By Mark Mosedale & Si Smith. Published by Top Shelf. Softcover, 276 pages, Colour, 2026. A.I. took the work. Gigs replaced jobs. Ordinary people are left to scrape together lives in a world that's no longer built for them. These are their stories.In a frighteningly near future where Basic Income is supplemented by gig work assigned by “the app”…an octogenarian punk and a lonely young worker seek escape through music. A street artist makes art by night and paints over it by day. A has-been detective chases a case into a forgotten world. A drug runner makes a long, strange delivery. A writer marks her days on a decaying space station she can’t leave. And a refugee asks for help in the last free place.With a hard-won blend of biting satire and humanistic passion, two creators from the North of England weave together six divergent chapters into an extraordinary graphic novel. Gigs is both a powerful warning about the oppressive world to come and a defiant celebration of the humanity that will sprout up in the cracks.“A sharp, funny look at where the future’s heading and what we can do about it. Emotive, thought-provoking, beautifully drawn and written with wit, this is the sort of science-fiction we need more of.”— Adrian TchaikovskyAuthor of the Hugo Award–winning Children of Time series.
