The events of her past are mostly presented without narration or internal monologue, but Katie’s feelings and reactions to the situations she ends up in are clear even without dialogue because of the facial expressions and body language she uses.Įmily: That’s a big draw to Beaton’s work in general, I think. Two dots and a nose are all she needs to very clearly express frustration, or blankness in the face of an absurd situation, and not everyone can do that.

Masha: Beaton is an incredible cartoonist, and one of the first things that captured my attention with Ducks is just how powerfully she can communicate complex emotions and expressions with incredibly economical, stylized lines. Early after her arrival to Alberta, a series of one page anecdotes - getting mistaken for a hooker, getting hit on at work, etc., have an effect like a montage - time is passing and Katie is amassing experiences of this life. There are pages that amusingly convey tedium and pages that refreshingly offer sweeping landscape spreads interspersed with tense scenes of how hard life is at the camps.

What were your overall impressions?Įmily: This book is long, and spans years - though the setting feels bleak and unchanging at times, the pacing is nicely varied. Her experiences there, in a bleak and unfriendly environment where men outnumber women drastically, and almost everyone is displaced, are the subject of the memoir. She goes to isolated mining camps in Alberta to pay off her student loans as quickly as possible. WWAC-ers Elvie, Emily, and Masha gathered to discuss its features and impact.ĭucks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Kate Beatonĭucks: Two Years in the Oil Sands introduces Katie graduating from college and making the tough decision to work far away from her comfortable but impoverished home town. At over 400 pages of Beaton’s distinctive intimate and emotional style, Ducks is a remarkable addition to the graphic memoir genre, at turns hilarious and heartbreaking, telling a story I, personally, had never known. Here at WWAC, we’ve been fans of Kate Beaton for a long time, so we were especially excited for the publication of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Beaton’s highly anticipated memoir of her time working in the isolated Alberta oil-mining camps.

Ducks oil sands