The CBLDF Thanks You For Being Counted!

A Note From The Executive Director:

Last night, the CBLDF’s Be Counted fundraising drive came to a close, and thanks to our generous community of supporters, we raised over $82,000 for our important work to protect comics and the First Amendment.

On behalf of everyone here at CBLDF, I want to thank all of the people who made donations during the campaign, as well as the professionals who gave so generously of their time and talent to help us raise these urgently needed funds.

These are challenging economic times, and we know that everyone has a lot of demands being placed on their wallets. We’re truly grateful for the donations our supporters were able to make. Those contributions will help us prepare for the defense of Brandon X, the American citizen facing jail time in Canada for manga he had on his laptop computer. They’ll also help us pay our legal staff who help the people who reach out to us on a regular basis with their First Amendment emergencies. They will also pay for our ongoing work to fight unconstitutional laws as part of Media Coalition.

Although we didn’t achieve our goal of raising $100,000 during the Be Counted campaign, we accomplished a lot of good. We were able to make a significant dent in our monetary obligations. And we had more than 300 individuals join or renew their membership. Those numbers make us that much stronger when we bring suit against unconstitutional laws.

We couldn’t have done it without the support of so many of this industry’s finest professionals. Thank you: Neal Adams, Scott Allie, Brian Azzarello, Karen Berger, Tom Brevoort, Chris Burnham, Cliff Chiang, Becky Cloonan, Dan DiDio, Neil Gaiman, Dave Gibbons, Jennifer and Matthew Holm, Sam Humphries, Stuart and Katherine Immonen, Rich Johnston, Paul Levitz, Alex Maleev, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Frank Quitely, Greg Rucka, Bob Schreck, Gail Simone, Jeff Smith, Ben Templesmith, Craig Thompson, Charles Vess, Scott Williams, and Brian Wood.

We’re also grateful to our friends at the organizations who made contributions of money or resources that helped this campaign, including Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Boom! Studios, Bonfire Agency, Comic-Con International, Dark Horse, DC Comics, Diamond Comics, Graphitti Designs, HeroesCon, IDW, Image Comics, Legendary Comics, Marvel, Random House, Reed Pop!, Saturday Night Live, and SPX.

I’d also like to take a moment to thank our extraordinary team of volunteers here in New York and across the country who give their time and energy — you are a vital part of our work.

The fight to protect free speech doesn’t end. We have a lot of work ahead, and the cost of doing it isn’t getting any lower. But right now, we’re grateful for the outpouring of support we’ve received. It will help us as we forge ahead to take on the threats to this medium we all care so much about.

Thank you for supporting the CBLDF. Thank you for being counted.

Most sincerely yours,

Charles Brownstein
Executive Director