PEREZ DESIGNS CBLDF '04 MEMBERSHIP CARD

[MattBrady]

Following up on last year’s membership card designed by Jim Lee, the CBLDF has confirmed that this year’s card features the Hulk by George Perez.

The image, showing the Hulk crushing the word “censorship” was also used on last year’s More Fund Comics, a benefit published by Sky Dog Press. In addition to being the first time Perez has designed a card, the Hulk card also marks the first time that a major publisher has allowed the Fund to use one of its characters on a Member Card.

“This card is great example of how the comics community is helping the Fund keep watch on this field’s First Amendment rights,” Executive Director Charles Brownstein said. “Marvel, George, and John Gallagher, who originally published this image on the cover of More Fund Comics are to be commended for supporting us with their hard work.”

The Perez card will be available to all CBLDF members who sign up at a $25 or better donation. One hundred members will also be able to to get their card signed by George Perez by joining the CBLDF Century Club . Brownstein explains, “The Century Club is something Jim Lee got going last year. Basically the first 100 people to sign up with the Fund at a membership level of $100 or better gets their card signed by George.”

Along with the Perez, the Fund will offer its 2004 Member Pin, which features Randy Dahlk’s Fund Logo in gold on a cloisonné pin. The pin is sent to members who join at the $50 level. For members who sign up at the $100 level, the Fund is offering a Member T-Shirt, which features the Fund logo in red and blue on a black shirt. Other membership incentives for higher levels are available at www.cbldf.org

[Egg]

Support the Fund! I helped out last year by kicking in the KAMEN short story to MORE FUND COMICS. It was a real honor to appear in a book under a beautiful George Perez cover! And I've gotta make my contribution this year to get a miniture version of that cover, too.

So remember, the Fund does GREAT work and they need your help, please give!

Egg
www.KamenComic.com
ZOMBIES, ARE THEY COMIC'S NEW MONKEY?

[Eddy_O]

If they want people to put down their money, maybe they could explain what CBLDF is? I can't see them having TOO much success if they don't even say who they are or what they do to people who haven't heard of them.

[TIP]

Originally posted by Eddy_O
If they want people to put down their money, maybe they could explain what CBLDF is? I can't see them having TOO much success if they don't even say who they are or what they do to people who haven't heard of them.

T

[Caramuru]

Originally posted by Eddy_O
If they want people to put down their money, maybe they could explain what CBLDF is? I can't see them having TOO much success if they don't even say who they are or what they do to people who haven't heard of them.

There's a link to the CBLDF site at the end of the article. They have pretty good information on their website, if you're not too familiar with them.

[Tom Daylight]

Isn't it somewhat ironic that Marvel is supposedly advocating censorship?

Particularly in light of the recent cancellations of Ant-Man, Deathlok, the Princess Diana storyline...

ESPECIALLY ironic that it should be Hulk smashing censorship considering the Peter Bagge Hulk cancellation!

[David H.]

Originally posted by Fetsur
Isn't it somewhat ironic that Marvel is supposedly advocating censorship?

Particularly in light of the recent cancellations of Ant-Man, Deathlok, the Princess Diana storyline...

ESPECIALLY ironic that it should be Hulk smashing censorship considering the Peter Bagge Hulk cancellation!

How, exactly, is Marvel canceling it's own comics censorship?!?

The whole point behind CBLDF is to fight GOVERNMENT interference in comics. That's the very definition of censorship.

Companies should and do have every right to spend their OWN money to publish whatever comics they want.

[swol]

Originally posted by Fetsur
Isn't it somewhat ironic that Marvel is supposedly advocating censorship?

Particularly in light of the recent cancellations of Ant-Man, Deathlok, the Princess Diana storyline...

ESPECIALLY ironic that it should be Hulk smashing censorship considering the Peter Bagge Hulk cancellation!

First off I assume that you mean that they advocate FIGHTING censorship.

Let's not confuse censorhip with pulling a potentially failing product.

The Hulk stuff may have had a fair readership amount from the core fans, but would it bring in any more readers? Would it dilute a character that they want to build a film francise on? Seems to me that Marvels is aiming at a grittier, more realistic Hulk take to position the character more in keeping with the films portrayal.

Ant-Man (despite the recent Avengers story, the writer's recent interview produced major bad PR. I suspect that this cancellation was less to do with censorship as smelling a losing product.)

Deathlok. (cancelled but I had not heard any reasons related to censored material being the reason. Anybody else have more info on this?)

Princess Diana (while I personally thought it was in MAJOR bad taste, there was a pretty considerable public backlash, much of it from mainstream media, that caused them to re-think this. Yes you could call that censorship, but it made business sense to keep the general publics perceptions on their side. Border-line censorship is the closest I could see this as...more a case of weak knees in the face of possible bad PR)

Marvel certainly has made some major bad moves over the past few years, but bowing to censorhip is not necessarily one of them.

Just wanting to set the record straight.

[Eddy_O]

Originally posted by Caramuru
There's a link to the CBLDF site at the end of the article. They have pretty good information on their website, if you're not too familiar with them.

Thanks!!

[Tom Daylight]

Originally posted by swol
First off I assume that you mean that they advocate FIGHTING censorship.

Sorry! That is indeed what I meant.

Let's not confuse censorhip with pulling a potentially failing product.

The Hulk stuff may have had a fair readership amount from the core fans, but would it bring in any more readers? Would it dilute a character that they want to build a film francise on? Seems to me that Marvels is aiming at a grittier, more realistic Hulk take to position the character more in keeping with the films portrayal.

So what? What is it that prevented Marvel from publishing the Hulk one-shot - particularly considering the Spider-Man edition sold so well? Could it be the one thing the Hulk is ironically depicted as "smashing" in this CBLDF card...?

