Winick was born February 12, 1970, to aJewish family,[1] and grew up inDix Hills, New York.[2] In his youth Winick initially readsuperhero comics, but this changed when he readKyle Baker's graphic novelWhy I Hate Saturn, which Winick said in a 2015 interview he still reads once a year. Winick also citesBloom County: Loose Tails byBerke Breathed as the first collection of that strip that changed his life, one which prompted him to spend the next ten years "horribly aping" Breathed's style.[3]
Winick graduated from high school in 1988 and entered theUniversity of Michigan,Ann Arbor's School of Art, intending to emulate hiscartoonist heroes, including Breathed andGarry Trudeau. His comic strip, "Nuts and Bolts", began running in the school's newspaper, theMichigan Daily, in his freshman year, and he was selected to speak at graduation. The university published a small print-run of a collection of his strips calledWatching the Spin-Cycle: The Nuts & Bolts Collection. In his senior year,Universal Press Syndicate, which syndicates strips such asDoonesbury andCalvin & Hobbes, offered Winick a development contract.[4]
After graduation, Winick lived in an apartment inBeacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, with fellow writerBrad Meltzer, struggling to developNuts and Bolts for UPS, while working at a bookstore. On January 1, 1993, UPS decided not to renew Winick's strip for syndication, feeling it could not compete in the current market. Winick was unable to secure syndication with another company and was forced to move back in with his parents by the middle of 1993, doing unfulfilling T-shirt work for beer companies.[4][5] Winick hadNuts & Bolts in development with the children'stelevision networkNickelodeon as ananimated series, even turning the human characters into mice, and proposing new titles likeYoung Urban Mice andRat Race, but nothing came of it.[1]
Winick (upper left) in 1994 with (left to right):Rachel Campos, Alex Escarno, Cory Murphy and his then-girlfriend (now wife)Pam Ling
Winick applied to be on MTV network'sreality TV seriesThe Real World: San Francisco, hoping for fame and a career boost. During the casting process, the producers of the show conducted an in-person, videotaped interview with Winick. When asked how he would feel about living with someone who wasHIV-positive, Winick gave what he thought was an enthusiastic,politically correct answer, despite reservations. Winick was accepted as a cast member on the show in January 1994. The producers informed the housemates that they would be living with someone who was HIV-positive, but they did not reveal who it was.[6] Winick and his six castmates (Mohammed Bilal,Rachel Campos,Pam Ling, Cory Murphy,David "Puck" Rainey, andPedro Zamora) moved into the house at 949Lombard Street onRussian Hill on February 12, Winick's 24th birthday.[7] Winick became roommates withPedro Zamora.[8] Although Cory Murphy, who was the first housemate to meet Zamora, learned that he was HIV-positive when they took the train together from Los Angeles to San Francisco,[9] Winick learned that Zamora was the housemate who had AIDS after Winick and Zamora had decided to be roommates, when Zamora told him that he was an AIDS educator, and subsequently showed his scrapbook to Winick and the other housemates.[8]
Winick'sNuts and Bolts strip began running in theSan Francisco Examiner in March of that year.
Winick, who isJewish, was offended at Rainey's decision to wear a T-shirt depicting four guns arranged in the shape of aswastika, and by Rainey's refusal to accede to Winick's request not to wear it.[10]
After filming of the season ended, Winick and Ling moved to Los Angeles to continue their relationship.
By August 1994, Zamora's health began to decline. After being hospitalized, he asked Winick to substitute for him at a national AIDS education lecture. When Zamora died on November 11, 1994, Winick and Ling were at his bedside. Winick would continue Zamora's educational work for some time after that.[11]
Winick designed illustrations forThe Complete Idiot's Guide to... series of books,[12] and did over 300 of them, including that series’ computer-oriented line. A collection of the computer-related titles' cartoons was published in 1997 asTerminal Madness, The Complete Idiot's Guide Computer Cartoon Collection.[1]
While working onPedro and Me, Winick began working on comic books, beginning with a one-pageFrumpy the Clown cartoon inOni Press’ anthology series,Oni Double Feature #3, in 1998, before going on to do longer stories, like the two-partRoad Trip, which was published in issues #9 and 10 of the same book.Road Trip went on to become anEisner Award nominee for Best Sequential Story.
Winick followed up with a three-issueminiseries,The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, about a cynical, profane grade school whiz kid, who invents a myriad of futuristic devices that no one other than his best friend knows about.Barry Ween was published byImage Comics from March through May 1999, with two subsequent miniseries,The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius 2.0 andThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Monkey Tales (RetitledThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius 3 orThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Gorilla Warfare in the collected editions), published by Oni Press, which publishedtrade paperback collections of all three miniseries.
Winick’s graphic novel,Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, was published in September 2000. It was awarded sixAmerican Library Association awards, was nominated for an Eisner Award, won Winick his firstGLAAD award, has been praised by creators such asFrank Miller,Neil Gaiman, andArmistead Maupin, and has been incorporated into schoolcurricula across the country.
Winick's work in mainstreamsuperhero comics received attention for storylines in which he explores gay or AIDS-oriented themes. In his first regular writing assignment on a monthly superhero comic book,DC Comics'Green Lantern, Winick wrote a storyline in whichTerry Berg, an assistant of the title character, emerged as a gay character inGreen Lantern #137 (June 2001) and inGreen Lantern #154 (November 2002) the story entitled "Hate Crime" gained media recognition when Terry was brutally beaten in ahomophobic attack. Winick was interviewed onPhil Donahue's show onMSNBC for that storyline on August 15, 2002,[13][14] and received two more GLAAD awards for hisGreen Lantern work.
