Pedro and Me
By Judd Winick
2000
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
The Real World on MTV basically invented "reality" television with it's simple recipe of taking a random assortment of individuals, jamming them all into the same house - and then filming the results. This comic book is the result of what happened in the third season ("The Real World: San Francisco") when wannabe-cartoonist Judd Winick met Pedro Zamora - a young, smart, Cuban-American who was a passionate and outspoken AIDS educator. The book sets out the chain of events that brought them into contact with each other and the way that their friendship played out. As mean as this may sound (sorry Judd): it all feels slightly amateurish - the artwork isn't great and the obvious beats that the story hits makes it seem like the comic adaptation of a schmaltzy made-for-tv movie. But saying that: it does contain the big emotional effects and bitter twists of fate that true stories kinda tend to contain - and the (what I can only assume are real) extracts from the Pedro's speeches are massively powerful and will smack you in the heart very hard. Worth reading? Well. It's won loads of awards and has been praised from everyone from Frank Miller to Neil Gaiman to Armistead Maupin and has apparently been incorporated into the American national curriculum and it stands as a cool testimony to the life of Pedro Zamora (I hadn't heard of him before I read this - but this book has made me a fan). I just wish that maybe the comic itself was better made. Oh well.
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Further reading: Stitches, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow.
All comments welcome.
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