Much of his fiction centers on gay themes and several of his novels are named after archetypes of gay male culture. Rodi himself is openly gay. The Chicago settings of his books also reflect his background.

Rodi's short fiction is collected in a number of anthologies, including Men on Men 5 and Neil Gaiman's Book of Dreams. His comic book work has appeared in Marvel Comics, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo, and other independent publishers. He was also well known in comic book circles during the '60s and '70s as a prolific writer of "letters to the editor" (as Bob Rodi).

Rodi was a founding member of the Chicago-area performance group The Pansy Kings and contributed plays and performed at the Live Bait Theatre.

His novel Kept Boy is under option to Warner Bros. and Rodi is adapting it for the screen.

Novels

• Fag Hag (1991)
• What They Did to Princess Paragon (1994)
• Closet Case (1994)
• Drag Queen (1995)
• Kept Boy (1996)
• The Birdcage ... novelization of the film (1996)
• Bitch Goddess (2002)
• When You Were Me (2007)
• Dogged Pursuit: My Year of Competing Dusty, the World's Least Likely Agility Dog — nonfiction (2009)

Comics

• "Genes and a T-Shirt," in Heartthrobs #1 (with Phil Jimenez, Vertigo, January 1999)
• "Immune," in Strange Adventures #1 (with Frank Quitely, Vertigo, November 1999)
• Four Horsemen (with Esad Ribic, 4-issue limited series, Vertigo, 2000)
• "You've Got Hate Mail" (with Marcelo Frusin, in Flinch #8, Vertigo, January 2000)
• "The Spoils of War" (with Frank Teran, in Weird War Tales Special #1, Vertigo, April 2000)
• Knockout #1—24 (with Louis Small, Jr., Vertigo, 2001—2003, tpb, May 2010, ISBN 1-4012-2798-8)
• The Crossovers #1—9 (with Mauricet, CGE/Code6, February—December 2003)
• Identity Disc (with John Higgins, 5-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, August—December 2004, tpb, ISBN 0-7851-1567-6)
• Rogue #1—6 (with Cliff Richards, Marvel Comics, 2004, tpb, March 2005, ISBN 0-7851-1336-3)
• Loki (with Esad Ribic, 4-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, 2004, hardcover, February 2005, ISBN 0-7851-1652-4, softcover, October 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2891-3)