Beta Testing Cover Process Part 2
After the cover concept was approved it was time to pencil… this was the most complicated drawing I’ve done in a long time… maybe since architecture school? Click on the image for full-sized glory.
Continue ReadingComics Archive
CAKE 2013
I’ll be at CAKE in Chicago this weekend. I’ll be there running the Uncivilized Books table and signing Beta Testing the Apocalypse at the Fantagraphics table. Uncivilized Books is debuting four (4) (!!) books at the show: Incidents in the Night by David B. Amazing Facts and Beyond by Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch
Continue ReadingEmergency Broadcast Cartoon
Found this while doing some cleaning. A trial comic done with different tools to see how well it’ll shrink. I think it’s from around the time I made Trans Atlantis.
Continue Reading
Beta Testing on The Morton Report
A new interview, this time with the Bill Baker at Morton Report. We get into one of my favorite topics: architecture. Here’s a taste: What prompted your decision to become a creator of comics, a builder of stories, if you will, rather than a creator of buildings? I think there are a lot of similarities.
Continue ReadingIs This The Future? Beta Testing Reviewed by Bookslut
Another nice review of Beta Testing The Apocalypse come in. This time it’s at Bookslut: But what else are these bewildered men and women supposed to do but struggle to find appropriate metaphors? If Beta Testing is an instruction manual, it’s not one they can read. Those with jobs don’t know what those jobs
Continue ReadingTrans Sibérie on French Radio
Another item I missed posting. Looks like Trans Siberia (or Trans Sibérie in French) was featured on French radio!? Here’s a link to the podcast: Nova Book Box 10 Octobre I wish I knew what they are saying. My French speaking sister informed me that a long excerpt is read from the book… which
Continue Reading
Beta Testing The Apocalypse Reviewed by Miami Herald
This one is a short capsule review, so I’ll post the whole thing here: His functional and utilitarian art is often reminiscent of the insanely proper illustrations in Jack Chick’s religious tracts, but Kaczynski’s own wildly anarchic imagination fuels his insightful and unsettling narrative. He combines socioeconomic fact, fantasy and farce in this seriously
Continue Reading
Democratizing Objects: A Discussion with Tom Kaczynski
Another fun interview, this time with Nick Hanover at The Comics Bulletin. We meander around a variety of topics: music, science-fiction, architecture, Quest for Fire, and much more. Here’s an exchange about the genesis of “100,000 Miles,” the lead story from Beta Testing The Apocalypse, and the story that was ultimately the genesis of
Continue ReadingBeta Testing Reviewed by The Comics Journal
A new review of Beta Testing the Apocalypse, this time by The Comics Journal! As a reader of The Comics Journal since issue 148 (Charles Burns Interview. I miss the paper issues!), I’m pleased as punch. Here’s an excerpt: […] One of the pleasures of reading Beta Testing, as in other watershed collections like Caricature,Curses, or Everything
Continue Reading
Tom Kaczynski Interviewed by The Rumpus
This was a fun interview. Greg Hunter (interrogating on behalf of The Rumpus) asked a lot of good questions I haven’t been asked before. It definitely left me stumped a couple of times: Rumpus: “Cozy Apocalypse” from Beta Testing engages with masculinity, and “masculinity in crisis,” more overtly than your other works, and I was wondering if
Continue ReadingBeta Testing Reviewed at Comics Bulletin
Another review of Beta Testing The Apocalypse surfaced a little while ago. This one was fun to read: Kaczynski’s new collection Beta Testing the Apocalypse is weird as all fuck and funny as all shit, a Singles Going Steady for the art comix crowd that merges Burroughs’ cut-up commentary with Ballard’s keen tech consumer insight and siliconic wit.
Continue Reading