Gandhi, Van Gogh, and Mona Lisa are peering out from bloodied bandaged eyes in new art by cartoonist Mir Suhail, who aims to raise awareness of the consequences of “non-lethal” pellet guns that are causing a wave of deaths, blindings, and mutilations among Kashmiri protestors.…
Category: News Blog
This will show up on the main blog page
RETAILERS: Engage Your Community with the CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook! FOC’s 8/15!
Retailers: Engage your community during Banned Books week with the 2016 edition of the CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook! Stock up now — the Handbook FOC’s on Monday, August 15 (Diamond order code JUL161460)! This year’s Banned Books Week celebrates diversity, and…
British Citizen Detained at Airport for Reading Book
On July 25, authorities in the U.K. detained a Muslim citizen at an airport after a cabin crew member reported her for “suspicious activity.” That activity? Reading a book celebrating the freedom of expression in Syria. Faizah Shaheen was returning…
A Brief History of Movie Censorship
The 1950s may have saw the implementation of the Comics Code, which literally censored comics off the newsstand and all but destroyed the comics industry, but before that even some of the earliest forms of movie entertainment—the Nickelodeon and moveable…
Senator Responds to NCAC Letter Opposed to Chesterfield Censorship
In early August, CBLDF joined the National Coalition Against Censorship in defending several summer reading books that were challenged for “sexually explicit” content in Chesterfield County, Virginia. State Senator Amanda Chase, who has forced her way into the fray by suggesting…
Gene Yang on “Reading Without Walls”
Since being selected as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, comics creator Gene Luen Yang has hit the ground running, encouraging young readers to break out of their literary comfort zone to explore “Reading Without Walls.” In a recent interview…
Bone Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Jeff Smith’s acclaimed, and sometimes controversial, comic series Bone celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. With the upcoming release of Bone: Coda, Playboy talks about the history of the series and Smith’s take on how the comic and graphic novel industry in general…
Exiled Cartoonist: “I’m From the Internet”
Despite 27 years in exile, Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Albaih has found a home: the internet. Like many cartoonists displaced by oppressive regimes, Albaih recognizes the power of the web as a tool for circumventing censorship, expressing dissent, and fomenting change. Albaih…
Turkish Cartoonists Refuse to Back Down in Post-Coup Crackdown
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spent years trying to crack down on free expression in the country. A failed July coup attempt heralded even more oppression, but much like previous attempts to stifle dissent, Turkey’s satirists are still finding ways to…
Banned in China: Suicide Squad Unlikely to See Release Due to Violence
Things are looking dire for a Chinese release of Suicide Squad. The movie has yet to appear on the internal release calendar for the China Film Group, the state-owned movie distributor that handles all imported films, indicating that the film has not…