In Written Works
- In Franz Kafka's story The Metamorphosis, the character Gregor Samsa awakes to find himself transformed into a giant "vermin." Although the type of bug Gregor changes into is not specified, the physical description offered depicts a cockroach-like creature. This novel has been parodied in various ways, including at least two other published works: Marc Estrin's 2002 Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, where Gregor Samsa prospers despite his transformation, becoming an important figure in society, and Tyler Knox's 2006 noir comedy Kockroach in which a cockroach wakes up one morning as a man and becomes a leading gangster in Times Square during the 1950.
- Daniel Evan Weiss's novel The Roaches Have No King tells the story of a humanized colony of cockroaches, who swear revenge against their hosts for renovating the kitchen and thus preventing easy access to food supplies.
- In Arabic and other eastern societies, sometimes a traditional method to protect books and scrolls was a metaphysical appeal to "Kabi:Kaj," the "King of the Cockroaches." By appealing to the king to protect a manuscript, cockroaches of less nobility (or lesser insects) would refrain from intruding on documents which could be eaten by the king only. Since many manuscripts were made with fish-glue, starch-paste, leather and other tasty substances, insect appetites were a constant and never ending problem to Arabic books and scrolls. A similar technique from Syria was to name the first and last page of a document or manuscript "The Page of the King of the Cockroaches", in the hope that the Cockroach King will control all other insects. Translated appeals include "O Kabi:kaj, save the paper!", "O Kabi:kaj, save this book from the worms!" and "O Kabi:kaj, do not eat this paper!" "In Maghribi manuscripts, the word appears in its evidently corrupt form, "Kaykataj" and is clearly used as a talisman... and mentions, after a certain Muhammad al-Samiri, that when one writes "Kaytataj" on the first and last folio of the book, one can be sure that worms will not attack it."
- Along with rats, cockroaches are frequently seen infesting various locations in Steve Purcell's comic book series Sam & Max, and one storyline features a race of gigantic cockroaches living on the moon.
- Archy is a sympathetic cockroach in an historic series of newspaper columns by Don Marquis.
- Revolt of the Cockroach People, an autobiographical novel by Oscar Zeta Acosta, cockroaches are used as a metaphor for oppressed and downtrodden minorities in US society in the 1960s and 70s, particularly Mexican-Americans. There are several references to the folk song La Cucaracha throughout the novel.
- In Vertigo comics' The Exterminators the main villain is a breed of cockroaches named Mayan Hissers, being responsible for "destroying" Mayan civilization.
- Milquetoast the Cockroach was a character in the comic strips Bloom County and Outland by Berkeley Breathed.
- In the young adult fiction series Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins there are giant cockroaches beneath the Earth that are shy and emotional and help Gregor on his Quest. They are perceived by the other people under the Earth (Underlanders) as slow, weak, and cowardly things, but prove to be loyal to their allies and wiser than they appear.
- In the comic series Badger there is a villain known as the Roach Wrangler, who holds supernatural control over an army of cockroaches.
- In the manga series Terra Formars giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength are the main antagonists
Read more about this topic: Cultural References To Cockroaches
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