By: Various including Darick Robertson, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Garth Ennis, Paul Pope, Evan Dorkin, Rob Liefeld, Gail Simone, Scott Morse, Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Brian Azzarello, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Jeff Smith, Skottie Young, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Ben McCool, Billy Tucci, Larry Marder and more
The Story: Comic creators collaborate on an anthology comic to raise money to protect free speech!
What’s Good: You know what’s good: free speech! Too often the term “free speech” is only thought of as it applies to journalists, but as soon as you start eroding artists abilities to portray their art in whatever why they please because some people find it distasteful, you start to threaten some of the essential liberties that are part of what it means to be human (much less American). There are places in the world where people cannot say and print what they please and there are people in the good old USA who occasionally give a comic shop a hard time about displaying comics with – gasp – wanton violence or – double gasp – naked people or – triple gasp – naked people doing naughty things! And by “hard time” we mean “take the comic shop to court”. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit that helps comic shops and creators defend themselves against such intrusions into free speech and every so often they put out an Annual to raise awareness and money.
The comic itself is a LOT of fun. All of the creators’ short pieces have something to say about free speech. They vary from a Garth Ennis story that in tongue-in-cheek fashion shows you a story that some people would protest, to Evan Dorkin’s story of Milk & Cheese raising money for CBLDF by mugging everyone at a ComicCon, to a Rob Liefeld drawn sexy Lady Liberty, to a Frank Miller Sin City pin-up, to a great one-page Skottie Young panel featuring a kid and his dog… You get the idea.
Beyond it being in support of a cause we all love, where else are you going to get a sampler platter of that list of creators for $4.99?
What’s Not So Good: Nothing unless you don’t like freedom of expression.
Conclusion: A great sampler platter of awesome creators in support of a good cause.
Grade: B+ (for the comic content), A (for supporting the CBLDF)
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