Afrodisiac

Lock up your daughters, come hell or high water—here comes the king of the concrete jungle. Afrodisiac is the graphic novel that Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca built as a love letter to the wildest, weirdest, most wonderful excesses of 1970s pop culture. Equal parts blaxploitation superhero, kung-fu master, pimp-with-a-heart-of-gold, and cosmic adventurer, the Afrodisiac is an over-the-top heroic archetype writ hilariously large across a book that looks and feels like it was pulled from a dusty longbox in your grandparent’s attic.

First appearing in the pages of Street Angel before headlining his own collection, Afrodisiac exists in a universe where genre is just a suggestion. One chapter sends him battling Dracula for his women; the next pits him against space aliens and flying saucers. There are dinosaurs, Richard Nixon, Hercules, giant monsters, funny animals, and damn near everything else that made 1970s schlock entertainment among the most gloriously fun stuff ever concocted by the mind of man. Publishers Weekly called it “thoroughly entertaining and utterly nutso,” a pastiche that “may be lost on those not well versed in blaxploitation in particular and ’70s trash culture in general”—but for those in the know, it’s a riot.

What elevates Afrodisiac beyond mere parody is the astonishing craft Rugg brings to the production. Every page is a masterclass in comics design: faded four-color printing, misregistered color plates, wrinkled and creased covers, and the distinctive dot-pitch color that bleeds charmingly outside its boundaries. The book shifts styles from chapter to chapter—Archie-style humor here, Lee/Liefeld 1990s excess there, Marvel letter-page homages throughout. It’s not just a comic; it’s an artifact, complete with fake ads, a Value Stamp parody, and a credits page that mimics Marvel’s 1970s letter columns down to the finest detail.

“It’s the story of the story of Afrodisiac,” wrote ComicsAlliance’s David Brothers. “This is an immensely cool take. It’s an archival work for something that never happened, from toys to all-ages comics to cartoon shows.” The book earned a 2011 Eisner Award nomination for Best Humor Publication, won AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers distinction, and was named iFanboy’s Book of the Year. It also received multiple Glyph Award nominations, including Story of the Year, Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Male Character, and Best Cover.

Originally published by AdHouse Books in 2009 as a 96-page full-color hardcover, Afrodisiac has become a cult classic—a book that rewards rereading, each pass revealing another layer of reference, another lovingly replicated detail, another reminder that the 1970s really were the最佳 time for trash culture.

Perfect for fans of the documentary The Image Revolution, the retro stylings of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and anyone who’s ever wished they could read a comic that feels like it just fell out of a time machine from 1974.