Comic cover with the title "What Does HIV Mean?" by Jordan Collver & Jaime Garcia Iglesias featuring a patchwork quilt.

Comic Page 1: A young man accompanies his boyfriend in a clinic waiting room. His phone pings with a reminder for an upcoming Queer Sewing Club session. He kisses his boyfriend goodbye outside the clinic and arrives at the sewing club, holding a Vintage City bag and waving to the instructor. He pulls out an old denim jacket from the bag and and excitedly tries it on. It's covered in badges/patches and a bit tattered but still cool. He feels good in it, but the instructor notices and appears shocked with recognition. TEXT: Most gay men in the UK have been touched by HIV in the UK in some way, whether they live with the virus or not. A central strand running… through the community… but unique to each person. Today, people with HIV can live full and healthy lives. Although there is still no cure… [background sign]: CLINIC thanks to medication like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and effective anti-retroviral treatments, HIV is a preventable and manageable condition. [phone message]: Reminder: Queer Sewing Club - 1hr And people living with HIV can’t pass on the virus. [building sign]: CLINIC ENTRANCE For many young gay men who have grown up having these options, it’s the only reality they’ve known. [handbag]: VINTAGE CITY “When I first came out… coincided with PrEP becoming more available.” (Caleb, 30, white, HIV– on PrEP) Clinic visits for testing, prevention and treatment are part of everyday life. “The issues of sexual health […] lots of people in the queer community go through as a rite of passage” (Tyler, 35yo, HIV neg) Seen as a matter of routine and responsibility. But it wasn’t always this way.

Comic Page 2: A colourful 80s flashback of the instructor as a younger man wearing the same jacket... it was his! He looks up anxiously at an imposing hospital building and is ushered in through the back entrance by medical staff in PPE. He sits alone in the waiting room. We next see him standing in the middle of a lively dancefloor surrounded by men dancing and chatting. He turns to his right and sees a man unravelling like a spool of thread, followed by a closeup of him stitching a badge onto his jacket with that same colour thread. He turns to his left to see another man in a different colour also unravelling, followed by another badge in the same colour. He is left holding several different coloured threads with a jacket covered in badges. Now he is sitting at a table with a small group of other men who are happily painting some protest signs. Some chat, while one lovingly puts some paint on another's nose. TEXT: Far from it, when HIV was first identified in the early 80s… [sign]: HOSPITAL it was a matter of life and, very often, death. [sign]: STAFF ONLY [sign]: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE For many gay men who lived through the 80s and 90s, HIV represents fear, loss, grief – “The AIDS Crisis.” “Literally loads of my mates died in the eighties… I was just going onto the scene at that time and the people that you would bump into…” “…suddenly they just wouldn’t be there…” “and no-one really talked about it.” (Brian, 56yo, white) “It was a fear-filled time… But…” “…there were still times when people showed incredible love to each other… I think it would be wrong to see the whole of the 80s and 90s in one big black cloak of doom and gloom. It wasn’t that.” (Paul, 64, white)

I've just been given the go-ahead to share the new comic I made with @jgarciaiglesias.bsky.social about his research!

"What Does HIV Mean?" 1/2

Sean Bean from Civ 6: From the first signs of life beneath water, to the great beasts of the Stone Age. To man, taking his first upright steps, you have come far.

Sean Bean from Civ 6: Your settlement is under attack.

Voices in my head-

Depression: want to go on a holiday, rest, not think about work.

Autism: going literally anywhere but your flat is stressful and exhausting.

Financial stress: and where would you go, with what money.

Possessed spirit: you need to go to the graveyard.... for.... reasons....

had an online interview which I'd set up like 12 tabs of examples and demonstrations for, and the moment I enter the call on teams firefox bricks itself. LOVE TECHNOLOGY IT'S SO GOOD

the grind never stops and it's always grindinggggggggggggg

An illustration of two Anglo-Saxon era lesbians. One is embracing the other from behind, burying her face in her neck while the other smiles joyfully, they are adorned by a background of various patterns inspired by the era's artwork, including metalwork & jewellery as well as illuminated manuscripts. The patterns involve a lot of swirling & abstract floral & animal motifs. The woman being embraced is standing at a warp-weighted loom which is being used to weave a fabric in colours of the lesbian flag (orange, white and pink).

🧡Sweet mother, I cannot weave...🧡
My full drawing of Anglo-Saxon era lesbians for We've Always Been Here artbook! Details & progress stages to follow.

it is easier to kills others' darlings than it is to kill your own
- steven king, probably

kill your darlings with a brick, life is too short to do a duology for a first draft

atlanta the shading and expression on this face is SO GOOD

Filed my taxes in record time this year. Finally, the autism is being put to work like a horse in the field.

Happy Valentine's Gay

It's April 1st and I've got my fortnightly therapy session later, so I guess we'll be doing a top 10 worst blunders retrospective, celebrating me as the April Fool

They respect what artists can create for them (beautiful finished pieces, award winning displays, readable displays, etc) but not what artists do in practice, nor collaborating with them.

gAI wants to isolate and erode our mutual respect, so the only way to defeat it is through mutual appreciation

Every time a creative industry seems pro-AI, what they're really in favour of is devaluing the labour of colleagues they don't respect or understand. Here, we see pushback against gAI artwork being used for finals, but not for "placeholders", I suspect because writers don't respect artists.

a drawing of three anthropomorphic dogs. One is some kind of terrier and dressed as an architect. One is a jack russel and dressed as a graphic designer. One is a puli and dressed as a print technician.

dogs with jobs (architect, graphic designer, print technician)

Making indented bullet list breakdowns of complicated topics always gives me the comforting illusion of control (filing corporation taxes?? in this economy??)

Doesn't think that, thinks he can lie to the public and convince the uneducated it's true

the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes

Feeling this a lot the last few months 🧡

Every time I use an adobe program, it finds a way to kick me in the nuts.

Lizard

Illustration of a monk daydreaming at his desk, looking like he was working on some kind of spreadsheet on a parchment, some doodles on the page showing he may have been a bit distracted for a bit Behind him are what looks like the doodles on the page in a vague medieval art style but better of him being saved from a dragon by a valiant knight, then the monk gently holding the knight in both of the drawings, a glorified portrait of the knight hidden in the middle of the other drawings, flowers and little stars all around and a few hearts

Brother, I think you're a bit too distracted thinking of your best friend there,,,,

Get back to work!

#art #oc #artsky

Nothing beats the adrenaline rush of sending an email without double checking the name of the person you're emailing

(yes, I spelled it correctly)
((yes, this is such a boring thing to get worked up about))

Give folks their flowers

No, I mean right now. Go tell someone you loved their work right now. They're on social media just say it, it has never been easier

"They know how much people love--" no they don't go say it right now to a composer or artist or game dev or writer or anyone AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Painting of white weasel on grass with daisies, trees and arch in distance.

Weasel, Scott Daniel Ellison.

Hi! I'm looking for illustration work! Recently been doing doing a lot of work in TTRPGs and would love to do more of that, as well as anything fantasy or historical.

My portfolio: www.franmorton.com
Contact: malgremort@gmail.com

a watercolor of a cute animal airplane

the petliner... yay

carton drawing of an albino rat struggling to cling upside down onto an apple on an apple tree.

probably one of my favourite illustrations I've drawn

imagine a picture frame with an e-ink display that updates the scene in time with the time of day