REVIEW: System Preference by Ugo Bienvenu
From creator Ugo Bienvenu for Titan Comics, System Preference is a dystopian sci-fi tale in a bright but difficult future for humanity. With data storage at a premium in a world filled with an obsession for social media, historical treasures are being deleted to create space for holiday photos. One man takes it upon himself to illegally save cultural treasures in his robot surrogate.
System Preference does what good sci-fi is meant to do. It questions what makes us human and what is important about life. An archivist, Yves, looks like he has a great life. He is married to a beautiful woman, working for a powerful company, and his unborn child is currently being cared for by his loyal robot surrogate carrier called Mikki. However, Yves risks it all to save cultural treasures (such as 2001: A Space Odyssey) and store them in his robot so that such information isn’t lost as his company wipe clean such media in an attempt to store space in a world where people are more focused on having the space to store their holiday photos and social media videos. It reminded me a lot of a less action-based Equilibrium as Yves acts as Christian Bale here and tries to keep secrets from his bosses in order to preserve what he feels is important for humanity. Yves has a child on the way, a wife already angry with the risks he is taking, and he is aware of monitoring at work but yet he still feels it’s important to save such media to make sure humanity can learn from the messages in these stories which he feels is vital.
The artwork in System Preference is beautiful with the sci-fi world brought to life with stunning colours and vivid detail on par with other great graphic novels such as Low, and Y: The Last Man. A Netflix adaption in a similar manner to the brilliant Scavengers Reign would work perfectly with this world and there is so much scope for more. The story questions the overabundance of media we currently have available and the ease with which content can be created – does such a world lead to a lack of connection and a lack of meaning within such work? If we don’t value the effort placed into art then what will happen to us? How does this further disrupt the connections we have with other humans, especially as we begin to rely more of technology as Yves and his wife do with their robot surrogate. It’s a timely story as we further question the use of AI in creative mediums. The tension ramps up in the story as the world closes in on Yves and the stunningly dark but beautiful ending has left me wanting more. There is more to come with this stunning sci-fi tale and I’m sure, like the greatest sci-fi, this story is one that we want to keep in our memory for a long time.
System Preference is a brilliant dystopian sci-fi cautionary tale about what makes us human. It takes a good look at humanity as we are and the path that we are on as it questions what will be important to us in the future. A stunning tale and one that sci-fi fans should not miss!
Read System Preference by Ugo Bienvenu
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