An autobiographical account, in graphic novel format, of growing up in Cold War Alaska in the shadow of a nuclear arsenal.

From the creator of the critically acclaimed graphic novel My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson's comes an unnervingly funny tale of life in Alaska during the tensest times of the Cold War.

Peter Dunlap-Shohl grew up on the front lines of the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s, where residents lived in the shadow of a nuclear arsenal nine times the size of that of the Soviet Union. This graphic novel recounts the surprising and tragicomic details of the nuclear threats faced by Alaskans, including the Chariot project that was championed by Edward Teller and his "firecracker boys" in the late 1950s and early 60s; the near-nuclear-disaster caused by the Great Alaskan earthquake of 1964; and the 1971 test of a nuclear warhead on the island of Amchitka. Dunlap-Shohl shares the very real and very terrible consequences that these events and others had for humans and animals alike, all in the service of "atoms for peace."

Drawn with his characteristic editorial cartooning style, Nuking Alaska is a fast-paced and entertaining reminder of how close we came to total annihilation just half century ago, and how very relevant and frightening the nuclear threat remains to this day.