Japan will host the 2020 summer Olympics, and this world stage puts Japan in a spotlight that may ultimately harm the free expression of manga and anime in the country. Any nation that hosts an Olympic event works to put…
Category: International
Cartoonist Fights Inclusion on U.S. No-Fly List
For several years, Toronto cartoonist Shahid Mahmood has been on the United States’ no-fly list for reasons unknown. Mahmood discovered his no-fly status when he attempted to board an Air Canada flight in 2004. Several years and an inquiry from…
Cartoon Movement Gives Voice to Cartoonists Worldwide
Cartoon Movement is an international platform for cartoonists, editors, and fans of editorial cartooning and political satire to come together as a community. Founded in 2010 by Dutch journalists Thomas Loudon and Arend Jan van den Beld, the website unites…
Back to School with Comics: CBLDF Presents Manga
Manga is worldwide phenomenon: One of the most widely read types of literature in its home country of Japan, it has crossed the world to become a very popular category here in the United States. With burgeoning collections in libraries…
Finland Censors Anti-Censorship Site
On August 28, the Supreme Administrative Court in Finland ruled that Finnish police adding a prominent anti-censorship website to its blacklist was a perfectly reasonable, not in any way illegal thing to do. Except was it? The site in question,…
Russian Artist Seeks Asylum After Authorities Shut Down His Exhibition
Russian authorities confiscated politically-charged paintings on Monday from a newly opened art gallery in St. Petersburg. As a result of the seizure, the artist fled the country and the exhibit was shut down. The paintings — one of which depicts…
Barefoot Gen Ban Lifted
In a victory for free speech, the Matsue City school board overturned an order that banned renown anti-war manga Barefoot Gen from school libraries. Keiji Nakazawa’s celebrated series was removed from shelves after a complainant — one who does not…
South Korean Child Pornography Law Targets Drawings, Animation
In 2011, the National Assembly of South Korea revised laws surrounding child pornography to cover materials featuring “creations of persons who can be perceived as minors” in sexual situations, expanding the definition of illegal practices to include the perceptions of…
The Inconvenience of Barefoot Gen
Translator and manga industry expert Dan Kanemitsu submitted the following opinion piece on the recent ban of Barefoot Gen from the perspective of being close to the ground in recent battles involving manga regulation in Japan. In December of 2010,…
New Zealand Library Refuses to Carry Lost Girls
When New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks (Hicksville, Batgirl) requested that his local Auckland library purchase a copy of Alan Moore’s Lost Girls, the library denied his request with the argument that the book potentially violated New Zealand law. Horrocks received…