Today in Comics History, February 12: Happy birthday, Judd Winick!

Born today: comics writer and artist Judd Winick! He's worked on many of the top-name DC comics series: Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The Outsiders, The Trials Of Shazam!, Justice League: Generation Lost, a co-writer of Countdown to Infinite Crisis (I'm gonna hold that againast ya, Judd), Green Arrow and Black Canary, Catwoman, and he's the writer who reintroduced Jason Todd to the DC Universe as the Red Hood. (But I won't hold that against ya, Judd.) Winick's the co-creator of Grace Choi, Thunder, Tommy Merlyn and more, creator of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, the Cartoon Network's The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, and he created the all-ages graphic novel series Hilo.


portion of advertisement from Hilo and His Friends Get Graphic Halloween ComicFest 2008 (Random House Graphic, October 2018)
Winick's magnum opus, however, is probably his (auto)biographical Pedro and Me, which recounts his time spent as a cast member of MTV's The Real World: San Francisco...


from Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned (Henry Holt, August 2000); script, pencils, inks and letters by Judd Winick
It was on The Real World that Judd met and began a relationship with his eventual wife, housemate Pam Ling...


...and housemmate Pedro Zamora, a HIV-positive AIDS activist and educator and eventual great friend.


Pedro and Me is a funny, sobering, loving, eye-opening sketch of Pedro and Judd and Pam and their friendship. It was one of the first books (graphic novel or otherwise) I'd read about an HIV-positive person, and it's not an exaggeration to say it had a major effect upon my current progressive views. Even twenty years later it still has the power to inspire me. I may have chosen to feature it today because Judd Winick is in it and his birthday, but this is an all-time must-read. Happy birthday, Judd. We miss you, Pedro.




Infomation on Pedro Zamora and the Pedro Zamora Scholarship:

• The National AIDS Memorial
• The Pedro Zamora Scholarship