Automatic Kafka

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Automatic Kafka was a 9-issue American comic book written by Joe Casey with art by Ashley Wood. It was published by DC Comics in the Wildstorm Universe.

The series followed the life of Automatic Kafka, an android who had been a member of a mass-marketed superhero group called the $tranger$ during the 1980s. After the team breaks up, Kafka is lost, looking for a new direction in life. When he tries a drug for mechanical lifeforms and has a near-death experience: Death herself appears and takes him through his life. They talk about Kafka's desire to have real feelings and be human. When Kafka wakes up he goes on to try different ways of becoming human: drugs, sex and fame among them. The series also visits Kafka's former teammates who each have adapted to their life post-$tranger$ in their own way.

Automatic Kafka was a very experimental comic, Ashley Wood's unique style and Joe Casey's writing made it something between parody, satire and homage. With an abundance of sex, drugs, nudity and violence and complex scripts it only found a small audience. In the final issue Casey and Woods themselves appear to explain to Kafka that they do not want to share their creation with other writers and artists and therefore decide to end him with the series.

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