Beta Testing the Apocalypse
by Tom Kaczynski

136-page two-color 6.5" x 9.25" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-541-9
In-store date: January 18, 2013 (subject to change)

Tom Kaczynski takes abstract ideas — capitalism, communism, or utopianism — and makes them tangible. He depicts and meditates on the immense political and technological structures and spaces we inhabit that subtly affect and define the limits of who we are and the freedom we as Americans presume to enjoy. Society and the individual, in perpetual tension. Once you’ve read Kaczynski’s comics, it should come as no surprise to learn that he studied architecture before embarking on a career as a cartoonist.

Beta Testing includes approximately 10 short stories, most notably "The New," a brand new story created expressly for this book. It’s Kaczynski’s longest story to date. "The New" is set in an unnamed third-world megalopolis. It could be Dhaka, Lagos or Mumbai. The city creaks under the pressure of explosive growth. Whole districts are built in a week. The story follows an internationally renowned starchitect as he struggles to impose his vision on the metropolis. A vision threatened by the massive dispossessed slum-proletariat inhabiting the slums and favelas on the edges of the city. From the fetid ferment of garbage dumps and shanties emerges a new feral architecture.

"...Tom Kaczynski has an eclectic drawing style and a vivid imagination, both of which he applies to stories with a strong, thematically consistent point of view.... It’s not important what happens to the people in Kaczynski’s comics; what’s important is how they process a world that’s crumbling and becoming harder to navigate by the day." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

ABOUT THE CARTOONIST: Tom Kaczynski learned to read English by looking at American capitalist comics in communist Poland. He moved to the U.S. in 1987. His comics have appeared in Best American Non-Required Reading, MOME, and many other publications throughout the years, and were nominated for an Ignatz Award in 2011. Kaczynski is the founder of the independent publishing house, Uncivilized Books. He currently lives and works in Minneapolis with his partner Nikki, two black cats, and a golden retriever.