Afrodisiac; Jim Rugg

Afrodisiac is a new very funny graphic novel by cartoonist Jim Rugg (Plain Jains, Street Angel) with assists by Brian Maruca. Afrodisiac is a work of blaxplotation, a type of entertainment that was popular during the 1970's. You'll either "get" it or you won't, but for those that appreciate what Rugg is doing in Afrodisiac, they'll be laughing their asses off and get some great cartooning as well.

Unfortunately, I only ordered a couple of Afrodisiac on my initial order which arrived today, so I won't have a restock until two weeks (and I'm crossing my fingers that Diamond, my distributor, has copies in inventory read to be sent out). The reason I ordered so conservatively on Afrodisiac was because I initially thought that this would just be a one note graphic novel (and it kind of is, but Jim Rugg plays this one note really well) and I didn't think its audience needed to have this in the hardcover format this book is in. Well color me dumb, because Afrodisiac fires on all cylinders, is in full color, and has great production values throughout so the $14.95 price for this hardcover is a great deal and I don't think people will flinch at the price when they flip through this book.
This second image here on this entry is the actual cover of Afrodisiac and as great as this book is, I think that this is the wrong image to use as the cover. Maybe if the title had been on the front of this book this image would have been okay, but I think there's any number of other images from within Afrodisiac that would have really gotten people to pick up this book. I still think though that once people look through Afrodisiac and see what Rugg is spoofing, they'll be sold on getting this book.