Nick and Alethia

We chose to write about the panel on the top of Pg. 52 where Pedro was breaking out with blisters from his shingles. He was staring at himself in the mirror. Having these blisters on his face was a real wake-up call for him on how different he was from everyone else and how his life was about to change from a normal teen to someone living with AIDS. His life as he knew it was never going to be the same. We believe that this panel was one of the many in this novel as a main point of the story. Without this panel we as readers wouldn’t be able to feel what Pedro was going through. The repeating statements of Pedro’s thoughts in the panel show that Pedro was thinking at a fast pace almost overlapping his thoughts at time. In the panel he was holding the mirror with his hand was a very symbolic as if he was trying to convince himself this was real and really happening to him.

Group 2—Amy, Rhonda, Christy

Our panel is page 48. This is where Pedro is realizing his life is about to drastically change. His thoughts change from what a normal 17 year old would be facing at this time to what his life will be like from now on. This panel is the pivotal point in the book. This is where his life changes forever, he has AIDS. This panel is one of the rare ones throughout the book that uses a black background with white writing. This is used very effectively to grab the reader’s attention to relay a very serious and dramatic message. The wording is very straight forward in summarizing Pedro’s emotions at this time. The construction of the last two statements successfully sends a very powerful feeling of sadness and struggle by created by the pause between them. The large space separating the changing of thoughts could represent the conflict and pain within Pedro. Also, the large black openness of the panel represents just the same emptiness and sorrow that is now consuming Pedro while learning of his illness. It is very easy to see the sadness and loneliness in Pedro’s face and that with the way he is slouched in his chair the reader can see he is beyond troubled. Nothing else matters at this moment other than the colorless thoughts cutting into the black hollow space.

Winick, Judd. Pedro & Me. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Print.

Group 8- Amber, Amber and Kayleigh

Pedro and Me Group Analysis
We chose the full page panel on pg. 150 of Pedro and Me for numerous reasons. It is during the final days of Pedro’s life. He sick and suffering, but the panel depicts him in a peaceful and somber light. This is during the time that Pedro has chosen to not be on life support. With the thoughts of the pain that his family went through with the death of his mother, it only felt right to him. This shows his selflessness even when facing his own death. The text reveals his appearance and the differences are explained to us comparing how he looked while on life support and when he was taken off life support. This panel is very different from all the others. Most of the panels have a lot of detail, showing physical features of the characters and their surroundings. In this panel, we need to rely on the text to convey the overall message in giving us information about Pedro’s current state and his physical characteristics. The colors, though black and white with no detail, are important and set the mood for the panel. The black background and the silhouette of Pedro allow us to focus directly on Pedro, without other distractions and his current physical appearance. The white silhouette shows Pedro in a peaceful light. How the text appears is very important in this panel also. The black, all capital letter words, are set on a white solid background to show their importance. The reader is able to see the words immediately, without having to recognize where or who they are coming from. This panel seems to be the transitional stage between Pedro on and off life support by describing his health. Judd does a great job of expressing this panel without much detail. The presence of Pedro in the panel is strong, with the darkness behind him, he seems be the light. The most symbolic part of this panel is the outline of Pedro’s body along with the black background. It shows that the details and things we worry about in life at the end don’t matter anymore.

7.2/Group 4 - Nicole, Jessica, Amanda

The panel that we chose to write about is on page 156. We picked this panel because of how powerful it is. It shows Pedro’s family and friends mourning at his bedside after his recent passing. The most dramatic feature Winick uses to set the tone, besides the actual words that precede this panel on page 154, is contrasting black and white colors. The darkness or black area represents the bleakness of death; it also is used throughout the rest of the novel to draw your attention to important points in Pedro’s life. In fact, the substantial black border surrounding the panel takes up the rest of the page in the book, showing how death is all-consuming. On the other side, the scene of the panel features a well-lit hospital, contrasting with Winick's use of shadows for the hospital room in the preceding panels. In other words, he uses the light to show how blaring the situation is within the hospital room. Furthermore, the fact that this panel does not have any text shows the intense sorrow the characters are feeling. It has been said that words cannot express how someone feels after a good friend or family member dies, and Winick applies this common knowledge to this panel with the lack of words. We also believe Winick drew this particular panel to appear as if we are viewing the scene from afar in order to accentuate the slipping away of life, which is further highlighted by the bold darkness engulfing Pedro’s grieving family and friends. Also, this stark contrast between the black background and the white panel emphasizes the importance of this event. More specifically, the shapes are mostly rectangular, from the pictures on the wall to the bed, which draws the eye to Pedro and his family. This further stresses the importance of the people surrounding Pedro as he died, and symbolizes how much love and support he had from family members and friends. Moreover, this panel tugs at our heartstrings by showing us that Pedro did not die alone and was surrounded by devoted loved ones. In total, this is a very dramatic page that evokes emotion from the reader. The overall scene that is depicted is realistic and causes you to envision the actual moment in your mind.

