New comic to fight HIV/AIDS published

By John Freeman on June 27, 2013

Cardiff University’s Centre for Language and Communication Research has been working with South African charity Whizzkids United to produce a comic book in which teenagers tell their own stories to support HIV/AIDS education.

The charity’s main programme involves using football training as a metaphor for how to keep safe from HIV, but they wanted to find new ways of attracting young people to their Health Academy, which offers counselling, HIV tests, and general social and medical support.

Together the Centre and Whizzkids decided to run a series of comics drawing workshops, so that the teenagers could produce something relevant to others in their community, as well as sharing their experiences with counsellors and each other.

Now a booklet, coloured and designed by comics artist Steve Marchant, has been produced of some of the best work created at an advanced workshop. It will be handed out to all participants in the charities football programme to reinforce the key messages and encourage better attendance at the Health Academy.

• The booklet can now be viewed (and downloaded) from here: www.whizzkidsunited.org/comics

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.