In 2003, Judd Winick leftGreen Lantern for another DC series,Green Arrow, beginning with issue #26 of that title (July 2003). He gained more media recognition forGreen Arrow #43 (December 2004) in which he revealed that Green Arrow's 17-year-old ward, a former runaway-turnedprostitute namedMia Dearden, was HIV-positive. In issue #45 (February 2005), Winick had Dearden take on the identity ofSpeedy, the second such Green Arrow sidekick to bear that name. Dearden was the most prominent HIV-positive superhero to star in an ongoing comic book, a decision for which Winick was interviewed onCNN.[15]
In 2003 Winick wrote a five-issue miniseries for DC'sVertigo imprint calledBlood & Water, about a young man with terminal illness whose two friends reveal to him that they arevampires, and that they wish to save his life by turning him into a vampire himself.
Beginning in September 2011, Winick began writing newCatwoman andBatwing ongoing series that were launched as part of DC Comics' reboot of its continuity,The New 52.[25] TheCatwoman series was criticized by some readers for its focus on Selina Kyle's sexuality, particularly scenes showing her sexual relationship with Batman.[26][27][28][29] Winick responded that it was DC that desired this tone.[26]
Winick was the head writer onThe Awesomes, an animated superhero comedy series created bySeth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker forHulu.[30] It debuted on August 1, 2013, and ended on November 3, 2015.
In July 2012 Winick announced that he was leavingCatwoman after issue #12,[26] in order to create an all-ages, original graphic novel calledHilo (pronounced "High-Low"), a move that Winick explained was inspired a year or so prior when his then-seven-year-old son asked to read his work. Not having age-appropriate material for him, Winick gave himJeff Smith'sBone, which both father and son enjoyed, and decided to create an all-ages story that his son could read. The full color series, whose tone and visuals Winick describes as "partE.T., partDoctor Who, partPeanuts andCalvin and Hobbes", stars a small town boy named D.J. whose life takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious boy named Hilo falls from the sky, and takes D.J. and his friend Gina on adventures that include robots, aliens and a quest to save the world. The series represents Winick's first artwork since 2002'sThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Gorilla Warfare, as well as his first children's book. It is published byRandom House, with the first book published in September 2015. The deal is for three books, though Winick plans to have a total of six graphic novels by the time the story is finished, and hopes to release a book every six months.[30][31] The first two volumes of the Hilo series,Hilo, the Boy Who Crashed to Earth andHilo, Saving the Whole Wide World, areNew York Times bestsellers.[32] The HILO series has successfully continued with the 11th book in the series slated for publication in February 2025. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741634/hilo-book-11-the-great-space-iguana-by-judd-winick/)
After appearing onThe Real World, Winick and his former costar,Pam Ling, began to date. Winick proposed to her with a cartoon he made for the occasion, and which he presented to her while wearing a gorilla suit. The cartoon presented Ling with two choices to answer his proposal. After she accepted his proposal, he summoned three singingElvises.[36] Winick and Ling married in acivil ceremony on August 26, 2001. WriterArmistead Maupin spoke at their ceremony.[2] It marked the first time two cast members ofThe Real World married. As of September 2000, they lived in San Francisco'sUpper Haight.[37] As of 2024, they have two children,[7][38][39] a son and a daughter, whom they work to keep out of the spotlight, preferring to omit photos of them from social media, and mention of their names in interviews.[40]
The Big Book of Barry Ween, Boy Genius (tpb, 376 pages, 2009,ISBN1-934964-02-6) collects:
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius #1–3 (Image, 1999) also collected asThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius (tpb, 88 pages, Oni Press, 2000,ISBN1-929998-00-7)
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius 2.0 #1–3 (Oni Press, 2000) also collected asThe Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius 2.0 (tpb, 88 pages, 2000,ISBN1-929998-05-8)
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Monkey Tales (Oni Press, 2001–2002) also collected as:
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Monkey Tales (collects #1–3, tpb, 88 pages, 2001,ISBN1-929998-18-X)
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Gorilla Warfare (collects #4–6, tpb, 88 pages, 2002,ISBN1-929998-19-8)
Whiteout: Melt #1 (untitled one-page strip featuring a crossover between Barry Ween andCarrie Stetko, Oni Press, 1999)
Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, forPedro and Me[41][42]
America's Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature Highly Recommended List (Award sponsored by the National Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs—CLASP), forPedro and Me[41]
2001 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic, forPedro and Me[44]
^Manning, Matthew K.; Gilbert, Laura (2008). "2000s".Marvel Chronicle A Year by Year History. London, United Kingdom:Dorling Kindersley. p. 306.ISBN978-0-7566-4123-8.Writer Judd Winick and artist Mike McKone told the story of a familiar band of dimension-hopping mutant heroes.
^Cowsill, Alan; Dolan, Hannah (2010). "2000s".DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 319.ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9.The prequel toInfinite Crisis was a collection of short stories...which were written by Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winick.
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 327: "Captain Marvel got a new look inThe Trials of Shazam!, written by Judd Winick and drawn by Howard Porter."
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 333: "Writer Judd Winick and penciller Ian Churchill produced aTitans series to please both modern-day fans and those of the classic Marv Wolfman/George Pérez era."
