Hark! A Vagrant - I made this during lunch break. I also hiked both to Italy and back in time.

New favorite.

I was once given food by a Alpaca--but he'd already chewed it...

Francis of Assisi was rollin' and ballin' with the best of them

Oh I hear ya!

MISGIVINGS.

Oh well, I'd better finish my beans and head back to work too.

Muffin!

Oh those saints! Always giving good advice, but it's so hard to follow, you know?

Dang, you climb that hill in panel 3.5. You climb it good.

Also I would be careful with those bird-given muffins. I question their origin.

Jesus christ, that is one awesome bird.

!!!!

Love panel three, for some reason.

I also work in a big corporation and never get the time to do photography and creative stuff. It depresses me, at least you do great comics at lunch time! (all I do at lunchtime is stuff my face with fried goodies, yum)

I WANT A CUPCAKE GIVING BIRD KATE BEATON, TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT HILL

I love the dejected-but-yearning look in the last panel. Not that you should necessarily desire Nature Muffins.

St Francis was my favourite religious-stuff-related person when I was a kid. *nostalgia*

Also, you work for the oil industry? I suppose that means you are officially evil. But well, somebody has to do it...

Have you considered doing your job really badly as a form of protest?

The bird bringing a muffin is gold.

I really enjoy your strip, by the way. I spent yesterday afternoon catching up with a lot of your work and it was vastly entertaining.

hahahaha

If you hiked across the ocean to get to Italy, then chances are good that you're holy enough to talk with birds.

Oh my god, I barely had time to eat on my lunch break - I was stuffing burning chicken balls into my mouth at 12:58. I should make time for hikes during lunch!

Nice work Beaton! I take you for granted so much, but when I look at the sites that are linking to you and see how your work makes other people feel, I get a surge of pride and happiness and a whole new level of respect! Whee!

Man, what the hell is up with St. Francis and the birds? There is a song about him by Sarah Slean (awesome canadian artist BY THE WAY) and its all like talking about St. Francis and little birds. Its a very pretty song.

That is some badass bird muffin action.

And I think the words "insane" and "holy" often go together in the case of many saints.

St. Francis is my favorite saint so I'm glad to see he has a comic. I actually composed a song to him once, y'know, when I was like five.

Hello, internet comic artist! I wandered over to your site today because it was linked on Dinosaur Comics and then spent an hour or so reading them, and then I came here. Funny stuff!

Anyway I love this comic. And it reminds me of my favorite St. Francis story. One of the brothers with St. Francis was Br. Juniper and he was a few cards short of a deck. One day he was visiting a sick brother and asked if he could do anything to help, and the sick brother said "I'm craving a pig's foot." So Br. Juniper ran into the forest, caught a pig, and hacked one of its legs off, then brought the leg back to the sick man.

So the farmer who owned the pigs finds out about this and bitches out St. Francis, who in turn tells Br. Juniper to apologize to the farmer. Br. Juniper joyfully tells the farmer how great it was that one of his pigs helped a sick guy. The farmer gets even angrier and calls Br. Juniper a colorful assortment of epithets. Br. Juniper responds by telling him the exact same story again, apparently under the impression that the farmer didn't get it the first time, and then gives the farmer a hug.

This sets off a change of heart in the farmer, who thereupon retrieves the hapless three-legged pig, carves it up, and presents it to the friars. St. Francis then famously says "I wish I had a whole forest of Junipers!"

Moral of the story: St. Francis was big on birds, not so much on pigs.

Kate, there needs to be an animated show like this! Just five minute cartoons of you havin' issues and hanging out with history. It'd be like Peabody's Improbable History but with more frowning.

Like, a short where Edison steals your laptop and claims to have invented it.

I like to think it's not about oil, it's just phlebotomy for Alberta. So its humors don't get out of balance I guess? Also Alberta is alive for the purposes of this metaphor.

if you can't get birds to feed you for free, you probably got to get a job

yeah well could those birds bring me like

a million muffins

i swear i plan to eat them

the muffins that is what were you insinuating

Now do one for St. Augustine! He's my favourite saint.

Also, I'm currently wearing one of your shirts. It hasn't given me superpowers yet, but I'm hopeful.

If you were evil, you could have bigger birds steal from those wimpy holy birds

"Do you know the muffin bird?"
"The muffin bird?"
"The muffin bird!"
"Do you know the muffin bird who lives in Italy?"

This bit of doggerel has implanted in my brain and will be with me for hours. Curse you, Kate! I must drink to forget. Happy Muffin, er - ah, Memorial Day.