Seventy years ago, on April 21, 1954, the United States Senate launched a series of televised public hearings on the harmful effects of comic books on the nation’s youth. Now we are in the midst of another sustained attack on the comic arts, and the co-creators of World Citizen Comics’ Free Speech Handbook are here with a new weekly limited series on what the great comic book scare of the 1950s can teach us about the challenges we’re facing today.
Join First Amendment expert Ian Rosenberg and award-winning artist Mike Cavallaro here at cbldf.org every Sunday from here through June 2nd for U.S. vs. Comics: The Senate Effort to Censor Comic Books!
Ian Rosenberg has over twenty years of experience as a media lawyer, and has worked as legal counsel for ABC News since 2003. He graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and magna cum laude from Cornell Law School. Rosenberg is also an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Brooklyn College. He is the author of The Fight for Free Speech (NYU Press 2021) and Free Speech Handbook (Macmillan/First Second 2021), a nonfiction graphic novel co-created with Eisner-nominated artist Mike Cavallaro. Rosenberg is currently writing Terrible Stuff Damaging Everyone: Dominion v. Fox and the Future of Democracy, coming out from NYU Press in 2025.
Mike Cavallaro is from New Jersey, lives in Brooklyn, and has worked in the comics and animation fields for over 30 years. His clients include Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, First Second Books, MTV Animation, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, and others. Mike has collaborated with acclaimed authors Jane Yolen, Adam Rapp, and J.M. DeMatteis, and with media lawyer Ian Rosenberg to create the graphic novel Free Speech Handbook. Mike’s solo graphic novels include the Eisner Award-nominated memoir Parade (with fireworks), the Nico Bravo series, and the Eowulf series. Mike is a member of the National Cartoonists Society and an instructor at the School of Visual Arts.