When InvestComics called for submissions to their One and Done anthology, they received an overwhelming response. The assembled creators each drew a one-page story in which someone dies, shown or implied. One and Done is finally available, and proceeds from the sale of the book benefit CBLDF!

For more on the anthology and to get your own copy, visit InvestComics website here.

The official press release:

InvestComics Announces “One and Done” Anthology Available for Purchase Online

Charitable anthology of “deadly tales” features contributions from industry creators to support Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF)

(West Palm Beach, Florida; January 31, 2012) – Comic book and entertainment information website InvestComics is proud to announce that “One and Done” − a charitable anthology to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund − is now available for purchase on the Mira Publishing website at www.mirashartshop.com. “Today marks the beginning of InvestComics’ fight against censorship and the right for Freedom of Speech,” said Jay Katz, President of InvestComics. “We are proud to support such a great cause and will always be a strong supporter of CBLDF.”

Bob Heske, a graphic novelist, web columnist and editor on the anthology, added, “We’re thrilled to get a book out that features worldwide talent for such a great cause. The one-page graphic tales that each end in death are like a box of chocolates − you don’t know what you’ll get until you bite inside!”

“I am proud to be a part of such a fantastic charity like CBLDF” echoed Sebastian Piccione, also an editor on the book and a regular contributor to the InvestComics website. “The mix of stories and styles from accomplished and emerging creators makes this book unique and fun to read.”

InvestComics reached out to industry creators with a call for submissions on its website in June 2011. The rules were simple: Stories could be of any genre as long as they were one page in length and the last page ended in death (shown or implied).

According to InvestComics Katz the response was overwhelming. “This unique anthology asked creators to be generous in their submission and extremely creative in their content. And I’m proud to say they’ve stepped up to the plate big time and hit it out of the park,” says Katz in reference to the quality of submissions received. The InvestComics One and Done Anthology features contributors from all over the globe including established industry pros like Mark McKenna, Duncan Eagleson, Rob Jones, and Peter Palimotti and emerging talent on the cusp of being recognized. Nearly 50 “One and Done” tales were accepted. There is also a special section called “Killer Extras” featuring additional original works by Bob Heske, Duncan Eagleson, David Paul, and also a pinup page from cover artist Gary T. Becks.

Orders can be placed directly on line at http://www.mirasmartshop.com/ at this URL:

http://www.mirasmartshop.com/InvestComics-Presents-One-Done_p_322.html

Also, if you are in Florida, the One and Done Anthology can be purchased at Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida. Tate’s Comics web address is www.tatescomics.com.

InvestComics will announce random winners of prizes to be given out by Tate’s Comics as well as interviews to be carried on the InvestComics website and InvestComics TV website. The first interview will be posted the week of January 23rd featuring South African creators Arno Hurter and David Edwards who had five stories accepted for the book (the most of any creator team), and will appear in Bob Heske’s popular IndieCreator column.

About InvestComics

InvestComics™ started as a magazine in 2006; the first issue wasn’t released until June of 2007. The magazine was distributed as a free comic book Investment Guide throughout local comic shops in South Florida. It was also a giveaway on Ebay for any winning bid to receive with their order.

Although the InvestComics™ web site was on line in 2005, it wasn’t until 2007 the web site became the main focal point and the magazine ceased. InvestComics™ wanted to start reaching a broader audience and began to rapidly expand. InvestComics™ became the “Entertainment” Investment Guide as a result of covering many areas in the industry, focusing on entertainment as well as highlighting investment opportunities. Most recently the launch of InvestComics TV (ICTV) has made the site multi-media, attracting some of the biggest names in the industry to appear in a split-screen 10-12 minute interview format.

About Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and readers. The CBLDF provides legal referrals, representation, advice, assistance, and education in furtherance of these goals. If you wish to support CBLDF, you can visit their website at http://cbldf.org/.

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Last year, the state of Arizona passed HB 2281, a controversial bill that resulted in the termination of the highly praised Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Independent School District. The program was ended despite an independent audit that advocated for its continuation.

Last week, TUSD released a list of books that would be removed from classrooms and put in indefinite storage. The banned books included contributions from a virtual who’s who of Mexican American and Native American authors and artists:

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, Rodolfo Acuña
Rethinking Columbus: The next 500 Years, Bill Bigelow
Critical Race Theory, Richard Delgado
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire
Message to AZTLAN, Rodolfo Gonzales
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, Elizabeth Martinez (ed.)

These aren’t the only books that TUSD has banned. The American Indian in Children’s Literature blog has a more comprehensive list of the banned books, including responses from some of the authors. Sherman Alexie’s response via Twitter is telling:

With the ban on ethnic studies, Arizona is now officially practicing American Apartheid.

When CBLDF announced earlier this week that it had joined a coalition of national organizations in writing a letter against Tucson’s censorship of books by Mexican American and Native American authors, some of you may have been wondering why CBLDF joined this particular fight. The list of banned books doesn’t include comics, so why did CBLDF sign on?

The fact is, any school system that is willing to ban books based on the ethnicity of their creators is just as likely to ban comic books for the same reason. If images of works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, or other Chicano artists can be banned (as was done with the removal of 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures), it doesn’t seem so far fetched that works by the Hernandez Brothers would become part of TUSD’s censorship spree.

