RanXerox was a truly strange phenomenon of the 1980s. At a time when everyone I knew was reading the usual Marvel and DC fare, this Italian indie comic arrived like the proverbial bolt from the blue.

The artwork was astonishingly realistic—figures rendered with heavy, bulging musculature, sometimes with a level of anatomical detail that bordered on the grotesque. Just as striking was the central dynamic between Ranx and Lubna, a teenage drug dealer often depicted half-dressed; the series’ casual nudity was, to say the least, controversial.

Luc Besson never commented on whether Léon: The Professional—which features a similarly unusual age dynamic between Léon and Mathilda—was influenced by Ranx and Lubna.

Even the title was contentious. The comic was originally called Rank Xerox, identical to the name of the photocopier company. When the creators were threatened with cease-and-desist letters, they simply mashed the words together into RanXerox.

The series had a huge impact on comics in general and on cyberpunk culture in particular. Its influence even spilled into music: Frank Zappa admired it so much that he commissioned the series’ artist, Tanino Liberatore, to create the cover for his 1983 album The Man from Utopia.