The man known as Blutch is one of the giants of contemporary comics. In everything from memoir to science fiction, using scratchy pen or lush brushwork, color or black and white, his mix of lyricism, bleak humor, and formal audacity is always unmistakable. Peplum may be his masterpiece: a grand, strange dream of ancient Rome. At the edge of the Empire, a gang of bandits discovers the body of a beautiful woman in a cave; she is encased in ice, but may still be alive. A world away, Julius Caesar is slain, and the republic begins to crumble. The bandits, their numbers dwindling, frozen maiden still in tow, make their way toward Rome - seeking power, or maybe just survival, as the world unravels. Vast in scope yet unnervingly intimate, Peplum weaves together threads from Shakespeare and the Satyricon along with Blutch's own distinctive vision. His hypnotic storytelling and stark, gorgeous art pull us into one of the great works of graphic literature, translated into English for the first time.