Ducks: Two Years In The Oil Sands

#TP

Release:

May 07, 2025

Drawn & Quarterly

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I’ve never really gotten into webcomics.

This seems like a strange admission for someone who (infrequently) makes (shitty) webcomics himself and still has plans to create a webcomics publishing platform if vast amounts of money and the ability to network with and influence people somehow miraculously manifest, but it’s true.

There are plenty that I’m familiar with and regularly check out, but there’s a vast universe of comics on the web that I’m largely unfamiliar with. The why of it is mostly that while I understand the value and potential of comics as non-physical media and want to do my part to help deliver on that potential, I’m still set in my ways and very much prefer to focus my own reading on analog comics.

That said, while I was a bit late to the party, and didn’t spend any time on LiveJournal in the early aughts, I have been familiar with the work of Kate Beaton for quite some time.

When this book was announced, I thought it sounded interesting. I looked for it at my comic shop, but alas, they didn’t have it, and when I was out of the shop, I didn’t think to look for it elsewhere.

Luckily, it did land in the shop earlier this year, leading to me picking it up, and, eventually, reading it.

I went in not sure what to expect, though I did have some expectations just knowing that it was a story about a young woman working in a male-dominated field, and in terms of those expectations being met…yeah, they, unfortunately, were.

Her experiences and the experiences of the other women there, lead Beaton to present the idea of “not all men” as less of a statement and more of a question. Certainly, there is the answer of “yes, all women,” but also “plenty of men,” or even, “all men to varying degrees.”

What seems to trouble her most is just how much people are shaped by their circumstances. How much of the way everyone behaves is shaped by who they are at their core and how much is shaped by the cold, the isolation, and the darkness. And as she experiences the behavior of men around her, she worries that there but for the grace of God go the good men in her life, the men she would otherwise be certain could never act that way.

Though the style is quite different, at times Ducks brought to mind Maus in that it uses a simplified form to grapple with complexity, and by adding several layers of abstractions to create a kind of distance Beaton managed to deliver a shockingly close level of personal intimacy.

I will say that one downside to the style is that some characters weren’t quite distinctive enough and even with the helpful short bios compete with pictures for each character featured in a given chapter I often had difficulty identifying them by sight.

This was especially troubling when I mistook a character who assaulted her for the man she was sort-of-but-not-really dating.

The title and imagery draw parallels between the desperate people who flock to the oil sands for the money and the waterfowl who flock to the poisoned waters. Both are forever changed by what they experience.

It’s an engaging and troubling account a world that feels far removed from the world most of us live in, but which really isn’t all that different. Despite the darkness, there is plenty of humor to be found as well as genuinely beautiful moments of human connection.

Comics – including webcomics, obviously – have a unique ability to tell stories like that.

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