Artist Talk | Comic Velocity: HIV and AIDS in Comics

Including presentations by:

Jennifer Camper
Kate Charlesworth
Siân Cook (UK HIV/AIDS Graphic Communication Archive)
Michelle Perez
James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook
Carlos Sánchez Becerra
David Shenton
Robert Walker

Comic Velocity: HIV and AIDS in Comics, curated by Paul Sammut for Visual AIDS, explores how artists and activists have used comics to create and shape conversations about HIV and AIDS.

As part of the exhibition, four newly commissioned comics projects from J. Amaro & A. Andrews, Inés Ixierda & Clio Sady, Carlo Quispe, and Mel Rattue were available as free take-aways. To hear these artists discuss their work, tune into the Strip AIDS 2020 podcast here.

Artist Biographies

Jennifer Camper
Jennifer Camper is a cartoonist and graphic artist living in New York City. Her art examines life from a perspective that is irreverent, female, queer, and mongrel (Lebanese American). Her work often explores gender, race, class, and politics, as well as sexuality, mermaids, and robots. She’s also a cartoon editor, a teacher, and the creator of the biennial Queers & Comics Conference. Her books include Rude Girls and Dangerous Women, a collection of her cartoons, and subGURLZ, a graphic novella following the adventures of three women living in abandoned subway tunnels. She also edited two Juicy Mother comics anthologies. Her cartoons and illustrations have appeared in numerous publications, and have been exhibited internationally.

Kate Charlesworth
Kate is a cartoonist, illustrator and writer. Kate has created daily, weekly and monthly strips plus single panel cartoons, illustrations and features in a variety of styles and formats for a wide range of clients across the media, including newspapers, magazines, print and electronic publishing, animation and websites, for individuals, companies and organisations. Among many others, Kate’s work has been published in The Guardian, The New Scientist, and The Bookseller.

Siân Cook / UK HIV/AIDS Graphic Communication Archive
Compiled by the designer and educator Siân Cook, the AIDS Graphic Communication Archive is a collection of promotional campaigns and graphic ephemera compiled in order to examine changes in health promotion approaches, messages and concerns around HIV/AIDS in the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not intended to be a complete or comprehensive collection, but to act as a reference source for the development of future communications and a resource for those interested in the design of HIV/AIDS materials.

Michelle Perez
Michelle Perez is a young woman in America that hates America. Co-creator of The Pervert (with artist Remy Boydell), her work was originally featured in the Eisner Nominated anthology "Island" with Image Comics. The Pervert has been nominated as a finalist for the LA Times Bookfest and the Lambda Literary Awards, and is listed on several other best of lists. Michelle loves bragging about that shit. She has also written for several since-shuttered gaming publications and currently hosts the podcast Workin' On It with Eliza Gauger, Jake and Ruben (@werkinawnit on Twitter) and is also working on a sequel/spin-off of The Pervert titled Michigan.

James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook
James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook are New York–based artists who, in 1984, opened the East Village gallery Ground Zero, which showed pioneering installation, performance, and multimedia work. One of their earliest artists was David Wojnarowicz, who they collaborated with on 7 Miles a Second, a graphic novel based on Wojnarowicz’s autobiographical writings. Initially published in 1996 by DC/Vertigo, 7 Miles A Second was released in a revised, expanded edition in 2013 by Fantagraphics Books. Romberger and Van Cook have also collaborated on their 2014 graphic memoir The Late Child and Other Animals.

Carlos Sánchez Becerra
Carlos Sánchez Becerra is a Venezuelan artist who expresses himself through figurative and narrative art. His painting and drawing is influenced by surrealist art and literature, pop culture, and politics. Sanchez has a degree in visual art and has also studied theatre, dance, and circus, which has influenced his pictorial style. His work has been exhibited in Spain, Italy, the United States, and his native Venezuela, and his paintings can be found in private collections across the world. Sanchez also works in scenography and costume design for an independent theater group in Maracaibo. He lives and works in Carora, Venezuela.

David Shenton
David Shenton is a British cartoonist who has specialized in queer comics since the 1970s. Shenton is known for his work “Controlled Hysteria,” Stanley and The Mask of Mystery (1983), and Phobia Phobia (1988). His early comics can be found in British gay newspapers like Gay News, Him, and Capital Gay. His comic strips have been featured in the collections Strip Aids, No Straight Lines, and AARGH. In addition to his art career, Shenton has taught literacy at Norwich Prison, Hackney College, and the Education Department of the London Zoo.

Robert Walker
Robert Walker is an artist, actor, and publisher. He's the founder of Digital Noixe Comics, and Big Baby Bytes Film Studios. He resides in the Big Apple and is an advocate for HIV and AIDS awareness and safe sex. Robert uses his creative talents for his activism, such as his comic book The O+MEN (The Positive Omen). The O+MEN is the first superhero group whose members are all HIV positive.