Even if it wasn't the reason for the shelving, Marvel definitely asked for content changes in it.

Ant-Man (despite the recent Avengers story, the writer's recent interview produced major bad PR. I suspect that this cancellation was less to do with censorship as smelling a losing product.)

I don't think it had anything to do with sales and it certainly had nothing to do with Daniel Way's PULSE interview, particularly considering how few people read it (and how many of those people enjoyed reading it!)

Seems to me that Marvel cancelled it because they didn't fancy the idea of publishing an Ant-Man comic unsuitable to the under-18s.

Deathlok. (cancelled but I had not heard any reasons related to censored material being the reason. Anybody else have more info on this?)

Simple. Avi Arad has optioned the movie rights and he doesn't want any potential star to read it and pass it up, as legend has it happened with George Clooney and Fury...

Princess Diana (while I personally thought it was in MAJOR bad taste, there was a pretty considerable public backlash, much of it from mainstream media, that caused them to re-think this. Yes you could call that censorship, but it made business sense to keep the general publics perceptions on their side. Border-line censorship is the closest I could see this as...more a case of weak knees in the face of possible bad PR)

Did you actually read the Di-substitute issues? It was not only 100% respectful to the late Princess... it almost treated her like a religious icon. The supposed "backlash" was one of misreportings. Bad PR for Marvel maybe but if they'd pulled through they may have gained greatly from it. But as some of the uneducated higher-ups decided that everything needed to be changed at the last minute, they got bad PR instead - from late shipping, a deeply unhappy artist, altered storylines, and a weak first three issues (some of which didn't even make sense without imagining Diana in the role); they lost a lot of respect from X-Statix fans.

How can you call it anything other than censorship?

Why do I get the feeling you don't understand irony?

Did you enjoy the Office?

[farwell3d]

Maybe, just maybe, because it doesn't fit the definition of censorship?

Censorship is, by definition, done by an outside agency in power, generally a government.

Although the term self-censorship exists, it is not strictly possible. Marvel made these decisions based on how they felt the books either would sell, or based on how they might affect future earnings from the comic world, or other revenue streams. That's not censorship, that's business. Maybe they were wrong, I'm not able to tell you what would have happened, but it was the decision of Marvel, not an enforced move by the government.

Look at it like this: If I, as an aspiring writer, had a concept for an extremely violent, extremely dark story, but then it crosses my mind that if I publish it, it may have a negative effect on me getting hired by a company that wants more family friendly fare, and I decide not to write the story, then it is not censorship. Maybe I was right, and if I had written it, Family-Friendly Comics Inc. never would call me. Or, maybe I was wrong, and they would have seen good talent in the story, and asked me to try writing something that fits there line of comics. I can't possibly know for sure how Family-Friendly Comics Inc. would have reacted, but I worked on an assumption that seemed reasonable to me.

(Note: In case you can't tell, the entire proceeding paragraph is strictly hypothetical. The only reason I have not written and attempted to publish my very violent, very dark story, is because I have not yet fully figured out where I want to go with it. Futhermore, Family-Friendly Comics Inc. does not, to the best of my knowledge, exist.)

[Caramuru]

Originally posted by farwell3d
Censorship is, by definition, done by an outside agency in power, generally a government.

Although the term self-censorship exists, it is not strictly possible

Without getting into the Marvel thing, it's not quite correct to say that censorship is done only by an outside agency. I don't really understand why you say self-censorship is not strictly possible.

One form of censorship which works very well is media self-censorship. Check out the Project Censored website. It's very informative.

[djshalope]

Thanks to this short post, I just got a CBLDF membership. As a cartoonist, I'm constantly getting my work censored and it's frustrating. I produce a weekly strip which often includes issues on sex, violence, and racism. Editors are very keen on censoring and altering your work when their personal tastes conflict with the product. F*©K THAT! I'm sick of it. (The irony is not lost to me that I just censored myself on this message board.)

[comerfob]

Fetsur

Marvel own the charactors of the Hulk, ant man and Deathlok. they and all is other charactors are its assets. They have a right to decide how these assets are protrayed, this is not censorship it is business.

They hire writers and artists to come up with stories for these charactors and sometimes the stories are not compatable with where Marvel wants teh charactors to go and thus don't get published.

It's their right not to want an over 18's version of Ant-man or a take on a charactor that would preclude a movie deal.

As for the Princess Di thing (given that I haven't read the comics), it seems that it was a publicity event that went wrong and anyway any fiction when dealing with real people is always on shaky ground. Much of the backlash was from the British media who champion the memory of Diana while milking it for all its worth.


Censorship is where outside bodys be it governments or groups of 'concerned' citizens try to ban something that offends their values. They take it upon themselves to decide what other individuals can or cannot watch or read and in most cases they are wrong. The main case where they are right is with child pornography which is evil.

What Marvel does is not the same as the generally recognised meaning of censorship. Self censorship be it by an individual or organisation or company is within that persons or organisation rights.

Look at the situation with movies where the is a ratings body, this system has meant that adult themed movies are rarely made by Movie studios anymore. The highest rating the studios will allow their movies to be is R which allows anybody accumpanied with an adult to be let in. No studio movie since 1998 has been released with a NC17 rating. This has the effect of self censorship within the movie business and while may not have had an effect on sales of tickets has reduced the use of movies as an art form.

Movie studios and Marvel have a right to self censor their product, if writers or artists have a problem with this let them go elsewhere.

But what the CBLDF is for is to help those that do publish contriversial material of whatever nature that runs up against the law to excersice their right to free speech and expresion. That is a noble cause and one we should support.