Member Appreciation Party, Free Gifts For Members & Librarians, and Much More!
This weekend the CBLDF thanks the members supporting our First Amendment legal work at Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con! The festivities kick off at Crescent City Comics tonight, where we’ll have a Member Appreciation Welcome Party with free gifts for CBLDF members, a raffle, and more!
Fight Censorship! Celebrate Liberty! Join the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund today!
Today, the CBLDF unveiled its 2012 Membership Drive, featuring the best incentives and benefits in the free speech community, starting off with a stunning membership card by superstar creator Cliff Chiang! Channeling the classic depiction of Liberty through the influence of WPA art and comic book iconography, Chiang has created a powerful membership card that you’ll be proud to keep in your wallet. CBLDF offers membership plans for donors in every budget, each with its own premiums and benefits, and all of them are tax-deductible!
Joining the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund puts you on the front line of the fight against censorship! Your membership dollars provide the tools to fight back when comic book readers, retailers and artists are muzzled, censored, or attacked! When you become a CBLDF member, you are proclaiming that comics are important and that you are a protector of their First Amendment rights! Join now!
This weekend come support the CBLDF’s First Amendment legal work at Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con! The festivities kick off at Crescent City Comics on Friday night, where we’ll have a Member Appreciation Welcome Party with free gifts for CBLDF members, a raffle, and more! Then, you can visit us all weekend at Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con booth #806, where we’ll be offering free gifts to members and librarians and a vast range of signed items for CBLDF supporters! Check out all the activities after the jump!
Today Bleeding Cool ran a piece linking to a local news promo promising a titillating exposé on modern comics that will offer tips on “HOW TO K.O. THESE COMICS BEFORE THEY CORRUPT YOUR KIDS!” These media scare stories are nothing new. They’ve been plaguing comics since the very beginning, whether it was massive public comic book burnings in the 1940s, Frederic Wertham’s attacks in the 1950s, or the retailer stings of the 1980s that led to the CBLDF being formed. While we’ve seen this type of story arise time and again, it should never be taken lightly. Below we offer some tips on how to deal with hostile cameras if they come to your store.
The convention year began last weekend at Amazing Arizona Comic Con in Mesa, Az. Robert Kirkman, Rob Liefeld, and Greg Capullo led off the show’s guest list, signing autographs throughout the weekend. CBLDF was there offering a wide variety of items for donations including grab bags and exclusive prints, all of which raised $1,500 for the organization. CBLDF thanks Jimmy Jay of the Amazing Arizona organization and Jeff Kuperschmidt who volunteered to run the CBLDF’s booth.
Last holiday season, The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation sponsored The Spirit of Giving, a holiday gift drive encouraging membership and donations to CBLDF with incentives that included signed and personalized graphic novels by some of the industry’s greatest creators. Over 450 donations came in over the course of the Spirit of Giving campaign, including more than 200 memberships. All told, the Spirit of Giving drive contributed to raising more than $75,000 for the CBLDF’s important First Amendment program work as we closed 2011, allowing us to pay off all of our 2011 program obligations and enter 2012 with a clean slate.
Carl Gropper, of the Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation says, “The CBLDF was important to Will Eisner and its goals are as important today as when it was founded. We must maintain our vigilance over our Constitutionally-granted rights and liberties in order to stop those who would take them away. The Foundation is fortunate to be in a position where it can continue Will Eisner’s good work.”
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Don’t miss out! There’s still time to support the CBLDF in 2011 by making a tax-deductible contribution by midnight on December 31! If you haven’t yet joined or renewed your membership, now is the best time, because all new, renewing and gift memberships made by December 31 will be matched with a $5 contribution from the The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation. Please make a difference by making a tax-deductible contribution to CBLDF today!
The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon spoke to CBLDF President Larry Marder & Executive Director Charles Brownstein in an extensive interview on the organization’s current work. Check it out here!
57 years ago today the first news of how the recently formed Comics Code Authority censored comics hit the wires, and Tim Stroup’s excellent “Today In Comics” blog has the clippings. Stroup gathers stories from five news services that covered Comics Code administrator Charles Murphy’s press conference touting the organization’s work to diminish the impact of images containing sexuality and violence within comic books.
Earlier this year the Comics Code Authority closed its doors and the CBLDF acquired the intellectual property rights to the Code’s Seal of Approval. Thus ended an era of censorship that sanitized the medium’s output, and established a stigma against comics that would endure until recent years. Dr. Amy Nyberg created a short history of the Seal of Approval for the CBLDF.
There’s still time to make a difference in the fight against censorship by making a contribution to the CBLDF today! All donations made up until midnight on December 31 are tax-deductible in 2011, and support the Fund’s urgent work. Additionally, all new, renewing and gift memberships made by December 31 will be matched with a $5 contribution from the The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation
Right now the CBLDF needs your support to pay for expert testimony and legal bills in a case supporting Brandon X, an American citizen facing a minimum sentence of one year in prison for possessing horror and fantasy manga on his laptop computer. His case is expected to go to trial in 2012, and legal expenses are estimated to run $150,000. Please make a tax-deductible contribution to CBLDF today to help us defend this case, and to create tools for retailers, librarians, and readers to help protect against cases like this happening in the future!
The CBLDF exists because of the grass-roots support of individuals like you! Please support our work by making a tax-deductible donation, signing up or renewing your membership, or signing up a friend for a gift membership. Your donations help us protect the First Amendment rights of everyone in the comic book field. Please make a difference in supporting that work by making a donation today.