Reading: Automatic Kafka
This being a work journal, it’s probably all kinds of appropriate to mostly talk about my own work and what passes for a process behind it. But like every artist, I steal from am greatly inspired by the things I read, see, watch, taste, or what have you… so this is the closest I will hover to Recommended Reads, if you will…
You know how you can tell the superhero comic you have in your hands isn’t like any other you’ve read before? When the creators see fit to remind you on the cover: This is a Superhero Comic.
AUTOMATIC KAFKA by Joe Casey and Ashley Wood came out in 2002 through Wildstorm’s Eye of the Storm imprint, and I only got a chance to go over it a few months ago—I wear my shame on my jugular and beg you to bite it.
Ever wonder what it’s like to be violently sexy and decadently toasted… but with powers? AK addresses that curiosity and then some. Somehow, someone somewhere thought it was time to indiscriminately expose the seedy underbelly of superhero post-celebrity culture and immerse Superman fans in it—think, if the Thundercats were real people, and were still around, but were living off their millions and living in sin somewhere… and you’ll probably come close to what this book is/was about. This was Ennis and Robertson’s THE BOYS over five fucking years early.
Wildly experimental and dripping with contempt for the mainstream, the series was abruptly cancelled after nine issues. Casey, who was ironically also writing Superman at the time, was showing people something awesome in one hand and slapping their mothers with the other. Ash Wood’s art was being witty as only his art can. For such a fresh series, it was criminally shortlived. If you find it, read it… snatch it from a friend… read it in all its glorious strangeness… and if so inclined, tear out a page, roll it up, and then smoke it.
I promise it will be good for you.
- - - -Tags: ashley wood, automatic kafka, comics, joe casey, wildstorm
coincidentally I am reading a Joe Casey book this past few days.his run on Mister Majestic and his work there was more supermanesque and i also read automatic kafka an issue or two way back when it came out but didn’t like it then mebe coz of d art, ur post makes me wanna revisit it again though.
Automatic Kafka is the best take on superheroes out there this side of Seaguy (and the only thing on the other side of Seaguy is Flex Mentallo). It beats the pants off of Watchmen, The Boys, and all that shit. It’s irreverent and kickass and Joe Casey is one of the best writers out there that no one reads which is sad because he’s fucking awesome and I’m just insanely pumped on adrenaline right now because transformers fucking rocks.
John’s promise that it will be good for you is an understatment.
The comic is about a ROBOT. Robots are always, always awesome. Comics about robots are even more awesome.
Ashley Wood? Tinapulan man iyang drawing. Maypa si UDON.
(I’ll snatch that book from you if I get the time)
lolkayatasigego.