CBLDF and the coalition it joined in defense of the banned books aren’t alone in their protest. Jeff Biggers at the Huffington Post wrote an article about a teach-in staged at schools across the nation, citing the letter that CBLDF signed. Participating schools taught lessons from the banned MAS program. Biggers spoke to a former MAS teacher about the teach-in:

“The national outpouring of support has been amazing and this website, this movement of solidarity, is proof of this,” said former Mexican American Studies literature teacher Curtis Acosta. “It is humbling to think of the hard work that our friends across the country have produced to keep our story and program alive in the minds and hearts of so many people. I believe the tide is turning due to the deplorable enforcement of the law by our district. Now it is clear what the agenda was truly about — banning books, censoring teachers, rolling back the decades of civil rights and equality all to appease the desires of egocentric politicians. The love and respect from fellow educators and citizens will lift the hearts of our students during these dark days. Now they will know that they are not alone.”

You can read the rest of Biggers’ article here. University of Arizona assistant professor Roberto “Dr. Cintli” Rodriguez, PhD, wrote a fascinating analysis of the censorship here.

Censorship is a slippery slope. If one book can be banned, then any book can be banned.

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.

Comics Should Be Good over at CBR is having some fun with Twitter in honor of CBLDF! Brian Cronin with The Line Is Drawn posted this week’s challenge, calling for entries from CSBG’s Twitter followers:

In honor of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund‘s 2012 Membership Drive, team-up various comic book characters with Lady Liberty, the symbol of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

Get the details on how you can enter your Lady Liberty dream team here!

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.

CBLDF currently has a load of amazing signed books — including Elektra: Assassin, George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight, Bloom County, a copy of the Halo graphic novel signed sketched by Moebius, Rasl, and more — up for bid. But your chance to take one home is coming to a close! The auctions end today, so head over to CBLDF’s eBay site to place your bids now!

Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.

Last week, the CBLDF launched the first Member Appreciation events of 2012 in New Orleans with a party at Crescent City Comics and a booth at Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con. The events raised a combined total of $2,600, and I got to meet scores of our loyal supporters from all over the south.

The events started on Friday night at Crescent City Comics whose crew hosted a Member Appreciation Party for CBLDF supporters. Crescent City is one of my favorite comic shops in the country because it has a great, knowledgeable crew that cares a lot about helping customers navigate their incredible inventory of comics, graphic novels, back issues, zines, and assorted weird cool stuff. They were all on hand providing warm hospitality for the full house of folks who came out to support the CBLDF. I got to give a short talk about the Fund’s current casework, and to talk to a bunch of the great people who came out for the party. Although the best part was probably giving away the raffle prizes. Check out the happy expression on grand prize winner Matt Ray:

Our other winners were just as chuffed:

Creators Andy Kuhn and Derec Donovan were there:

So was Caesar Meadows:

All told the event raised $300 for the CBLDF, including a generous contribution of 15% of the night’s sales from the store. We’re grateful to the great crew at Crescent City, who are pictured below, for putting it together.

Les Arceneaux and Leo McGovern:

Jill Carter & Clark Allen:

If you’re a retailer and would like to host a Member Appreciation event like this one at your store, please drop us a line. We can’t always send a staffer, but we can send raffle prizes and gifts for CBLDF members. We’ll also be happy to write it up on this website.

The next morning Wizard World’s New Orleans Comic Con kicked off, bringing a very busy crowd to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. I spoke to supporters from all over the Gulf who were coming out to get sketches, fill in their collections, and get autographs from the celebs on hand. I also spoke to supporters from even farther away, including one fellow from Germany and a lady from Australia, who was sent up for a corporate conference and was excited to find out that a comic book show was happening right across the street from her hotel. I pointed them to our Advisory about traveling with comics, because if there’s one thing the Brandon X case proves it’s that you can never be too careful when dealing with customs.

Attendance at the show was solid, and we were slammed from about noon til five on Saturday, and through the middle part of Sunday. I gave away a lot of copies of About Comics’ 24 Hour Comics collection to members who showed up with their membership cards to claim this appreciation reward. I also collected a lot of donations from folks who were excited by the range of books we had from supporting pros. I ran out of books by Robert Kirkman, Neil Gaiman and Dave Gibbons pretty early on Saturday, which means I underestimated the demand for these items. Shame on me. If you were there and missed out on one of these killer donation rewards, you can get most of them in our Rewards Zone. Ditto the CBLDF Grab Bags, which was hands down our most popular item. I brought 60 of these to offer as a thank you for folks donating $20 and ran out of them about an hour before the show closed on Sunday.

The Wizard World team did a fine job putting this con together. The floor had a positive energy and attracted a really solid mix of comic book fans, cosplay fans, and pop culture fans. This was good for the CBLDF, because we got to meet supporters from a region we don’t frequently reach, and we were able to introduce a lot of people to our work for the first time. This show wasn’t wall-to-wall comics the way a show like HeroesCon or Baltimore Comic-Con is, but it was wall-to-wall fandom. Before Big Bang Theory and The Walking Dead became the phenomenons they are, it was easier to make a case against the co-mingling of comics and media under the banner of a Comic Con. But today that case is becoming as outmoded as the stereotype that comics conventions are smelly affairs full of sad dudes in wrinkled t-shirts. Today fandom is mainstream, and this show embraced that in a positive way.

