AIDS in Sequential Art

So for months now I've had this store of comics stories in which AIDs is featured in one way or another, with the idea being that I'd eventually post them as a tribute to one of my favorite graphic novels, Judd Winick's Pedro and Me, in which roommates on a popular reality television show learn to live with and love a fellow cast member, Pedro Zamora, who is HIV positive and ultimately succumbs to AIDs-related illness.

Well, National AIDS Awareness Month isn't until October (I thought it was in April, for some reason), but I just can't wait any longer.

As I've often said, the sequential art format offers many rich examples of texts engaging in sociocultural and sociopolitical issues. Pedro and Me may be among the best-known graphic novels to deal explicitly with safe sex and AIDS, but it's hardly the only one. Below is a list of other titles or stories that do the same, and I encourage anyone to post other examples that they may know. (There may be some overlap in the titles mentioned below from various sources).

Strip AIDS USA (1989) Coedited with Trina Robbins, Bill Sienkiewicz and Robert Triptow. An AIDS benefit comics anthology which included work from cartoonists Frank Miller, Sergio Aragones, Alison Bechdel, Weiill Eisner, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Moebius, Harvey Pekar, Marie Severin, and others. (Thanks to Trina for this information)

Thanks to Andy Mangels (see http://www.andymangels.com/and http://www.wonderwomanmuseum.com/) for the following timeline of other AIDs-related comics, apparently created originally for Gay and PRISM Comics:

1986• Megaton #4 contains the first comic book reference to AIDS

1987• Jon Sable, Freelance #44-45 features the first major AIDS storyline in comics (First Comics)
• Strip AIDS, an AIDS benefit anthology trade paperback, is released in the UK (Willyprods/Small Time Ink)

1988• Strip AIDS USA, an AIDS benefit anthology trade paperback (Last Gasp)
• AIDS News, an AIDS education book (People of Color Against AIDS Network)

1989• HOMO PATROL, a graphic novel dealing with AIDS and homophobia (Helpless Anger, 1989).

1991• Within Our Reach, an AIDS benefit anthology trade paperback (Star Reach/Marvel)

1992• Real Life Comics presents Healthman: The AIDS Crisis (Personality Comics)

1993• AIDS Awareness, an anthology comic book, is published in the UK (Chaos City Comics)
• The AIDS Awareness Trading Card Set is released. Each pack contains a condom. (Eclipse)

1994• The Incredible Hulk 420, in which a major supporting character dies of AIDS (Marvel)
• The Incredible Condom Man (Aaaahh!! Comics)

1995• Free World Comics, an AIDS education book (World Comics)
• Chris Companik’s “HIV + ME” starts as a comic strip in Atlanta AIDS Survival Project’s newsletter Survival News (January 1995). The strips began running in A & U magazine beginning March 2003.

1996• Seven Miles a Second, a graphic novel, and an autobiographical story about a hustler dying of AIDS (DC/Vertigo)

2000• Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, a graphic novel account of author Judd Winick's friendship with the late AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, is nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (Henry Holt)

Andrew L. has offered titles Blue Pills and Lost Raven (buy this one and some of your money goes to the Evergreen AIDS Foundation, according to Amazon.com), the superhero comic Shadow Hawk and Howard Cruse's story "Safe Sex" (most probably from his work in The Advocate magazine).