As I mentioned on Monday’s post, this past weekend I attended HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Last year at HeroesCon 2008, one of my personal highlights was meeting artist Jim Rugg.  (Unfortunately, Rugg was not on the 2009 roster of attendees.)  Jim Rugg is a talented illustrator, gifted cartoonist, and all-around nice guy.  His main claim to fame is Street Angel, a comic series published by Slave Labor Graphics about a skateboarding, samurai sword-wielding, kung-fu fightin’ street urchin who dispenses justice to the odd assortment of meglomaniacal, rogue geologists; luchador mask-wearing Incan gods; basketball-playing ninjas; and time-displaced pirates who terrorize her city of Wilkesborough.  However, the series also introduced an ally for Street Angel whom Rugg and his writing collaborator, Brian Maruca, have subsequently spun off on his own:  Afrodisiac.

Set during the 1970s, the Afrodisiac stories feature Alan Diesler, aka Afrodisiac, a Black pimp who not only runs a stable of Wilkesborough’s finest prostitutes, but who also acts as the city’s last line of defense against some of its more bizarre menaces.  His nemeses include a softball-playing Count Dracula, who siphons the blood of Afrodisiac’s hookers in order to increase his rec league stats; a mind-controlling computer named Megapute; and the advance scout for an all-female army of Venusian invaders (an adventure which brings Afrodisiac into direct confrontation with his old tag-team wrestling partner, President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon).

If this all sounds like some sort of pop culture fever dream, then welcome to the world of Afrodisiac!  Rugg and Maruca intentionally create a convoluted, and conflicting, backstory for Afrodisiac, and that, combined with the grab-bag of absurd scenarios, would appear to work against Afrodisiac’s favor to make the stories impenetrable and far too cute for their own good.  However, the short stories are dense, fun, action-packed reads that don’t require any prior knowledge of Afrodisiac’s exploits.

Also to their credit, Rugg and Maruca don’t mock the Blaxploitation genre.  Given Afrodisiac’s occupation as a pimp, his double-entendre name, massive ‘fro, and the bizarre, over-the-top situations Rugg and Maruca place him in, one might expect yet another jokey, one-note Blaxploitation parody.  While the creators do have fun with the concept, they always play the character and the events absolutely straight.  Afrodisiac is a man facing impossible situations with steely resolve and righteous fury.  The overall look and style of the Afrodisiac short stories successfully evoke the feel of a Blaxploitation film and the creators’ ear for authentic sounding dialogue is pitch perfect. If some mad scientist spliced together the brains of  Jack Hill and Jack Kirby, the result would be Afrodisiac.  When I spoke to Jim Rugg at HeroesCon in 2008, his depth of knowledge and genuine appreciation of Blaxploitation was immediately apparent.  He effortlessly riffed on the little-seen film, Candy-Tangerine Man, and hipped me to author Chester Himes, whose novel “Cotton Comes To Harlem” was adapted into the proto-Blaxploitation film of the same name in 1970.

To date,  Afrodisiac’s longest story was his debut in Street Angel, which showed the reader Afrodisiac’s ultimate fate in the present as a old man who still has a way with the ladies.  However, the longest story featuring the character in his prime was an 18-page, limited edition, black & white ashcan that Rugg sold (and sold out of) at HeroesCon 2008.  I was lucky enough to snag one of those editions from the artist himself.  I was impressed by the craft, wit and style that was present within those pages.  I was gobsmacked by the book’s fidelity to the genre and the wild, anything-goes adventure that seamlessly moved from smoky, backroom craps games to James Bondian, sci-fi death traps  It was a real inspiration to me, and helped me realize what I wanted WORLD OF HURT to be.  Besides those issues, Afrodisiac has only appeared in a handful of short, full-color stories , each between five to eight pages in length. (Cleverly, the full-color strips are colored like ’70s era comics.  And, yes, I will steal Rugg’s coloring style if I ever do WORLD OF HURT in color.)  Afrodisiac’s next appearance seems to be an homage to the giant monster movies of the 1950s.  Rugg also has a fairly extensive gallery of illustrations and mock covers featuring Afrodisiac which can be found on his website.  The Afrodisiac tales definitely need to be compiled into a single edition.  It would be essential reading for any fan of Blaxploitation or comic book storytelling, in general.

AFRODISIAC LINKS:

Jim Rugg’s Website

Afrodisiac Vs. Dracula

Afrodisiac Vs. The Venusian Invasion Vs. Richard M. Nixon

- JEP

I fear no man, but I fear Jim Rugg.  I fear him, because one day, he’s going to put Afrodisiac online, and immediately I’ll lose my title of “The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic!”

Yesterday, I gazed upon this, and wept:

Then, I saw this and cursed the heavens:

If you don’t know by now, the hardcover edition Afrodisiac, by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca ships this December from Adhouse Books.  It will feature the collected Afrodisiac stories, mock covers like those above and an assorted assload of Awesomeness.  Trust me, if you’re visiting this site, you’ll need this book in your life like you need oxygen! 

So visit your local comic book retailer, look him or her…who am I kidding…look HIM dead in the eye and say “Afrodisiac.  Order it.  NOW!   ISBN 978-1-935233-06-0.”  If he throws you shade, or if you, like me, struggle to remember 13-digit ISBN numbers, then there’s always Amazon. 