I’m grateful to the team at Wizard World who donated our space to exhibit, to Les, Leo, Jill & Clark at Crescent City, and especially to the hundreds of you who stopped by the table and talked with me about the First Amendment and made a contribution to our important work.

Next up for the CBLDF is the ComicsPro meeting in Dallas, where Deputy Director Alex Cox will be conducting events to thank the retail community supporting the Fund. My next trip will be to Image Expo in Oakland, where we’ve lined up an extremely cool Member Appreciation giveaway that I can’t wait to announce. If you see us at one of these shows, please come by and say hello!

Charles Brownstein is the Executive Director for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Jill Carter contributed photography to this article.

Early comic book censorship in the United States was fueled by fears many adults had over a burgeoning youth culture that they could not understand and that they perceived as violent. Even today, would-be censors continually — and incorrectly — argue that comic books and other media are bad for children, something that has yet to be proven by valid scientific study.

The fear of youth culture as a driver for censorship isn’t unique to the United States, as a recent AFP article over at The Raw Story makes clear. The article relates how the banning of books in Vietnam, in particular books and comics aimed at youth culture, has actually driven sales of the books rather than keeping them out of readers’ hands. AFP interviewed a comic book creator about the banning of his book:

Nguyen Thanh Phong, whose collection of comic rhyming slang was recently banned, said his illustration of two gormless-looking soldiers kicking a grenade to each other may have caused the censors’ ire.

The caption reads “Being a soldier you must always get noticed”, an attempt to poke fun at the inflated, heroic image of the country’s military.

“I just thought it was funny,” said Phong.

The 26-year-old artist said censorship only increased people’s desire to read the book, entitled “The murderer with a pus-filled head”, which aims to reflect the street patois of Vietnam’s youth.

Phong went on to tell AFP that illegal copies of his book are now selling for twice their cover price. Edmund Malesky, Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on Vietnam, further explained that many people who would have never looked at the book picked it up because of the controversy over its content. This is a clear case in which censors tried to keep books away from readers only to end up driving more people to the material. For more, visit The Raw Story here.

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work and reporting on issues such as this by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.

Signed by Neil Gaiman, CBLDF Board Member and recipient of the Defender of Liberty Award! From the pages of The Sandman comes the young, pale, perky, fan-favorite character Death in a new Absolute Edition collecting her solo adventures! Featuring the miniseries Death: The High COst of Living #1-3, in which Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year-old homeless woman find her missing heart, and Death: The Time of Your Life together with “The Sound of Her Wings” and “Façade” from The Sandman #8 and #20, the P. Craig Russell-illustrated “Death and Venice” from The Sandman: Endless Nights, and the never-before reprinted stories “A Winter’s Tale” and “The Wheel.” This deluxe volume also features an introduction by The Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer as well as extensive galleries of Death portraits and retail products, sketches by artist Chris Bachalo, and the complete original script by Gaiman for The Sandman #8. Proceeds from this deluxe signed edition benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

Get your copy today!

Donated by HEROES AREN’T HARD TO FIND in Charlotte, North Carolina (http://www.heroesonline.com/), these grab bags contain a vast array of rare comics from the silver, bronze, and modern age to support the CBLDF. Comics included somewhere in these Grab Bags include Avengers #57 (1st Appearance of the Vision), X-Men #46, X-Men #48, Batman #185, Luke Cage #1, Nick Fury: Agent of Shield #3, Sub-Mariner #5, and dozens more. Signed comics were contributed directly from their artists, including Amanda Conner, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Jill Thompson, Gail Simone, and many more!

Grab one today!

Cupcake’s life is pretty good. He’s got his bakery and his band and his best friend, Eggplant. His days are full of cooking, socializing, and playing music. But lately, Cupcake has been struggling in the kitchen. He’s sure the solution to all his problems is out there somewhere. But maybe that solution is hiding closer to home. Sara Varon returns with an ageless tale as dreamy and evocative as her break-out hit graphic novel Robot Dreams. At once deeply metaphorical and hilariously literal, Bake Sale is a story for anyone who’s ever looked for an easy answer to life’s intractable difficulties. It’s also a cookbook: Varon includes seven delicious recipes, from classic cupcakes to sugared flower petals to marzipan. These exclusive copies of Bake Sale have been signed by cartoonist Sara Varon to benefit the legal work of the CBLDF. They premiered at Small Press Expo 2011, as an exclusive event with the cooperation of First Second Books.

Get your copy today!

CBLDF Deputy Director Alex Cox and co-founder of the Comics Should Be Good blog at Comic Book Resources took a moment to explain why people should join the CBLDF on today’s CSBG blog. Head over to CBR to get the low down on CBLDF, comic book censorship, and how CBLDF protects your right to make, sell, buy, and read comics!

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Betsy Gomez is the Web Editor for CBLDF.