Out this week, a 4-issue comic book series about a man dealing with the trails and tribulations about being HIV positive. Loosely based off writer, Darren G. Davis’ journal entrees this fiction graphic novel tells the story about being HIV positive from a different perspective.
The 4-issue mini series is drawn by Renato Arlem, Keu Cha and Sean Murphy.
According to the publisher: “The graphic novel “Lost Raven” won the “Independent book graphic novel of the year”. We have taken it and make a comic book series off of it with updated text and information.”.
After learning that he has contracted the HIV virus, attorney Zak Raven leaves his practice behind to set forth on a mission of relaxation-– until his peaceful trip goes wildly astray, leaving Zak shipwrecked on what he thinks is a deserted island with only the words in his own journal to keep him company.
Unknown to Zak, four miles below the surface secretly hides a government experimentation center where scientists are playing God by trying to artificially evolve a human based species that can survive evacuation missions in deep space. Within 900 years, earth will be dealt a deathblow by a mountain-size asteroid. However, so far they have only achieved creating living abominations. Zak and these creatures are on a collision course, and he must rise to the challenge!
“I wrote the series because I wanted to make a difference in the HIV world and most of the movies and books were about people dying. I wanted to tell it from the other side, the person that manages it from a living perspective”, said Davis who has been HIV positive for the last 14 years, “It’s not touchy-feely,” he adds. “It’s basically raw emotion. Plus, it has a lot of cool monsters in it.”
“It is based on my journal entries from when I was diagnosed being HIV positive,” Davis says. “The book is almost like HIV 101 for the mental state. When I first found out about my condition I didn’t have any information and what wás out there was confusing even with help from doctors. This is no longer just a gay disease, so I also wrote the book so anyone can identify with it. I was even fired from a job after they found out I was HIV positive. Coming out about this subject is to help reduce the stigma of it… which has its challenges in itself.”
Davis now runs Bluewater Productions, which has gotten a lot of media attention from “Time Magazine”, “CNN”, “Fox News”, “People Magazine” and other media venues. The company has appeared many times on Amazon’s Best Seller list.
“Lost Raven” #1 will retail at $3.99 and may be ordered in print exclusively at Comic Flea Market: http://bit.ly/10gPeqf
You can download issue #1 on Wowio, Comixology, DriveThru Comics, My Digital Comics, Iverse, PanelFly, iTunes, Kindle, Nook, Kobo and wherever eBooks are sold. On iTunes: http://bit.ly/17IQVyz
Also being released by Bluewater is a biography on famed HIV artist Keith Haring called “Milestones of Art: Keith Haring: Next Stop Art”.
Bluewater has started a crowd-sourcing campaign for a comic book on the Stonewall Riots. An historical event in June of 1969 that would change the face of the LGBTQ rights movement forever is now depicted in comic book biography format. http://bit.ly/15NQqGg