Toons for World AIDS Day

Seroback Saturday observes World AIDS Day with a look back at a rather limited selection of cartoons about HIV/AIDS drawn for the LGBTQ press.

This is by no means a comprehensive look at the complete selection of LGBTQ cartoonists. I'm not including the work of any of the character-driven comic strips, many of whom have introduced HIV+ characters either on a regular, occasional, or cameo appearance basis. Nor do I have any idea what was the first published cartoon about AIDS (although that might be interesting to find out someday).

I believe this cartoon from September, 1985 is the first one I ever drew about the AIDS epidemic*; it's at a point when I felt it necessary to spell it out in the first panel and to put quotation marks around the acronym afterward. This was well before I began drawing for the LGBT press, however; this appeared in the student newspaper at UW-Parkside.

(Had the Homosexual Agenda added the "T" yet in 1985? I forget. I think folks were still squabbling about what order the first three letters should be in.)

There were other cartoonists contributing to LGBTQetc. media in the early 1980's, although few were tackling political subjects. But the advent of the AIDS crisis galvanized our community like nothing before. That is not to dismiss the Mattachine Society or Stonewall, or the fundamental first step of decriminalizing our relationships. But the issues up to the 1980's were predominantly lifestyle matters; the AIDS crisis presented us with a literal life-or-death issue.

And even the gag cartoonists couldn't avoid the subject.

"The Gay Side" by Tom Rezza in Wisconsin In Step, Milwaukee WI, January 23, 1986

Within the LGBT community, there was great resentment of President Ronald Reagan for not speaking about the AIDS crisis; he was not the only one guilty of silence (=death).

"Life at the Closet Door" by David Brady (freelance), ca. February. 1987

Even though consistent condom use has been proven as the best method for sexually active persons to avoid contracting the AIDS virus, network and cable television wasted years refusing to air condom advertising on the grounds that it would offend what they call "more sensitive viewers." But when Viagra and Cialis came along, the pharmaceutical companies' deep pockets helped the networks overcome whatever squeamishness they had about discussing sex during their commercial breaks.

"I'll Only Have to Rob Small Banks" by Angela Bocage in Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco CA, February 26, 1993

Speaking of the pharmaceutical companies: once treatments were discovered for HIV and AIDS, the issue became one of cost, as expressed in this Angela Bocage cartoon featuring Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Senator David Pryor (D-AR). Pryor's interest in controlling the escalating cost of prescription drugs came as chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Waxman's district included West Hollywood and parts of Los Angeles, so he had constituents vocal on the issue; his legacy includes the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 ("Hatch-Waxman Act"), and the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990.

"AIDS: Bearing Angry Witness" by Jennifer Camper (freelance), August/September, 1993

The death toll from AIDS devastated a generation in our community — as Camper's 1993 cartoon observes, in ways large and small. LGBTQ newspapers across the country, from the serious news outlets to the "bar rags," found that they needed to add obituary notices to report the loss of so many in their 50's, 40's, 30's and 20's. These obituaries often included pertinent details omitted from obituaries in mainstream newspapers: their life partners, their chosen families, or preferred or performance names by which they might be better known.

Uncaptioned cartoon by Ben Carlson in Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco CA, August 13, 1998

Ben Carlson's cartoon above appeared in the Bay Area Reporter's "No Obits" edition of August 13, 1998. A brightly colored banner headline on page one heralded the fact that for the first time in years, the San Francisco weekly newspaper did not have a single obituary in it.

"That doesn't mean that there were no AIDS deaths in the past week; next week's issue may have more obits than usual... After more than 17 years of struggle and death, and some weeks with as many as 31 obituaries printed in the B.A.R., it seems a new reality may be taking hold, and the community may be on the verge of a new era of the epidemic ... Perhaps."

By 1998, my cartoons were syndicated to the LGBTQ press, I'll close with a couple of my own scribblings from the past 20 years. The sketch above was commissioned in October, 1998 for AIDS Action's project AIDSWatch.

I didn't draw a World AIDS Day cartoon this year. It used to be that with newsmakers often on Thanksgiving holiday immediately beforehand, there frequently would be no distraction from the topic when I sat down at my drawing board. Thanks to presidential twitterrhea, that hasn't been the case lately.

Given the Corrupt Trump Administration's record on HIV/AIDS, I could simply have reissued this cartoon from January.

__________

* Ed. note: Wrong. I drew at least one AIDS cartoon earlier than the one at the top of this post.