A refugee from Nazi-annexed Austria, she started a new life in New York drawing powerful, glamorous heroines and broke barriers in a male-dominated field.
Kate Beaton headed to the tar sand fields of Alberta saddled with loans and in need of cash. She found a job — and the book she “was always going to make.”
Her best-known creation was a sendup of a certain kind of female stock character. But Ms. Noomin rendered her with compassion, and used her to tell important stories.