System Preference is far from just another AI-focused story. It’s a poignant, timely piece with an Orwellian twist.
Tales about the dangers of A.I. have been around for many decades at this point. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Terminator, to Avengers: Age of Ultron — AI is one of the most popular subject matters in all of fiction. Nowadays, these tales are particularly poignant, given the immense strides made in the world of artificial intelligence, especially the generative kind, like ChatGPT.
This brings us to System Preference by critically acclaimed French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu (Fog, Sphere of Existence). Originally released in France in 2019, the graphic novel is coming to English-language this September. Published by Titan Comics, this short-but-powerful graphic novel takes place in a highly political and dystopian society— with numerous comparisons to Orwell’s legendary Nineteen Eighty-Four – and blends it with robotics and plausible (but still very exaggerated) AI and technological scenarios. Readers will also find that it plays out like a classic Black Mirror episode; technologically driven, thought-provoking, and cautionary.
In System Preference, we follow Yves, an archivist at the Bureau of Essentials, who’s got the job of deleting old archived content, such as novels, films, and other media, with the purpose of dumping them to save space for new data, namely social media videos and posts.
The internet is crumbling under the weight of the immense date it holds. However, Yves quietly goes against the orders of his bosses, who are masked figures known as the Prophets, and he instead sneakily hides data inside Mikki, his family’s domesticated robot — who’s also the surrogate carrier for Yves and his partner’s child. Yves soon learns that the cost of preserving the past, may very well impact his family’s future.
Deeply intriguing and relevant to today’s AI overload, System Preference tackles themes such as preservation of culture and censorship, but also love and nurture. While exaggerated, it serves as a stark reminder that cultural memory cannot, and should not, be forgotten in the vast swamp of data in the modern age. To put data into real-world numbers, an estimated over 400 exabytes of data is created daily. An exabyte is 1 billion gigabytes. And that figure is rising constantly.
The art is excellent, taking on a gorgeous retro-futuristic aesthetic. It’s colourful enough to stand out, but retains a realism, especially in emotional sequences.
As it happens, this graphic novel also draws comparisons to The Wild Robot, which was adapted into an enormously successful animated movie in 2024. While The Wild Robot tells its story in a fun, wholesome and whimsical family friendly manner, System Preference delves into deeper themes, exploring the subject matter from a more complex and mature perspective.
Not only is System Preference an engaging, insightful read — but it’s also a timely and important book. I can’t recommend it enough.
Rating: 4.5/5
System Preference releases on September 23, 2025. You can find it at Titan Comics here.
