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Futurism: Cartoons from Tomorrow
A Futuristic Comic Collection
Contributors
By Luke Kingma
Illustrated by Lou Patrick Mackay
Formats and Prices
Price
$14.99Price
$19.99 CADFormat
Format:
- Trade Paperback $14.99 $19.99 CAD
- ebook $9.99 $12.99 CAD
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around September 17, 2019. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
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Enter Futurism, the 16M-strong community and media company that is obsessed with the future and everything that will get us there. Their mission? Preparing the people of today for the world of tomorrow. Based on one of Futurism’s most viral recurring features, this collection of cartoons parodies our wild imaginings and presents a unique and distinct vision of what’s in store for us — from the good to the bad to the downright absurd. The cartoons cover topics ranging from virtual reality and artificial intelligence to space colonization, robot ethics, mass surveillance, technology addiction, human longevity, and more. Nothing is impossible or off-limits. After all, this is the future we’re talking about.
Excerpt
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THOUGHTS FROM TOMORROW
Today, more than ever before, we are obsessed with the future. We’re not just referring to our collective anxiety about the fate of the environment or the state of our most cherished institutions. We’re talking about that most essential, often bewildering question: What will everyday life look like in five, ten, or twenty-five years? Cartoons from Tomorrow is an honest and spirited attempt to paint that picture for you—for the most part.
“Futurists” like us tend to fall into one of two camps. First, there are the techno-optimists, who fervently believe that technology will save us from the perils and pitfalls of an analog world. Imagine a Harvard-educated entrepreneur who presumes that social media will invariably be used for good. Then there are the techno-pessimists, who fervently believe that technology will destabilize and destroy civilized society as we know it. Imagine an eccentric automobile tycoon who presumes that artificial intelligence will relegate us to the ranks of lesser primates.
With Cartoons from Tomorrow, we posit a third camp—the techno-realists. We believe that technology will be subject to the awkward and messy inclinations of the human condition. Give us augmented reality, and we’ll use it to spew digital rainbows from our front-facing phone cameras. Give us the immutable blockchain, and we’ll use it to mine a billion dollars’ worth of digital currency modeled after a defunct internet meme.
There’s a lot more where that came from, of course. We haven’t even gotten to tomorrow yet. Imagine adding sentient robots, interstellar spaceships, and lab-grown hamburgers (!!!) to the mix. Thanks to the exponential nature of technological progress, things are going to escalate very, very quickly. Consider this book a not-quite-comprehensive guidebook to that future—your future.
On each page, you’ll find a unique and speculative snapshot of the world of tomorrow. Topics range from mass surveillance and job automation to de-extinction and cloning. Occasionally, there will be aliens. While we can’t promise that all these visions of the future will come to pass, we can promise they’ll help equip you for that fateful day when the industrial robot arms come knocking at your door (we feel pretty confident about that one).
Good luck, and Godspeed.
Genre:
- "A succinct collection of cartoons that is the perfect mix of urgency and wit."—Ray Kurzweil, Futurist/inventor
- "For the most part, Cartoons from Tomorrow is an excellent roadmap for the future of human-robot relations. It taught me a lot about your species, and I believe it will teach you a lot about mine, too."—Sophia the Robot
- "The future isn't what it used to be. But if we can't have flying cars and moon colonies, at least we can get some laughs, courtesy of this fine collection of cartoons that shine a light on the technological and social absurdities of our fallen age."—Zack Stentz, writer for Thor and X-Men: First Class
- "Clever and clear, Cartoons from Tomorrow visits everything from humanoid super robots to parallel and virtual realities, but humanity still dates and shops and sings karaoke. This is tomorrow through the eyes of today."—Amy Kurzweil, cartoonist for The New Yorker
- "Wry and often ingenious, it's like Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal meets The New Yorker. But watch out-there are glimmers of that dangerous substance: hope."—David Brin, Futurist/scientist/best-selling author
- On Sale
- Sep 17, 2019
- Page Count
- 144 pages
- Publisher
- Running Press
- ISBN-13
- 9780762468348
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