The Slush Factory
Pedro and Me

RATING: 5 out of 5 Slushies, but only because we can't go higher. It truly is in a different class.

With apologies to Michael Chary, this is not a review. The following are my impressions of what I truly believe to be a powerful work of genius. Judd Winick tells the story of Pedro Zamora, a young AIDS activist who was his roommate and good friend on MTV's 3rd season of The Real World. He tells us of Pedro's origins and of his own beginnings, and manages to do so with a warmth and sense of humor that doesn't read as saccharine.

When Brian asked me to review this book, I knew I was going to have a tough time of it. My uncle runs about 16 (it may be 17 now) AIDS hospices in Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia through his foundation "Fundación Eudes." There are people who will know him when I mention his name here: Fr. Bernardo Vergara. He comes to visit up here occasionally for a couple of and by the time he goes back, a good number of his "hijos" aren't there anymore. I know AIDS.

It is around me. Mentors of mine are living with HIV. My family tries to help people living with HIV to live in comfort and get the drugs they need in a country where they can't afford it.

And Brian sent this book to me. Not his fault really, since I didn't tell him all this and in fact asked to see it. The other thing I am is a man of my word. Here is my write-up of Pedro and Me. But this is not a review. After I got the package, I opened the book late at night, figuring I'd glance at it a bit and then read it the next day. I started to read it, however. Judd Winick, you are incredible. I could not put this book down. It took a lot of guts to translate your life experience about a friend who died of AIDS while a generation watched into a graphic novel format. Pedro Zamora died at the age of 22. If he were alive, we would be about the same age. And this is not his story. Well, not all of it.

This is the story that needed to be told. This is the story of the people who were close to Pedro. It is about the survivors and about the transformation that took place in their lives because a bright, energetic Cuban immigrant in Miami chose to become an altruist. He dedicated the rest of his life toward trying to reach out and teach others how to prevent getting infected by the HIV virus. But it's still not totally his story.

When Pedro needed a good friend, Judd Winick was there. Judd Winick put down on paper an eloquent sequential art layout of his transformation from a man who didn't know how he'd react to living with a HIV positive roommate to a man who was substituting for his friend giving lectures on AIDS when Pedro couldn't continue. With the same slyness that Zamora had in teaching Winick the difference between the facts and the myths of HIV and AIDS, by retelling this biographical tale, Winick manages to put some very important information in this book. And you don't even realize it until you're done because it is a compelling story. This is a brilliant piece of work. And it is an important piece of work.

I tried hard to read this book with some emotional distance and with a degree of cold objectivity. I could not. When Winick retells the story of his MTV The Real World experience, I have to remember that I was watching every episode. That is so bizarre, people. We watched the lives of these young people on TV and I just referred to that window as an episode. We watched a young man live with HIV. We watched him gain friendships, deal with roommate bullshit, and we watched him fall in love. We watched him have to deal with his sickness. We didn't watch him die. We are a nation of voyeurs.

I don't know if we deserved to see this, but I do know that it affected a great number of people. And I know something else. There are more Pedro Zamoras out there. And we don't get to see them on MTV. There are also more Judd Winicks and Pam Lings and Sean Sassers and Cory Murphys. These are the types of people who renew my faith in the human race. They run soup kitchens, or deliver meals to people with diseases; they are the real superheroes. This is a story of human transformation; a powerful tale told with a great grasp of story telling. Just when things are getting real heavy, you get sucker punched by appropriate humor.

These people are not saints; they are good people doing good things. Winick's sense of real sounding dialog is incredible. Yes, this is biographical, but that doesn't always translate well into a compelling story. I handed this book to a student at NYU to read and she found it to be a fantastic read. I'm encouraging everyone to buy this, not for my experiences, but for the fact that it is a very well told story.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I were a betting man, I'd say I was holding the next Eisner winner in my hands at the very least.

Opinion: Hh. I guess this is a review. Wacky hi-jinks may now ensue.

Grade: 5 out of 5 Slushies, but only because we can't go higher. It truly is in a different class.

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