- JEP

GhettoManga’s post today reminded me that pre-orders are due soon for Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s Afrodisiac graphic novel.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you’re a Blaxploitation fan, this is a MUST!  If you have a Blaxploitation fan in your life, I can’t think of a better Christmas gift.

Click here for a twelve page preview of the inimitable Afrodisiac in action.

To learn more about him, check out my previous post on the genius that is Afrodisiac.

- JEP

Long-time readers of  WORLD OF HURT know that I’m a tremendous fan of Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s explosive homage to Blaxploitation, Afrodisiac, and I’m always on the lookout for new Afrodisiac material.  Well, with all apologies to Jim Brown, on December 23rd, “The Baddest Cat That Ever Walked The Earth” is coming to a comic shop near you in a graphic novel featuring the collected adventures of Afrodisiac.  If you don’t know who Afrodisiac is, then I suggest you start here to find out.

Ever since I learned that Adhouse Books was publishing an Afrodisiac collection, I’d been itching to get my hands on a copy.  Jim Rugg was kind enough to let me review an advance PDF copy of the book, and I wasn’t disappointed with what I found.  Afrodisiac just gets badder and badder with each adventure!  He not only defies gods, but the Devil and God himself…and wins.

The book collects Afrodisiac’s previously published appearances, such as the 6-page story “Shock-A-Con,” which was first seen in Adhouse’s Project: Superior, in one handy volume.  It also includes, for the first time in color, the story “Punch Card Preach,” which was previously printed as a limited edition, black & white ashcan that Jim Rugg quickly sold out of during the 2007 convention season.  The colors in “Punch Card Preach” are bright, bold, flat colors that pop off the page.  Besides these stories, Rugg and Maruca also provides a wealth of new Afrodisiac material.  

In short, I love the new material as much as the previously published stories.   In “It’s Not The Size of The God In The Fight,” Afrodisiac has to bring a  typically boisterous and cocky Hercules down to size.  “Sting, Stang, Stud” pits Afrodisiac against federal law enforcement officials who want to bring down Wilkesborough’s Number One Pimp.  They are reluctantly joined by local cops who know how foolhardy it is to underestimate Afrodisiac’s cunning, and particularly his appeal with the ladies.  Watch out for a sight gag featuring Afrodisiac pimp some Dan DeCarlo-esque girls from Riverdale in “Night Of The Monster Cock-roach.”  The joke is made funnier by the fact that the very next panel is a prosaic shot of Death-mackin’, Devil-fightin’, lady-charmin’ Afrodisiac going over his accounting ledgers wearing a pair of granny glasses.  In “Night Of The Monster Cock-roach”  rushes to save one of his hookers, 72, from the clutches of a giant insect rampaging through the streets of Afrodisiac’s hometown of Wilkesborough.  Rugg does a magnificent job of capturing the feeling of a monster movie with “Cock-roach,” particularly in sequence where Afrodisiac slowly and steadily pushes his car against the human tide fleeing from the creature.  Also, I might add that not only is Afrodisiac nice with his hands, but his “car-fu” technique is unstoppable.  I have to admit that the manner in which Afrodisiac extricates himself  and 72 from their plight is a bit of a groaner, and the only off-note in the series, but Rugg and Maruca save the story from an overly cute, saccharine ending by having the ever-pragmatic pimp immediately put 72 back on the street to pay for her rescue.

As fun as “Night of The Monster Cock-roach” is, Rugg and Maruca save their most impressive storytelling for the short tale, “Death Comes For Afrodisiac.”  The title alone is brilliant, because the entire story (and I mean the ENTIRE story) is conveyed in those four simple words.  And what a story it is!  Rugg and Maruca cleverly play with elements of time, page design and layout to shatter the fourth wall, and deliver a satisfying story with a whopper of a conclusion, that reminded me of the stunning conclusion to Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers Of Victory mini-series where the “spear” thrown at the Dawn Of History lands at just the right time and place millennia later to defeat a feared enemy.   Speaking of Morrison, the coda to “Death Comes For Afrodisiac” features one of those those marvelous Kirby-esque/Grant Morrisonian throwaway ideas that suggests a world of possibilities and an infinite number of stories which just beg to be written. The non-story extras in this compilation have a similar quality.  Rugg’s mock covers and illustrations pull in the reader by suggesting a lot of world-building that occurs along the margins.  They spark the reader’s interest, while still letting their imagination do much of the heavy lifting to fill in the gaps.  For instance, I’ve now got it in my head that I NEED to see a) the full story of Afrodisiac vs. the Jim Kelly-esque Dragonfly story, and b) a real live Afrodisiac Saturday morning cartoon.

Finally, be on the lookout for the return of a familiar epithet used by Marvel Comics’ resident Hero For Hire.  Coming from Afrodisiac’s lips, the much-maligned phrase somehow becomes cool.  If you’re a fan of Blaxploitation, you definitely can’t go wrong with the collected Afrodisiac.  Anyone who finds this book under their tree this year will definitely be in for a “Sweet Christmas!”

- JEP

(NOTE: Jim Rugg recently released another non-Blaxploitation graphic novel,  One Model Nation, which was reviewed by my Blog@Newsarama colleague, J. Caleb Mozzocco for this week’s edition of Las Vegas Weekly.  Caleb also runs a great daily comic-related blog of his own, and it’s a daily online destination for me.)