Last month, Angie Thomas’ critically-acclaimed Young Adult novel The Hate U Give was removed from school library shelves in Katy, Texas after it was challenged by a parent who complained of “inappropriate language.” On Monday, the board of the Katy…
Author: Maren Williams
Ahmed Naji to Face Trial Again for Book Excerpt
Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji will be tried a third time for “harming public morality” with an excerpt from his book Use of Life which was reprinted in Akhbar al-Adab newspaper in 2014. Naji was previously convicted and sentenced to two…
Zunar Challenges Malaysia’s Latest Ban on Cartoon Book
Malaysian cartoonist Zunar was back in court this week, filing a legal challenge to the government’s ban on his latest book Sapuman: The Man of Steal. The ban was imposed last year after the cartoons critical of Prime Minister Najib…
Utah Teacher Fired After Classical Art Lesson
An elementary school art teacher in Cache County, Utah is fighting to clear his name after he was fired last month for inadvertently sharing two nude paintings by well-known artists with a 6th grade class. Despite a police investigation that…
List of Lists: Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2017
In what has become an annual tradition at CBLDF, we present below our roundup of lists of the best (or favorite) comics and graphic novels of 2017. Every year, more and more media outlets are taking notice of the format’s…
Sonny Liew Nominated for Singaporean of the Year
Sonny Liew, the triple Eisner Award-winning creator of The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, is wrapping up a banner year with yet another honor back home in Singapore. Along with nine other impressive residents of the city-state, Liew is…
Turkish Courts Order 12 Anti-Erdoğan Cartoons Removed from Twitter
In two separate rulings this week, lawyers for Turkish president Recep Tayyip have obtained court orders demanding that Twitter remove a total of 12 cartoons mocking him. Twitter has not yet taken action on the orders, which target 11 panels…
Eaten Fish Receives Refuge in Europe
The Iranian refugee cartoonist known as Eaten Fish, who has spent an excruciating four years suffering from mental health issues in Australia’s offshore immigration detention facility on Manus Island, has finally been granted refuge in an unidentified northern European city.…
Egypt’s Garage Dedicated to Creative Freedom in Comics
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the international hot spot for vibrant, surreal indie comics, for the past several years at least, is the Middle East and North Africa. Much of the innovation comes from Egypt, where occasionally…
The Burial and Resurrection of LGBTQIA Comics
The history of LGBTQIA comics is in the spotlight this week at The Paris Review, where an excerpt from Hillary Chute’s new book Why Comics? traces how sequential art by and featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people was first…