From Comic Shops to Courtrooms, Meet the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
“Self-censorship is exactly what some people want, to make you too afraid to communicate.
I encourage everyone to study how comics work, how to communicate visually, and use storytelling to innovate and express their voice. There’s a market for everyone.”
- Jeff Trexler, Interim Director
Since 1986, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) has been valiantly fighting for First Amendment rights of the comic book community. Composed of pro-bono lawyers, a slew of volunteers, and major partners in publishing and the free speech community, this non-profit has fought—and won—major lawsuits that impact comic books.
While comics books have a long history of censorship such as the Comics Code Authority of the 1950s, legal challenges still exist today.
The most recent major case successfully won by the CBLDF was based around the graphic novel, Gender Queer. This memoir by Maia Kobabe was the source of book bans in states such as Texas, Virginia, and Florida. Fortunately, the CBLDF stood firm and the graphic novel remains accessible across public and school libraries across the United States.
Founded by Denis Kitchen, a cartoonist, the CBLDF has grown in the financial and legal support it gives to comic books creators, retailers, and publishers who face First Amendment challenges.
This organization’s fight for free speech continues to be critical—especially in today’s political climate.
Jeff Trexler, the interim Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, spoke with Pages and Panels about why comics are targeted, how the CBLDF stands up for creators and retailers, and how comics book fans can join the fight to keep comics on shelves in stores and libraries. Trexler isn’t just a comic book fan, but an attorney who truly fights for comics. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from Duke University, and he is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and in New York.
Seth A. Romo: Let’s first dive into your comic book fandom. Where did it start, and how did that translate into your work with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund?
Jeff Trexler: I can’t remember a time without comics for me. One of the things that I wanted to do after a life of reading comics since my early childhood was to think about what I could do to give back to the comics community, and helping the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has been an incredibly rewarding part of that.
What I credit getting me into comics as a kid was seeing the TV show Batman. They would show the bat logo with the word “Batman” in it, and I remember this epiphany of seeing words and pictures. I became obsessed with comics, and my parents were extremely indulgent of my love for them. They got me Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes, Batman, Superman from the Thirties to the Seventies, and basically anything I wanted in comics. They wanted to encourage reading.
It wasn’t long before I started encountering law. I read about the Shazam/DC (or National) fight over Captain Marvel and Superman. I subscribed to The Buyer’s Guide for Comics Fandom and read about the whole Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster/DC situation as it unfolded in the ’70s. I was just fascinated because it raised fundamental questions about creativity, literacy, and ethics. This led me to the Comics Code Authority, as I loved Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and there were questions about the Comics Code and drugs. That led me to read Frederick Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent when I was a kid, which got me thinking about these questions.
These cases started arising. We’re all familiar with what happened in the ’50s with the great comic book scare and laws against comics, bonfires, and Senate hearings. New York State had hearings on comics. I delved into a lot of that history. Then I saw it revived in the 1980s and witnessed the formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. What struck me then, and almost 40 years later still does, is the importance of an organization like this to help protect the comic arts. Comics are an amazing medium, a foundation of 21st-century literacy, which is why they’re so important and why they’re also scary to a lot of people.
Can you talk about why the protection of free speech in the comic book community is so critical, and why should readers care?
We talk a lot about comics’ history and how comics can be traced back millennia—cave paintings, Egyptian tombs, tapestries, and 19th-century images. But in the 20th century, as literacy became democratized, so did communication through images. In the ’30s, we had an explosion of comics on newsstands, making comics accessible and popular. Comics were a participatory medium; people could read, draw, and build careers on it. But comics were also a new way of communication.
Several hundred years of text-centric communication created a sense that text was more credible, and images were seen as deceptive or childish. Comics challenged this by condensing information and fostering a sense that anything was possible. This made people afraid of comics, viewing them as a threat to literacy, public order, and morality, especially for children.
Frederick Wertham, a progressive hero in his time, saw comics as a threat to literacy and public health. His arguments led to legislative action, courts, police, and teachers working to suppress comics. We defeated this partly by self-regulation, adopting restrictions on content to avoid legal issues, but it also stifled creativity. In the ’80s, with the rise of independent voices, comic shops were targeted as purveyors of obscenity. We stabilized in the 2000s, but around 2020, with the pandemic and graphic novels in schools, concerns revived that graphic novels were harming children.
