Pedro & Me: Friendship, Loss and What I Learned

Judd Winick has taken a lot of crap from the comics community for his work, some deserved and some undeserved. But for those who only know him from his mainstream work, I highly recommend this book (well, I recommend it even if you don't only know him from his mainstream comics work). It's funny, educational, incredibly heartfelt. I can not read this book without bawling like a baby, yet the book is surprisingly uplifting. It is an amazing story and a great monument to who Pedro Zamora was.

It has been a long time since a book, especially a graphic... memoir, I guess you'd call it... has moved me to this extent. Judd Winick was a housemate with several others in the San Francisco season of MTV's "The Real World", in which TV cameras show nearly everything as a group of selected people live together for several months. Judd's roommate was Pedro Zamora, a young Latino originally from Cuba, who was gay and HIV positive. Over the months, a fast friendship developed between the two roommates, and also Pam Ling, another housemate. Pedro became an AIDS educator, traveling the country giving talks and information wherever he was asked. He also began getting sick. This story unfolds from Pedro's and Judd's beginnings, takes us show more through their meeting and growing friendship, which would extend to Pam, through Pedro's first signs of illness, his marriage to Sean, his worsening symptoms and death at 22. This is bare-bones, but the book is not. It is honest, emotional and ends with a quiet joy that Pedro did not let AIDS define him, and despite his brief time on Earth, he left it a better place than when he found it. So if Judd Winick can produce something as powerful as this, and as great a comic as "The Adventures of Barry Ween", what is he doing writing mainstream DC comics now? show less

A fantastic graphic novel by one of the Real World San Francisco cast members. This is the story of Judd's friendship with his housemate Pedro Zamora. Pedro was HIV positive and traveled around the country as an AIDS educator and activist. This book is a touching memorial and (warning!) the last half is unbearably sad.

Of course Pedro and Me is not the best written or drawn book one will ever find. But its honesty and humanity is unsurpassed. Pedro's courage, in making the hard choices to use his life to improve the world around him, is as inspirational today as it was when the show originally aired.

The true and tender story of the friendship between the author and Pedro Zamora, a charismatic young man, AIDS educator, and person with HIV. The two meet on Season 3 of MTV's "The Real World", developing a deep friendship that ended when Pedro dies at the age of 22. The black and white images evoke deep emotions, drawing the reader into this story of tragedy, friendship, loss, and learning. Highlights the importance of advocacy and being seen, as well as deep treatment of friendship.

I had no idea what this comic was about when I picked it up and I definitely have never wathed the Real World. Reading about the experiences of a gay man of colour with HIV from the perspective of a white straight man who was not poz was kind of weird... Still sad and important storry just kind of weeeird.

Cartoonist Judd from the Real World San Francisco recounts his friendship with Real World roommate Pedro, Pedro's battle with AIDS, and AIDS education. This is a very honest and heartfelt story in which the images and text meld easily. It introduces several experiences outside the average teen reader's scope that may open a reader's eyes to diversity and educates, without secret agendas, on topics such as AIDS and homosexuality. Recommended for 6th graders and up in any library collection.