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What Has The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Ever Done For Us? 2018 Edition

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has issued its end of year report, embedded below.

They mention actions the nonprofit activist group has undertaken including:

  • CBLDF intervened in nine cases, working behind the scenes to offer legal knowledge before the cases went to court.
  • Cases ranged from providing legal advice to publishers and creators to a flurry of customs crises, in which comics readers had their packages seized at the border.
  • The Fund is also serving as a consultant on an ongoing basis for the Small Press Expo (SPX), as it raises legal funds in support of 11 smallpress creators who are fighting a defamation action.
  • Thanks to CBLDF's partnership in the Media Coalition, we are also monitoring new legislation that would restrict the First Amendment, including a troubling campaign to pass laws mandating Internet filtering.
  • CBLDF joined two important amicus briefs this year, one resisting a more restrictive approach to the right of publicity that could affect fact-based comics and the other advocating for limits on the government's ability to restrict speech in public spaces.
  • CBLDF rallied the free expression community to defend a Banned Books Week display in a Maine library after a group of local religious leaders attempted to have it removed because it included LGBTQ books. One pastor went so far as to say that the books, including the graphic novels My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness and Queer: An Illustrated History, should be burned.
  • Alison Bechdel's Fun Home suffered another attack in schools when a group of parents challenged the book's assignment to outgoing seniors at a New Jersey high school. CBLDF led a coalition to defend the book, contributing to the retention of the title in the curriculum.


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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