John Hogan with Graphic Novel Reporter recently took time to speak to CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein about CBLDF and how it’s mission has evolved over the last 25 years.
In addition to getting the latest details on CBLDF’s Canada Customs Case, Hogan asked about the specific challenges comics face. Brownstein succinctly described how the focus of CBLDF’s efforts has changed from protecting small retailers to protecting collectors themselves:
The challenges are always changing. When the CBLDF started, our work was most urgently needed to protect small comic book stores from prosecutions by local authorities because of mature readers comics they sold to adults. In the ’90s, our work shifted to help artists who were being prosecuted by authorities. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, the pendulum shifted back to helping retailers, and at the same time fighting against laws that targeted the internet and that would have made it impossible for retailers to display “harmful to minors” material—work protected for adults, but nebulously illegal for minors because of nudity and sexual content. Now we are seeing an increasing surge of prosecutorial efforts directed at readers for the comics they own and on their digital devices.
