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Automatic Kafka

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Pub Date Dec 22 2026 | Archive Date Aug 30 2026


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Description

The beloved, surrealist sci-fi—Automatic Kafka—by bestselling writer Joe Casey (Blood Squad Seven, Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker) and critically-acclaimed artist Ashley Wood (Popbot, Les Mort 13, World War Robot) will be brought back to print for the first time in 20 years. This trade paperback will collect the complete story, feature new material, and find its new publishing home at Image Comics.

Automatic Kafka follows the titular washed-up android superhero—once a celebrated member of the now defunct super-team The $tranger$—spiraling through a hyper-violent, media-soaked America. Seeking relevance, Kafka finds himself a pawn in shadowy government schemes, cult celebrity culture, and weaponized nostalgia. His desperate quest for humanity drags him straight into the wormhole of mankind’s darkest vices… and confronts him with a jaw-dropping existential truth.

Automatic Kafka is a gritty, post-modern take on superheroes, but presented as a surreal, razor-sharp takedown of fame, power, and the machinery that manufactures both. The Boys and Doom Patrol meets Mr. Robot in this must-read cult-classic.
The beloved, surrealist sci-fi—Automatic Kafka—by bestselling writer Joe Casey (Blood Squad Seven, Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker) and critically-acclaimed artist Ashley Wood (Popbot, Les Mort 13...

Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781534332621
PRICE $19.99 (USD)
PAGES 224

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Average rating from 27 members


Featured Reviews

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Fascinating visual work — I enjoyed the varied artistic approach. Joe Casey shares a strong and compelling story, drawing on what’s possible in comics.

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4 stars
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This comic was a wild ride. This follows a cast of washed up superheroes as they are trying to figure out what to do after they aren't heroes anymore. The comic jumps perspectives and timelines a lot, which can be hard to follow, but I promise it's something you just need to stick to.

This comic is engaging and a fun read, I had a hard time understanding exactly what the $tranger$ did as superheroes though, as it wasn't fully defined. It's alluded that they may have been created by. the government, but also the government is stalking all of them to get their powers somehow? This was the only part that I wish had been more fleshed out. I like following characters after they did all the grand and wonderful things, but it's hard to understand if we don't know really where we started.

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