Leo #9 Leo's Oscar Mike

A little quickie draw on printer paper with a mechanical pencil.
Very little digital work on it.
Leo's is getting more and more aware of how deeply lost he really is... And so far nothing seems to change except the imminent end of his psyche...

Leo #8 Undetectable...

I remember back in 2008 when i was told the news of my infection i was alone in Canada.

For a year,i wandered alone through fear and confussion until one friend, a soldier, reminded me of my survivor's nature and my will to exist.

That day, a nice 2009 summer day, i realized that instead of being handed a death sentence i got granted the wheel to my own life.

Then in 2010 i started my treatment due to a deecrease in my white cells, but amzingly, my viral load  was that of an undetectable carrier.

I have been undetectable and healthy since then, and i plan on staying that way.

So for three years i lived never thinking in disclosing or comparing perspectives with fellow positive men. I thought it was unnecesary and eventually everyone who's infected would come to the same resolution:

"Fight for your own existance"

But i think i was wrong.

Three years later people i grown fond of has come to face the same lonely situation i was in, and by seeing and feeling the pain and the fear i came to understand the importance of sharing my own experience.

So, for anyone dealing with the virus out there, for my friends living with it, i can only tell you it really does not have to be a reason to feel less or weak. it's scary, but every challenge always is. And if you, we, keep on moving and pushing throught we'll be stronger and better, and we'll live to tell the tale.

Until the cure comes our way and our blood is safe again, we have to take a stand and resist, and live.

December 1st is a day to rememer the fight against hiv and aids, but i think it should be a day to celebrate life and the will to keep it.

Meanwhile... A year later.

...AT LEAST HE GAVE ME PROZAC.

Leo #6 - No Thanks!

Leo #5 - Proverbial Fruit

Leo #4 - Now i have a Cat

Because expressing love for the most perfectly design killing machine of our time is never a wrong thing to do. Specially when the kitty is able to shoo away all of the shadows that lurk deep in the corners of a tired jaded sleepless mind in the darkest hour.                                                                     For all they really do without intending to do anything but enjoy some peace and comfort out of the biped psychotic monkeys that feed them weird tasty bisquits, cats (in my opinion) have earned their right to be honored as, probably, menkind's best friend.                                                                  Cause let's face it, dogs are really mutants of the ancient canines that decided to trust humans. Cute, loyal, strong, caring, commited, devoted, but still... We made them that way to be just that.                                                                                                                     Cats, on the other hand, are, if anything, still just a pigmean version of the greatest achievement in evolutionary adaptation, still able to hunt and keep some wild sparkle that shows here and there when they play, when they yawn, when they run around chasing a dust bunny pushed by the wind.                They really don't need us, and yet they allow themselves to share that peaceful soothing energy that surround them with some lucky us.

 I love cats, i hope it shows...

Leo #3 Sigh...

#3 (Sigh...)

Leo is, and has always been, the other pair of eyes watching

 the world as i go by.

Through the years, his presence at the end of my pencil has

 kept me accompanied and sane (not) and amused.

 Leo is his own man, his own boss, and has grown parallel to me

in his own little, vast world.

 I have found what i think is a good technique

and a good format to keep the strip going fluently.

 From here on i'm gonna start developing the recurrent jokes

that so elusively have decorated countless notebooks

and greeting cards for friends and lovers during the last decade or so.

 So my first favorite of those jokes starts the real real strip. 

 And as a treat, i added the art in progress and the sketch for this page.

The ink work

The pencils

The sketch