Nearly everyone can agree that most newspaper comics have a certain stodgy aura, particularly compared to the dynamism and diversity of their cousins in book form. In a three-part extravaganza this week, the Washington Post’s Michael Cavna has been delving…
Banned Books Week 2015: Tell CBLDF About Your Plans to Celebrate the Right to Read!
Banned Books Week 2015 is coming up September 27 – October 3. As a sponsor of the annual week celebrating the freedom to read, CBLDF wants to hear from librarians, retailers, educators, publishers, and others about any events or displays…
Cartoonist Bonil Keeps Up Fight Against Government Censorship
From exorbitant fines to charges of “socioeconomic discrimination” to threats from ISIS, cartoonist Xavier Bonilla, best known by his pen-name Bonil, and his work have been frequent targets of the Ecuadorian government. As we learn in a recent interview with…
Banned Books Week 2015: CBLDF Gear Bundle Helps You Celebrate This September!
Libraries, schools, and bookshops around the nation will be celebrating the freedom to read September 27 – October 8. The seven day celebration of the freedom to read will focus on Young Adult books, including the many young adult comics challenged in…
Barefoot Gen Ranked #1 Most Affecting Manga in Japanese Poll
In a recent poll done by Japanese website Goo, Keiji Nakazawa’s semi-autobiographical manga anti-war Barefoot Gen ranked number one as today’s most “traumatizing” manga. The poll asked readers to rank the top 28 manga that left an indelible emotional impression…
Illinois Officials Burned by 1950s Library Purge
In the modern popular imagination, the 1950s represent the height of repression, conformity, paranoia, and of course censorship. To be sure, the era did see the brief rise of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the continued effects of the Hollywood blacklist (instituted…