Summer Recap!

“How did it get to be October already,” CBLDF Director Charles Brownstein asked your reporter when work started on this edition of CBLDF News. Brownstein was speaking rhetorically: time flew is what happened and for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund a lot of time was spent flying around the country to keep up with the super-busy late summer convention season and the Fall term of First Amendment work. Read on to discover what’s been going on.

Wizards & Dragons
At the start of August the Fund went to Chicago for WizardWorld’s flagship convention. It was another exciting year for the show, which welcomed the crème de la crème of hot comics talent. The Fund was aided by the field’s best creators in raising money for its casework.

Jim Lee chaired the Wizard World Sketch Duel, where he faced off with Terry Moore, Jim Mahfood, Talent Caldwell, Mike Norton, and Eric Powell in making quick and quirky jam sketches that were drawn and auctioned off in the course of the one hour event. Memorable pieces included Superman and Beppo the Super-Monkey saving Chicago as drawn by Jim Lee, fat Batman saving Katchoo, drawn by Mahfood and Moore, and Catwoman slugging out a two-timing Batman drawn by Mahfood and Lee. The Sketch Duel raised just over $3,000 for the Fund in one hour! Watch for another Sketch Duel at Wizard World Texas!

Early in the show we also held our annual Wizard Chicago Auction, which was emceed by Brian Pulido. The coolest items of the night included three lunch dates, one with Mark Millar, another with Mark Waid, and a third with Marvel head honcho Joe Quesada. The Quesada lunch date sold for $1,500!

Brian Azzarello, Judd Winick, and Greg Rucka all signed at the Fund booth and Dynamic Forces supported the Fund with donations of super-cool signed editions of Family Values by Frank Miller. Over the course of the weekend the Fund raised $15,000 at Wizard World making it another fantastic show!

Three weeks later the Fund was on the road again for DragonCon, Atlanta, Georgia’s premier comics, sci-fi, and pop-culture convention. Rucka, Winick, Bob Burden, Studio Phoenix, WizKids, Top Shelf, and many more supported the Fund at the four-day show. Fund Director Charles Brownstein manned the Fund table in the lobby to the main comics area and pow-wowed with Fund members, advocates from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others about new developments in the First Amendment environment. DragonCon raised over $2,000 for the CBLDF.

SPX-Citement
Longtime Fund Volunteer Gary Tyrell writes this report from SPX:

The fans at SPX have always been a loyal crowd, and in the past they’ve overcome Beltway traffic, scarce partking, and even hurricanes to attend the show. This year was no attendance, as nearly 2,000 people passed on the beautiful summer weekend to get their fill of cutting edge comics and support the Fund.

And support they did! In addition to making donations for shirts, SPX anthologies, and other cool swag, they stuffed donation cans on the tables of some of our favorite artists (including Jessica Abel, SteveConley, Terry Moore, and the crew from Top Shelf). We saw more fans come by the Fund booth for signings featuring Frank Miller, Paul Pope, and Frank Cammuso.

The high-point of the weekend came Saturday afternoon when Frank Miller and Paul Pope drew sketches for CBLDF supporters who donated $100 or more. Nearly two dozen people got sketches during this rare opportunity!

While Miller and Pope were sketching in the bar, former Fund Director Chris Oarr manned the Fund’s SPX auction where original art, rare graphics, and even lunch with Gary Groth were auctioned off to benefit the cause. The auction raised nearly $1,600 for the CBLDF!

If there was a common theme among those who dropped by the CBLDF booth, it was anger over the Castillo case. The member rolls of the Fund swellled at the show with dozens signing up to put their money and voices behind the fight for comics freedom.

On Sunday night the Ignatz Awards came off where SPX Executive Director Greg McElhatton presented the Fund with an $8,000 donation representing the money raised in admission by the show. All told the Fund raised over $17,000 at SPX. Our thanks go to our outstanding booth staff, including Tim, Doug, Terri, Steve, Frank, Mario, Bruce, and the other tireless volunteers provided by Karon Flage and the organizers of SPX!

Taking The First Amendment Temperature
Immediately following SPX, Fund Director Charles Brownstein went to the Free Expression Network’s Fall Clearinghouse meeting at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia. Representatives from every major First Amendment organization were in attendance, including from the ACLU, ALA, ABFFE, Media Coalition, National Coaltion Against Censorship, People For the American Way, Youth Free Expression Network, and dozens more. That afternoon the summer season’s First Amendment cases were discussed, including a case in California where a teen was convicted under California’s threat law for writing a poem; the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to require libraries to get Internet filters to receive federal funding; and Washington State’s law banning video games depicting violence against police officers. These developments and more are discussed at length in the next issue of Busted!, which goes to press on November 1. Meanwhile, the Fall issue of Busted is still out. The 32 page edition has a special focus on Banned Books Week, an analysis of the PROTECT Act, and updates on the Fund’s casework in Arkansas, plus much more. Join the CBLDF to get your subscription to Busted, or ask your local retailer to order a bundle. Failing that, you can always get a free copy by calling 800.99.CBLDF, but printing Busted isn’t cheap, so isn’t it time you joined so you can get your copy?

Baltimore The Merrier
Despite the high winds and floods provided by Hurricane Isabel, Baltimore Comicon was a roaring success. Held September 20 and 21, the show was the launch pad for More Fund Comics, an amazing anthology of comics by dozens of creators including Frank Cho, Brandon Petersen, Scott Kurtz, Mark Schultz, John Gallagher, Steve Conley, John Romita Jr, & John Romita Sr., Mike Oeming, and many, many more. Over 500 copies of the book were sold at the show, including the exclusive, limited edition Frank Cho variant cover, featuring the title character from his upcoming series “Summer Days.”

In addition to More Fund, Jim Lee signed all day on Saturday for crowds numbering in the hundreds. Following Lee’s marathon signing, the More Fund Auction happened, where the Fund auctioned George Perez’s cover to More Fund, Steve Conley’s art from the interiors, a one of a kind Frank Miller banner, and much more, raising $5,000 for the Fund. All told Baltimore Comicon raised $8,600 for free speech!