The Virginia Gender Queer case is a recent landmark, as we argued against outdated claims from the ’40s and ’50s that comics harm mental health. Winning that case prevented a wave of similar cases across the country, securing graphic novels’ place in schools and libraries and pushing back against censorship.
You mentioned the Virginia case. What other landmark cases has the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund handled throughout its history?
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was founded in the ‘80s, but some of the most intense battlegrounds for comics were in the Northeast, California, and the Midwest—not just the fundamentalist South. One of the earliest cases involved Zap Comix in New York City, which was deemed obscene. Our first major case was in Illinois with Friendly Frank’s, a comic shop selling books deemed obscene, like Heavy Metal, Richard Corben’s work, Omaha the Cat Dancer, and other independent classics. The police targeted the shop, and the manager was convicted, which led to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s creation. Through a community effort, we funded the defense, hired a prominent First Amendment lawyer, and got the conviction overturned.
Other cases include the Boiled Angel case with Mike Diana, an independent creator whose work was deemed obscene. We also defended manga at Keith’s Comics in Dallas, where an employee was arrested for selling manga deemed to lack value. Parody cases like Starbucks’s attempt to stop a logo parody also arose, which we successfully defended. Most recently, the Gender Queer case in Virginia Beach was pivotal, as losing would have sparked similar cases nationwide. The defense arguments in that case now serve as key defenses for graphic novels across the country.
So you touched upon it earlier that comics typically are kind of the source of banning for different mediums. Why is it that comics, specifically, continue to be targeted? Do you think it’s not just about the topics, but also the ease of creating complex ideas and distributing them quickly?
There’s several different things happening, and I think you get these surges. When a number of the different waves converge, it becomes like the tsunami, right? You have all these vibrations, and they intensify, and then bam, they try to wipe us out. What we’re undergoing now, I think in many ways, is a heightened version of what we’ve undergone before. There’s some differences, but there’s a lot of similarities.
When you’re 6 years old, you don’t feel like you need to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to write a comic. Creating a comic has its own vocabulary and rhetoric. You don’t have to learn text language, which isn’t really native to us as people. We aren’t born writing structured sentences, but we can draw or doodle. Comics are participatory and engaging. They attract kids and people worldwide, making them seem threatening to some who feel they’re protecting a societal tradition that may never have really existed.
Another part of what makes comics particularly problematic is that they’re iconic. Comics convey a lot of information quickly and have symbolic functions in the community. Similar to how icons have been a part of religious communities, comics represent the community visually. Certain people may not want the community represented by particular images, even if the text wouldn’t bother them as much.
Comics are also a new form of literacy, which is changing communication. Some feel left behind, believing they must protect the traditions they were raised with. Comics serve as templates for movies, PowerPoints, web videos, and more, challenging conventional notions of literacy. There’s also an issue with what comics now picture and where they’re accessible. Until recently, comics in libraries, schools, and the web depicted things people weren’t used to seeing in universally accessible media, especially subjects like gender identity or sexual expression. This visual accessibility of comics is a significant part of the current challenges.
You mentioned the imagery as a key factor in these challenges. I remember in high school, books with controversial content often had neutral covers. Do you think that is an intentional choice?
Absolutely. That’s an adaptive behavior. Historically, books that faced challenges—like Ulysses, Lolita, or Lady Chatterley’s Lover—were often wrapped in plain or artistically designed covers. Science fiction, detective novels, or books on LGBTQ+ experiences also faced similar treatment. The cover often carried the controversial weight more than the content itself. I believe challengers rarely read the books; they just saw the covers and judged them.
You’ve talked about supporting independent creators facing unique challenges. How has the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund amplified underrepresented voices, especially for those creators wanting to tell diverse stories?
It’s something happening nationwide. The Gender Queer case helped increase awareness of us. Speaking engagements across the country, from Comic Cons to schools and libraries, allowed us to connect with people grateful we exist. We advise on strategic ways to increase acceptance for graphic novels and manga in communities.
Here’s an example: A creator publishes a comic distributed to a local shop. A complaint reaches the police, who view the comic’s themes, like lesbianism, as inappropriate for kids. Although the comic isn’t explicit, law enforcement considers prosecuting the retailer. We intervene, consulting with local counsel, and prevent the arrest from happening. Similarly, a teacher’s manga collection was eliminated by a principal due to a misperception of manga as inappropriate. Other cases involve graphic novels facing scrutiny for their content, even though similar themes exist in text novels that remain on shelves.
