Celebrate Diversity with CBLDF Defender #5, in Stores Today!

CBLDF Defender is our free quarterly news magazine coming to you from the front lines of the fight for free speech, and the fifth issue is now available! You can find it at comic book stores across the nation, on comiXology, and right here at CBLDF.org! Each issue of CBLDF Defender brings en ...

She Changed Comics! Help Back CBLDF’s History of the Women Who Changed Free Expression on Kickstarter!

Women have been making comics since the medium’s very beginning, but there’s an important story that hasn’t yet been told: how women changed free expression in comics. With your help, CBLDF will tell that story in She Changed Comics, a full-color, 160-page book coming out this fal ...

Banned Books Week Spotlights Diversity in 2016

Why are so many diverse books banned? The 2016 celebration of Banned Books Week will examine this important question as part of its thematic focus on diversity, the event’s national coalition announced today. Banned Books Week, the annual celebration of the freedom to read, will run from Septe ...

CBLDF Announces 2016 Membership Incentives, Featuring Art by CRAIG THOMPSON!

CBLDF's work defending the right to read is more important than ever. But we can’t do it without your support! When you join CBLDF in 2016, we’ll thank you with the best incentives in the free speech community, including member exclusives with stunning art by acclaimed cartoonist Craig Thompson!

Leading the Fight for Free Expression: CBLDF Annual Report 2015

Although comics have never been a bigger part of  mainstream pop culture, they sustained more censorship attacks in 2015 than at any other time this century. CBLDF was on the case, fighting back by providing expert support to keep comics available for everyone! CBLDF is at the forefront of defendin ...

Comic Book Club Handbook

Learn how to start and make the most of book clubs for comics and graphic novels with the Comic Book Club Handbook, a new resource produced by Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in collaboration with Comic-Con International! Designed for librarians, retailers, and individuals alike, the Comic Book Cl ...

Radio Free Comix: The CBLDF Podcast

In support of our ongoing education work, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is now part of the audio-sphere! A mix of interviews, discussions about current Free Speech events, convention panels recordings, and archival materials, the CBLDF Podcast will be a monthly event, from our keyboards to your ...

In Stores Now: Latest Edition of CBLDF’s Raising a Reader! How Comics & Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love To Read!

With Free Comic Book Day coming up, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is delighted that the latest edition of our proven resource, Raising a Reader! How Comics & Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love To Read! is in stores today! With more than 80,000 copies in print, Raising a Reader! How Comics &a ...

CBLDF Protects The First Amendment!

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of the comics medium. Our work takes us into courtrooms, classrooms, conventions and libraries all over the United States where we provide legal aid, education, and advocacy to protect th ...

Egyptian Cartoonist Makhlouf Arrested in Pre-Demonstration Crackdown

April 25, 2016
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Egyptian Cartoonist Makhlouf Arrested in Pre-Demonstration Crackdown

Egyptian cartoonist Makhlouf was among dozens of people arrested late last week in advance of planned street protests today. After being held overnight and released without charge early Friday morning, he said on Facebook...

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BREAKING NEWS: Farghadani Set to be Released Next Month

April 25, 2016
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BREAKING NEWS: Farghadani Set to be Released Next Month

After nearly 18 months in prison for a cartoon depicting politicians as animals, Iranian artist and activist Atena Farghadani will reportedly be released sometime next month. She had been sentenced to 12 years and 9 months,...

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She Changed Comics Adds BPAL Exclusive, Fun Home, Nimona, & More!

April 22, 2016
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SheChangedComics_LogoIllustration_color

There’s less than a week to go on the Kickstarter for She Changed Comics, CBLDF’s history of the women who changed free expression in comics. Thanks to your overwhelming support, we will be able to create this book and more, including education companion guides for middle school, high school, and higher education, a teaching tour, and...

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KIDS AND TEENS: Vote Now in the Children’s Choice Book Awards!

April 22, 2016
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KIDS AND TEENS: Vote Now in the Children’s Choice Book Awards!

Time is running out to vote in the Children’s Choice Book Awards! Kids from Kindergarten through Teen have until Monday, April 25 to vote for their favorite books published in 2015. Parents, teachers, librarians,...

