Virtu_AI is a 12-page cyberpunk story about AI and creativity illustrated by American artist Ren Chu and written by me. Ren and I first collaborated in 2023 on a short comic called When the Sun Comes Up which originated as one of my monthly free scripts for any artist to draw. After this we decided that we'd like to collaborate on something bigger and Ren gave me some ideas about what she would like to draw.

Two of her ideas for this story were to set it in a cyberpunk city and to delve into themes of personal isolation. So I took those two ideas and combined them with the rising anxiety about AI in creative spaces, which was very relevant especially in the latter half of 2023, mostly due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.

It took me a while to get the whole script together, but by Spring of 2024 it was ready. Coincidently at the exact same time I was finishing the script, an international comic book festival KOMA, which annually takes place in my hometown of Brno in Czechia, published an open call for short comic book stories that Virtu_AI fitted pretty well into. So we pitched our story with some of Ren's rough sketches for all of the 12 pages and soon after that Virtu_AI was picked as one of the comics that would be displayed during the festival.

KOMA 2024 took place in Brno from 10th to 13th of October and Virtu_AI was in fact one of the comics on display there. After that, Ren created a beautiful cover for the story and tweaked its colors (or one specific color, to be exact). The final comic with the cover and the color change is the one you can now read below.

If you live in the United States and you'd like a printed version of Virtu_AI, you can contact Ren herself here.

check out Ren's portfolio