Kate Beaton is a Canadian comic book writer and illustator, originally from Mabou, Cape Breton. She began drawing comics for the Mount Allison University newspaper, the Argosy, during her third and fourth years at school, while studying for a degree in history and anthropology

In December 2007 she made the first of two popular batches of history comics, each based on twenty requests she accepted from the readers of her Livejournal.

Kate moved to her current website, HARK! A VAGRANT, in May 2008, and a print collection of her comics of the same name was published by Drawn & Quaterly in 2011.