Geppi's Remarks on Joining the CBLDF Board

At last night’s Diamond Retailer Summit, it was announced that Steve Geppi was elected to the Board of Directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Standing before the audience at the beginning of the evening banquet, CBLDF President Chris Staros said, “As Top Shelf and as a member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, I've witnessed first hand what we can accomplish as a community and what we can do when we rally around a cause. For nearly twenty years, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has been protecting the First Amendment rights of our community. With all of you being on the front lines of selling comics, it's very important that there's an organization standing behind each and every one of you to help protect your First Amendment rights and the CBLDF has been doing that for quite some time now.

Staros continued, “Last night we had a very big announcement that Paul Levitz was unanimously elected to the Board of Directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and tonight we have an equally important announcement that another pillar of our community has been unanimously elected to our Board of Directors and that is Steve Geppi.”

Geppi took the stage and said, “There’s probably some of you old timers in the audience who are probably extremely shocked right now that I’m up here as a new member of the CBLDF board, because for those of you who go back far enough, you know that I once had the reputation – not a truly valid reputation – but an accused reputation of being a censor. That was at a time when I thought I was doing the right thing because I was looking at some of the things that were being sent in the mail to us to solicit an quite frankly I didn’t think the retailers should be exposed to them. And I’m not talking for the purpose of violence or sex, I just thought the quality was poor, and then I got accused of being a censor.

Geppi continued, “But, I do very much believe in free speech and I very much believe in what the CBLDF represents. I’m proud and honored that they considered me to be a board member. I’m even more proud that I come on board at the same time with a good friend of mine and a good friend of the industry’s: Paul Levitz.”

Geppi said, “We appreciate what the CBLDF does, I thank you for the honor and look forward to serving in the best way that I can.”

Earlier in the evening Geppi telegraphed the announcements in his opening remarks. Geppi said, “It’s hard to believe that just fifty years ago because of Seduction of the Innocent by Frederic Wertham comics were being vilified. Comics were blamed for impairing the development of our children and contributing to juvenile delinquency. Dr. Wertham later recanted what he said in that book, but not a lot of people know that. They remember the Kefauver commission hearings and comic book burnings that resulted. But we survived that time, and today, comics are being embraced by our culture.

“Comics are being embraced by the schools, they are being embraced by the libraries, they are being embraced by the bookstore market, they are being embraced by the movies. Someone once said that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And I think our time has come. They’re just finding out that we’ve known for a long, long time – that comic books are a very viable medium.

“Yes, there are comic books that have violence. Yes, there are comic books that have sex. Yes, there are comic books that have nudity. But there are other comic books too. Like other entertainment media, whether it be television or movies, Comic Books are a medium that entertains. Comic Books are in a unique position, and we’re fortunate enough to represent them.”