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YALSA Gives Away 40 Sets of Teens’ Top Ten Nominees

April 22, 2016
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In celebration of the American Library Association’s National Library Week and the Young Adult Library Services Association’s (YALSA) 2016 Teens’ Top Ten, YALSA is giving away 40 sets of this year’s top ten titles. “The Teens’ Top Ten is a “teen choice” list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous...

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Theater Takes Legal Action Over Utah Deadpool Censorship

April 21, 2016
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Deadpool

A movie theater in Utah faces a possible $25,000 fine for serving alcohol during a screening of fan-favorite Deadpool. Citing a law that prohibits the showing of simulated sex while serving alcohol, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control threatened to revoke Brewvies’ liquor license and issue a fine, but the theater hit back by suing the...

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Higher Ed Sweeps 2016 Muzzle Awards

April 21, 2016
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Higher Ed Sweeps 2016 Muzzle Awards

Every April the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression bestows its Muzzle Awards, dishonoring “those individuals and institutions responsible for the more egregious or ridiculous affronts to free speech during the preceding year.” In a...

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CBLDF Podcast Episode 16: Black Panther Artist BRIAN STELFREEZE

April 20, 2016
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In this episode, CBLDF Editorial Director Betsy Gomez talks with artist Brian Stelfreeze (Day Men), hot off the launch of the what is likely the year’s biggest release: the new Black Panther series with author Ta-Nehisi Coates from Marvel Comics. Topics: Blaxploitation, self-censorship, costume design, and more! In support of our ongoing education work, the Comic Book...

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Dapier Receives Intellectual Freedom Award for Persepolis Research

April 20, 2016
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Dapier Receives Intellectual Freedom Award for Persepolis Research

Jarrett Dapier, the library science scholar whose Freedom of Information Act Request helped to uncover the truth about Chicago Public Schools administrators’ 2013 effort to ban Persepolis from classrooms and libraries, is receiving some...

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Bulgarian TV Network Drops Cartoonist Who Mocked Prime Minister

April 19, 2016
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Bulgarian TV Network Drops Cartoonist Who Mocked Prime Minister

Bulgarians are accusing the privately-owned TV network NOVA of bowing to government pressure last week when it removed all of cartoonist Chavdar Nikolov’s work from its website. Nikolov’s latest animated political cartoon had mocked Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s...

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City Issues Apology for Women’s History Month Censorship

April 19, 2016
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West Hollywood Women

Photographer Brooke Mason may have been at the center of a free speech controversy in West Hollywood, California, after three of her photographs were removed from a Women’s History Month-themed exhibition last month, but inclusion in a new exhibit and a formal apology from the city show that members of the WeHo community won’t...

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Petition Against School Play Backfires in New Jersey

April 18, 2016
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Pippin

Parents in Cape May, New Jersey, protested the Middle Township High School reproduction of the Broadway musical Pippin, saying the usage of profanity and sexual innuendo is, what one person noted, moving kids away from an “ethical and moral lifestyle.” Moreover, they insisted that the school board take steps to make sure that plays such...

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Oregon School Bans Sex Ed Book, Disciplines Librarian Who Bought It

April 18, 2016
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Oregon School Bans Sex Ed Book, Disciplines Librarian Who Bought It

The classic — and frequently challenged — sex ed book It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris has reportedly been removed from an elementary school library in Rainier, Oregon, and the librarian who included it in the collection has been disciplined by school administrators...

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Zunar Trial to Proceed After Court Rejects Challenge to Sedition Act

April 15, 2016
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Zunar Trial to Proceed After Court Rejects Challenge to Sedition Act

Malaysia’s High Court yesterday rejected cartoonist Zunar’s challenge to the country’s Sedition Act, clearing the way for his long-delayed trial on nine counts of sedition. If convicted on all counts, he could face up...

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Indian Cartoonist Orijit Sen on Being a “Voice of Dissent”

April 15, 2016
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Orijit Sen (Source: The Caravan)

Indian cartoonist Orijit Sen is no stranger to censorship. The artist, whose work has been repeatedly pulled from Facebook, recently spoke with Tehelka about why it is important that his “voice of dissent” rubs some people the wrong way and what future generations of artists can do to fight for free expression. Orijit Sen...

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