Review by Ian Keogh
Forevr begins with Penny and James visiting a medical clinic, but she’d rather he wasn’t present for the diagnosis and prognosis, which amounts to only twelve months of life remaining. It doesn’t sound like the start of a smart, dry, domestic comedy, but that’s what it is.
Penny dies, but before then we see James wears his heart on his sleeve, and their daughter Brenda has a combative relationship with her mother, although her partner Terry gets on with both Brenda’s parents. In this near future technology has advanced to enable seemingly accurate AI versions of the dead to inhabit the cloud, and James does opt to have an AI version of Penny. Brenda also speaks to her, but is far more sceptical as to whether or not it really represents her mother, although arguments continue.
After years of being credited as Box Brown, it’s Brian Box Brown who creates Forevr, his two-dimensional flat art very recognisable, not least for the bright colours. It’s a basic, but serviceable style conveying personality and also enabling very different looking people.
While the basis of Forevr is good, it takes more than a feasible idea to produce a readable graphic novel, and Brown achieves this by widening the circle around the family. James is content to play video games with online friends and consult Penny on his phone, while Brenda learns things from the AI Penny that her father’s never revealed. The broader picture concerns the process. How real is the new Penny? Before dying she consults someone using the Forevr process mortally offended that their reality is questioned, and Brown features an extended TV documentary sequence with a company executive interviewed. Are they exploiting tragedy via simulation? The newly dead certainly advocate contact with fellow program users.
The exploration of ethical and emotional questions around the process spark thought, and Brown also extrapolates other technology while taking a few swipes at influencers. It’s the humanity that makes Forevr, though. Brenda and Penny’s relationship in either incarnation is completely believable as is Brenda wondering about whether the new Penny’s attitudes are those of the old Penny, but she just wasn’t previously aware of them.
Brown plants the seeds of what’s coming well, and rather than revealing everything he ensures the ambiguity of the company marketing Forevr remains in place. It’s for the reader to make up their own mind about events. Is Brown warning about stumbling into the near future, or is he embracing the comfort of it? You decide.
