DUCKS: TWO YEARS IN THE OIL SANDS...the cost of an MFA

The cartoonist Kate Beaton is known for her incisively funny and parodic takes on everything from Aquaman to Hamlet in her series "Hark! A Vagrant!"

But earlier this year, she released her memoir "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," a harrowing account of the isolating, infuriating, and at times terrifying job that Beaton took after graduating in order to pay off the $40,000 debt from her arts degree. Even as a young woman in her early 20s, Beaton is tough and confronts each conflict with wit and biting sarcasm — but when you're in an environment where men outnumber women 50 to one, that only goes so far.