REPRESENTATIONS OF HIV/AIDS IN POPULAR AMERICAN COMIC BOOKS, 1981- 1996 William Richard Avila A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2021 Committee: Jeffrey Brown, Advisor Michael Decker Graduate Faculty Representative William Albertini Timothy Messer-Kruse © 2021 William Richard Avila All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jeffery Brown, Advisor From 1981-1996, the United States experienced an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) that held profound implications for issues ranging from civil rights, public education, and sexual mores, to government accountability, public health, and expressions of heterosexism. Popular comic books that broached the subject of HIV/AIDS during the U.S. epidemic elucidate how America’s discourse on the disease evolved in an era when elected officials, religious leaders, legal professionals, medical specialists, and average citizens all struggled to negotiate their way through a period of national crisis. The manner whereby comic book authors, illustrators, and publishers engaged the topic of HIV/AIDS changed over time but, because comic books are an item of popular culture primarily produced for a heterosexual male audience, such changes habitually mirrored the evolution of the nation’s mainstream, heteronormative debates regarding the epidemic and its sociocultural and political implications. Through studying depictions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in popular comic books, alterations in the heterocentric, national discourse emerge revealing how homophobic dismissals of the “gay plague” in the early 1980s gave way to heterosexual panic in the mid-1980s, followed by the epidemic’s reinterpretation as a national tragedy in the late-1980s. Ultimately, this study uncovers how, in the early 1990s, HIV/AIDS awareness became a national cause célèbre and a fad effectively commoditized by the economic forces of American popular culture until its novelty waned when the epidemic phase of the U.S. HIV/AIDS crisis drew to a close in the mid-1990s. iv Throughout, representations of HIV/AIDS in popular American comic books show how comic book creators sought to elevate their medium beyond the confines of its perceived juvenile trappings by exploring topical and controversial material that would appeal to the expanding market of adult buyers that blossomed from the early 1980s until the comic book industry imploded circa 1994. In utilizing a matter of major sociocultural and political significance to achieve artistic and commercial aims, this study demonstrates how the business dictates of the comic book industry, principally the need to attract and retain readers, drove the medium’s creative considerations of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. v To my parents, John and Margaret Avila, whose love of art, music, and literature introduced me to the world of cultural studies. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people that I need to acknowledge for their assistance in bringing this dissertation to fruition. Firstly, I thank the members of my dissertation committee. I am extremely grateful to my advisor, Dr. Jeffery Brown, as well as Drs. William Albertini, Timothy Messer-Kruse, and Michael Decker for their constant backing and guidance. I thank them all for demonstrating models of excellence in their scholastic rigor, instructional talent, and professional decorum. Secondly, I thank the libraries and archives whose outstanding collections and dedicated staff helped facilitate my research. I must especially thank Dr. Nancy Down, Dana Nemeth, and Stefanie Dennis Hunker, of Bowling Green State University’s Browne Popular Culture Library, for their friendship and unwavering support. I also thank the library staff at Michigan State University’s Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, who assisted me in accessing their Russel B. Nye Popular Culture collection, as well as the librarians at The Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum for all their efforts on my behalf. Like the aforementioned libraries and archives, my research would not have been possible if not for the aid of some wonderful comic book retailers. I would most like to thank Terry Kalkanian, the proprietor of Unicorn Comics & Cards in Villa Park, IL, and his brother Gerry Kalkanian, Esq. It was at Unicorn Comics where the seeds of this dissertation first germinated and the Kalkanians’ knowledge of the comic book industry and its history, to say nothing of their incredible selection of comics, helped me immensely. I would also like to thank the staff at Graham Crackers Comics of DeKalb, IL, specifically manager Kevin Healy, for bringing some relevant titles to my attention and for tracking down several elusive back issues. Furthermore, I would be remiss if I did not thank Johnathan Smith, former owner of Cameron’s vii Comics and Stuff, who, for an all-too-brief period, operated a comic book shop in Bowling Green, OH a mere block away from my apartment door. Thirdly, I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor E. Taylor Atkins of Northern Illinois University’s Department of History. During my years as an NIU undergraduate and Master’s student, it was Dr. Atkins who piqued my academic interest in artifacts of popular culture and their capacity to illuminate historical questions. My work on HIV/AIDS and comic books began in earnest during one of Dr. Atkins’s graduate research seminars and I thank him for all of the advice he gave me then that has only proven more insightful as the years went by and this dissertation took shape. Last, but the farthest from least, I thank my family and friends whose love and encouragement has carried me through. I could not have done this without you. In addition to my parents, John and Margaret Avila, I thank my sisters, Roxanne Packer and Michelle Dobbs, my brothers-in-law, Andrew and Jonathan, and my nieces and nephews, Gwendolyn, Bertille, John, and Maria Packer, and Isla and Cormac Dobbs. I love you all. Special thanks to Britt Rhuart, cohort member and friend, for his comradery, good cheer, and the privilege of borrowing items from his vast collection of feature films and television series. Finally, I thank The Shindiggers, a fellowship of legendary beings. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER I. FROM “GAY PLAGUE” TO STRAIGHT PANIC, 1981-1985...................... 15 1981: A Queer Medical Mystery ............................................................................. 16 1982: Inventing the “Gay Plague” ........................................................................... 24 1983: Fear of Casual Transmission and Heterosexual Panic ..................................... 33 1984: Receding Panic and the Discovery of HIV ..................................................... 51 1985: Heterosexual Panic Returns and HIV/AIDS in American Narrative Art .......... 60 CHAPTER II. AIDS, AMERICAN CULTURE, AND COMIC BOOKS, 1985-1986 ........... 72 1985: AIDS on Stage and Screen ............................................................................ 73 1986: AIDS and the Courting of Adult Comic Book Readers ................................... 85 CHAPTER III. THE HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC IN TRANSITION: FROM HETEROSEXUAL PANIC TO TRAGIC, NATIONAL CRISIS, 1987-1988 ..................................................... 134 1987: A Pivotal Year .............................................................................................. 141 1988: HIV/AIDS Becomes a Fixture in Popular Comic Books ................................. 175 Looking Toward the ‘90s........................................................................................ 211 CHAPTER IV. AIDS ENTERS THE 1990S: ACT UP’S ACTIVISM, AIDS EDUCATION AT RIVERDALE H.S., AND AN ATHELETE’S ANNOUNCEMENT, 1989-1991 ............ 213 1989: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back .............................................................. 214 1990-1991: The Triumph of Heterosexual Recontextualization ................................ 244 CHAPTER V. FROM A CAUSE CÉLÈBRE TO YESTERDAY’S NEWS: HIV/AIDS AWARENESS AND POPULAR COMIC BOOKS, 1992-1996 .......................................... 263 ix 1992-1994: A “Scause” Célèbre.............................................................................. 268 1995-1996: The Epidemic’s End and the Waning Days of AIDS Awareness ............ 312 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 322 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 327 1 INTRODUCTION During the 1980s and 1990s, the United States experienced an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) that became one the defining events of late-twentieth century American history. In 1981, when doctors first documented the illness in a number of young, gay men living in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, a lack of knowledge, regarding the malady’s origin, its mode(s) of transmission, and its possible treatments, fostered an atmosphere of clinical uncertainty that was exacerbated by the illness’s homophobic appraisals within products of the American news media. While AIDS diagnoses and deaths mounted fastest and most frequently within America’s gay communities, it