while ago she's actively working on one. In the meantime, it looks like she's published in the National Post fairly regularly, and, of course, she's online. If you like skewed humour and have seen any episode of Canada: A People's History, definitely check it out.