On the legislative front, we’re challenging bills that make it easier to prosecute individuals over comics in schools, especially graphic novels covering subjects like gender identity, race, or sexual identity. In Texas, we’re fighting proposed book ratings for “sexual relevance.” The effects ripple across the community, with some preferring to avoid risk by not shelving graphic novels in the first place. Preventing that outcome is our goal.
For younger creators who might be hesitant to express themselves due to censorship or legal repercussions, what advice would you give them to tell stories they believe in?
We’re fortunate to have creators on our board and many who support us through donations, art, or panels. They often emphasize: don’t let fear stop you. Self-censorship is exactly what some people want, to make you too afraid to communicate. I encourage everyone to study how comics work, how to communicate visually, and use storytelling to innovate and express their voice. There’s a market for everyone. Even if you’re not the next Art Spiegelman or Raina Telgemeier, you can find your audience. Consider where to publish and how to navigate categories in publishing. If aiming for schools, understand demographics like young adult or middle reader classifications. Learn how to convey mature themes subtly, as creators did under the Comics Code after the great comic scare. Some creators, like those behind the Batman TV show, were masters of this, delivering two levels of meaning—one for kids, another for adults.
Given the ongoing challenges with censorship, what future threats do you foresee, and what initiatives is the CBLDF implementing to prepare and educate creators?
Local challenges aren’t going away, especially as political landscapes shift. It’s crucial to educate communities about graphic novels and comics, to show they’re a legitimate form of expression. Schools and libraries face increasing pressure, with people managing risks by simply avoiding certain books altogether. This fear, even if the laws don’t survive constitutional challenges, prevents growth in comic arts in curriculums and retail spaces. Another challenge is AI and algorithms, which can disqualify books with specific images or themes from distribution and inclusion, affecting everything from crowdfunding to social media. Many artists face issues on platforms where terms and conditions flag content as controversial, leading to censorship without clear recourse. Our work is far from done, and winning this fight requires support from everyone who loves comics.
How can creators support your mission, especially as community members interested in protecting comic arts?
Donations and memberships are greatly appreciated. Our auctions and revamped book sales programs support us, and our new membership card is coming out soon. We’re building a volunteer database for writers, lawyers, paralegals, and web designers, aiming to engage people more actively. Volunteers can represent us at conventions across the country to help spread awareness and support. We’re also encouraging local involvement, from talking to decision-makers about comics’ cultural relevance to donating comics to libraries and schools. Libraries are a great way to make a difference; some communities even hold local comic cons in libraries, with panels and book sales. Conversations with school boards, principals, and local officials can make a difference before challenges even arise. Comics aren’t just about public speaking or activism—they’re about everyday interactions where you can normalize and protect this art form.
How can readers and fans get more involved with the CBLDF to support the cause?
Beyond donations, participating in our revamped volunteer programs is one way. We’re building an infrastructure for volunteers to support us at conventions and online, sharing our cases, updates, and news. Volunteering doesn’t have to be a big time commitment, and every bit helps, from showing support to engaging with local libraries and comic retailers. Supporting indie creators, participating in comic history discussions, or advocating for intellectual property rights are all impactful ways to get involved.
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More about Jeff Trexler
Jeff Trexler has served since 2020 as Interim Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting free expression and the legal rights of the comics community. He has extensive experience providing strategic advice to librarians, teachers, retailers, publishers, creators, legislators, and even law enforcement on responding to attempts to restrict access to graphic novels. An attorney himself, he is also the first CBLDF director since its founding in 1986 to provide direct legal representation in censorship cases, most notably the successful defense of Gender Queer against an unconstitutional attempt to prohibit the book's sale or distribution in Virginia.
Prior to joining CBLDF, Jeff served for a decade as Associate Director of the Fashion Law Institute, held a chaired professorship in social entrepreneurship, and was a member of the board of directors of the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from Duke University, and he is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and in New York.
More about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
The CBLDF is a small organization that is directly supported by the contributions of our members and donors. If you can make a monetary contribution, please consider signing up for membership, or making a donation for one of their premium items.
If you would like to make a contribution of original art, rare comics, or other tangible items such as signed comics or graphic novels, please email info@cbldf.org.
If you are unable to make a contribution, you can still help by spreading the word about CBLDF, following them on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and distributing our literature in your community.
This interview has been edited for clarity. To hear the full conversation, check out the video below.