Artist Kyle Lees says the hardest thing to draw in his first published comic book was a cape wearing liver.
The Amazing Liver appeared in the Blood2Blood comic book as part of a local campaign to raise awareness of Hepatitis C. In it, the liver explains its role within the body and how diseases like Hepatitis C can affect it.
Lees said the liver was the hardest to draw because he had to take an organ and put arms and legs on it.
“It’s an amazing liver,” the 28-year-old said.
Lees drew the entire 24-paged comic, which features a vampire-like doctor, for the AIDS Thunder Bay Blood2Blood project. He said it felt nice to have a published comic book and is looking forward to his second comic book, which is coming out in a couple of months.
Lees has drawn semi-professionally for the past seven years. Besides the comic book, Lees also draws for the web comic Ski Ninjas.
He said he never done a project with so much editorial input. It required a lot of back and forth collaboration and Lees said that was valuable experience for him moving forward with his career.
“A lot of the ideas were done by a committee,” he said.
“They showed me what I had for roughs and I sort of took it from there and polishing it, and polishing it until it was a finished product. The style of it is a little bit cartoony and I think the reason for that was that we’re trying to be accessible to as many demographics as possible especially for people who are at risk for this disease.”
Project coordinator Eric Shih explained that the goal of the comic was to inform the public and eliminate the stigma of having the disease. The free comic features mini stories that shows how Hepatitis C is transferred through blood-to-blood contact. Although there’s no vaccine for Hepatitis C, there are treatments for it.
Shih said it’s important for people to know that they can't get Hepatitis C from hugging or sharing utensils.
“We wanted to make sure that this comic and all the other resources that we’re doing for Blood2Blood including a play is done locally,” he said. “We did focus groups and had long conversations with people in our community who are living with Hepatitis C in order to get their points and incorporate it.”
It’s estimated that 2,600 people in the city and area have Hepatitis C. The city also has one of the highest community-based infection rates per capital in the province followed by Kingston, Ont.
Shih added education is key to tackling this issue.
The Blood2Blood comic book is available for free across town including Comix Plus Music Exchange, Hill City Comics and AIDS Thunder Bay.
