Anonymous Rex Author’s New Comic City: Mind In The Machine Will Keep A Watchful Eye On You

By Nick Venable | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

city: mind in the machineThe zombie craze is still going strong, but I am of the belief that, little by little, the cyborg/android sub-genre is slowly taking over. Or it’s at least hiding in the shadows, waiting for the zombies to kill all the humans so that they can take over with as little resistance as possible. If Almost Human continues to win over audiences, expect every other channel to follow suit with something similar. Comics are a region where our half-robotic brethren have always thrived, and IDW Publishing and Darby Pop have teamed up with novelist Eric Garcia (Anonymous Rex) and artist Javier Hernandez for the futuristic City: The Mind in the Machine. Big Brother will be watching this one pretty closely, I’m sure.

Ben Fischer assisted in creating Golden Shield, the world’s most powerful surveillance system, which has become ever-present and always watching throughout San Francisco. Peering through the cameras on cell phones, computers, and cameras everywhere, Golden Shield was meant to stop crime, but has become something else. Fischer realizes that it takes more than just a machine to make his creation so effective, and that a human brain is needed to power it. Say what? It’s said to be action-packed and focuses on “what it means to meld man and machine,” according to the press release, all while exploring how modern society uses such technology.

Garcia says:

“Practically every day in the news there’s a story about a new interface between man and machine. We’ve gone from punch-cards to keyboards to touchscreens in a matter of decades, and direct brain-system connections are already being explored. Between that and the ubiquity of wireless networking, we’re living in uncharted territory — which is why I’ve been so excited to tell the story of City: Mind in the Machine. It’s been a thrill working with Javier and Darby Pop to explore these concepts and bring this world to life.

This all sounds like a solid premise to me, and Garcia is more than capable of telling it. Beyond the dinos-in-disguise Rex series and Cassandra French’s Finishing School for Boys, he also wrote Matchstick Men and The Reposession Mambo, both of which were turned into films — Matchstick Men from Ridley Scott and Repo Men from director Miguel Sapochnik. Meanwhile, Hernandez is best known for creating the superhero series El Muerto: The Aztec Zombie.

Sure, it’ll be a long time before cyborgs go beyond this guy, but it’s nice knowing that we’ll be ready for them when they get here, since we’ve been telling stories about them for years. You’ll be able to read City when the first issue drops in February.

If you’ve got the time, check out Anonymous Rex, the less-than-awesome Syfy adaptation of Garcia’s prequel Casual Rex that they didn’t feel the need to change the name of.