Nano Jams is a short story collection that fleshes out Neo Tokyo, the setting of Dave Cook’s cyberpunk comic book series, Killtopia. With over 30 stories from 50 contributors, this anthology is particularly relevant to our times, as the present veers closer to dystopia, accentuated by every new headline.
Introduced as “the Black Mirror of comic books”, it lives up to that title, if not from its length, then due to its variety of relevant ideas alone. The framing of this book starts with a corporate worker who many can relate to, disillusioned by his routine, coming home to wear an advanced VR headset. There, he is induced into a TikTok-like stupor, where stories scroll by to vie for his attention. This is where Dave Cook hands the reins to a lot of talented writers and artists to tell their cyberpunk tale in a page or two.
Some highlights that stood out to me include a tale about grief being monetized, virtually revisiting your lost loved ones becoming an in-app purchase. Current versions of AI can already chat like someone you’ve lost. What would you do if it was more immersive, how much would you pay for it? A lifetime subscription of resurrection? These types of questions are what Nano Jams leaves you after you read it.
There’s another about the death of free speech, with social media riling up fan bases, and before you know it, disagreements escalate to death threats and doxxing. A lot about influencers, the impact of them putting on a persona, and lying to both themselves and others. A couple about censoring stories and the deletion of physical media, how sharing them is the spark of a revolution. These stories not only show what the state of media, capitalism, or governance is right now but also the feasible forms that it may take in the future. It makes you question how they can evolve, how they’ve been in the past, and how much worse they’ve become since.
Credit: Mark Abnett and Jess Peng
Like Black Mirror, most of the stories are downers, and some are played for laughs, but there are a few inspiring ones, like “Behind The Curtain”. With beautiful art by Jess Peng and words by Mark Abnett, the story is about stardom and rising above the noise of social media, standing tall despite it all.
Another highlight is “Warm Hug”, with art by Drekas Art and words by Simon Birks. It’s a bittersweet commentary on a lot of things, from the dangers of livestreaming, and immoral copyright laws, to deforestation. Some of these could be a whole series on their own, and a couple of ideas could do with more fleshing out, but Nano Jams delivered what it set out to accomplish.
The extremely short stories do hurt the collection in terms of memorable characters, they are more bite-sized ideas that could be fun talking points in daily conversation. They also have a variety of art styles, some more cartoony, others painterly. The number of stories may dilute the whole package, making it hard to differentiate one from the other, but it is a good jab on our decreasing attention span.
Despite their cynicism, this collection of stories feels like they are based on hope. The hope is that stories, not content, can jolt readers out of passive submission, and actively choose what to do and not do in their lives. These cautionary tales warn us to not be too compliant with advertisements and the demands of content consumption.
Nano Jams is a wake-up call. This collection of numerous stories represents the endless stream of short-form content that we consume every day, and how it shapes reality. It critiques AI-generated and AI-filtered content by being an earnestly human book made by writers and artists. It’s cyberpunk at its most important, not only showing you what if, but what can be, and asking what you would do in that situation, not if it becomes a reality, but when.
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