Samantha's Analysis of Pedro and Me

I chose to analyze the panel on page 54. In this panel, Pedro is standing in front of approximately 1,000 of his classmates, teachers, and peers and tells them that he is HIV positive. I believe that this takes extreme courage on Pedro’s part. It may be not so bad to talk to a school where you don’t know anyone and admit you are HIV positive, but to admit that to your school, where you know many of the faces, that’s bravery. This fits in with the novel because it shows that he is choosing to speak out and inform people about HIV and AIDS. This panel is particularly important because at this point, he is going out on a limb to tell his entire school. This is the point where they either support him through fighting this disease or stop talking to him because of it. The wording on this panel is very simple, yet it gets the message across. By putting the words in the white box, surrounded by black, I think it emphasizes his confidence. It is a small box, so he may be a little hesitant, but he says it with assurance. I think the details that matter are all of the student’s facial expressions. To me, they all looked either shocked or sad. I didn’t see anyone that looked to be disgusted or antipathetic towards Pedro. I’m sure this is makes Pedro feel a little better, knowing that the school doesn’t hate him now because of this. I think that this is a symbolic panel because with Pedro’s back facing the reader, it literally shows it is him versus the student body. The symbolism I see is that this isn’t just Pedro standing against his peers, it is him standing up to fight his HIV. He may not have a good chance of surviving it, but he is going to stand his ground to give it his best shot.

Cam and Samantha

“Pedro and Me” is not only about how Pedro uses his own experience to help others but also how Pedro is loved by his family. One of the panels showing that love is the one at the end of page 148: Pedro’s family reunited around his deathbed. Using different techniques of comics, Winick has given the readers a chance to live the moment with Pedro’s family: first of all, similar to other parts of the book, the drawings of face is rather an abstract version. It has been said, “This is the universality of the cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe” (McCloud 31). Such technique has an effect on getting the audiences identify with the characters and evoke the emotion (McCloud 42). For example, look at the panel, I do not see just Pedro, I see a person surrounded by loved ones and I can relate to my own experience of losing someone in my life. Secondly, the word has been smoothly incorporated in the panel: short sentences pace slowly. They signify the feeling of sad and sorrow when Winick add the ellipsis […] at the end of the second sentence and allow more space before the third sentence: not only do they narrate the picture but also convey a confused feelings of characters whether they should be happy for the family reunion or they should let the sorrow take over. Thirdly, the white background of the image of the family mixing with the panel’s black background symbolizes a good event in the worst circumstance. In summary, simple details in drawings, clever combination between word and picture, and great contrast of backgrounds within the panel have well served the purpose of Winick in conveying the message about the love of Pedro’s family toward him and about the conflicted feelings in the family’s reunion.

Samantha's elaboration:

In addition, I think that the last set of words are lower on the panel because it adds more of a dramatic effect. I think it also hits the reader harder that they are going to lose Pedro for good. Also, I totally agree with you in that we can't tell whether this is a happy moment because the family is reunited or it is sad because Pedro is dying. Also in the book, the white has mostly signified happiness and the black has been grief or loneliness. I think that the picture was meant to be somewhat happy because it was white compared to the words that spoke the truth and were in the black.

Work Cited

Winick, Judd. *Pedro and Me*. New York: Holt, 2000. Print.

McCloud, Scott. *Understanding Comics*. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.

Group 6 - Jeff, Jeff, and Andrea

In Pedro & Me, page 46 illustrates Pedro receiving letters about his blood being reactive and asking him to come in for further testing. In denial, he throws each of the letters away. This is illustrated at the top of the page, where the reader sees a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled up letters. Finally, after many weeks and many letters, Pedro decides to go get tested. In another frame on the page, his clenched fist during a blood draw suggests his fear of the results. After Pedro learns that he is HIV positive, he looks dumbstruck, sober, and downtrodden, as shown by an illustration of Pedro after he has received the results.

This panel fits into the novel because the circumstance that it describes changes the path of Pedro’s life and allows him to be on the cast of "The Real World". The darkness of the panel represents his denial, his fear, and the dreadful test results. The light frame of the panel reflects the days between letters when he pretended that he wasn’t sick. The gap in the first block between words represents his hesitation to pursue testing. The letters, crumpled up and laying where they may, symbolizes how little he cares about them. The drawing of him with his chin down shows the somber news of the results.

Works Cited

Winick, Judd. Pedro & Me. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Print.