FIGHTING WORDSFRANK MILLER
Anything that got between my brush and my drawing board
was my enemy. Free speech has a long and honorable history in the United States. This is part of it. But as an artist, I canonly say: Get the hell out of my way. (Source: CBLDF)

As you celebrate Banned Books Week and the right to read,draw inspiration for the ongoing battle for free expression
from some of CBLDF’s favorite comics creators!
www.cbldf.org • www.bannedbooksweek.org

Alison Bechdel
On the attempt to ban Fun Home from public libraries in Marshall, Missouri: My first reaction is: Whata great honor! My second reaction is, it’s a very interesting situation, and it’s all about the power of images, whichI think is something people need to talk about. I can understand why people wouldn’t want their children to accidentally think this was a funny comic book and pick it up and see pictures of people having sex. I can understandthat. I think banning books is the wrong approach. If you don’t want your kids to read it, make sure they don’t geta hold of it. But I do understand that concern, because yeah, drawings are very seductive and attention-catching.

© Alison Bechdel. Published by Mariner Books.

NEIL GAIMAN
I wouldn’t be who I am without libraries. I was the sort of kid who devoured books,
and my happiest times as a boy were when I persuaded my parents to drop me
off in the local library on their way to work, and I spent the day there. I discoveredthat librarians actually want to help you: they taught me about interlibrary loans.
(Source: Neil Gaiman’s personal website)

If you accept—and I do—that freedom of speech is important, then you are goingto have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending
the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don’t say or like orwant said...
You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this:Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe
is worth defending means you’re going to have to stand up for stuff you don’t
believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws
are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like andwhat you don’t, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for
re-election, because one person’s obscenity is another person’s art.
Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for thestuff you do like, you’ve already lost. (Source: “Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech?”, Neil Gaiman’s personal website)
On Charlie Hebdo: How important are free speech and satire? Important enoughthat people will murder others to silence the kind of speech they don’t like. It’s
too easy to think that freedom of speech is an abstract thing. But the freedom tomock, to argue, to disagree, these are important enough that their opponents will
do whatever they can to quash them, and that includes murder. (Source: CBLDF)

Also, from my own personal point of view,as I said earlier, that I really do not thinkthat we should restrict information to children. And I think that, basically, I know that
there are a lot of parents that don’t agree,
would not agree with me upon that, and ofcourse they have the right, but as long as
it’s kept upon a parental level, I’m not tooworried. If parents are making the decisions
that their children can or cannot read thissort of book in the home, that’s fair enough.
The parents can take the consequences ofthat. It won’t necessarily stop the children
reading it, but at least it’s a transaction between the child and the parent and it’s theWatchmen ™ and © DC Comics
parent taking responsibility for their children, which is fair enough. I take a more
liberal stance in that I prefer to let my children read anything,but I want to know what they’re reading, and if there’s anything
they come across which might be disturbing, then I’m always
on hand to talk about it with them. Which, to me, seems to be theresponsible attitude. (Source: The Comics Journal #118)© Jeff Smith. Used with permission of Cartoon Books.

On the controversy surrounding the use of Fun Home in an elective reading program at the College of Charleston: I’m very grateful to the people who taught my book at the College of Charleston. It wasbrave of them to do that given the conservative pressures they’re apparently under. I made a visit to the school last
fall for which they also took some flak, but to their great credit they didn’t back down. It’s sad and absurd that theCollege of Charleston is facing a funding cut for teaching my book—a book which is after all about the toll that
this sort of small-mindedness takes on people’s lives. (Source: Publisher’s Weekly)(Photo credit: Kimberly Butler)

Kids are going to find the content that they wantto find, first of all, and I don’t think children
should be reading pornography. I wouldn’t giveit to my children. I don’t know. I think it depends
on the child, I think it depends on where you
think they’re at emotionally. I can only really say
what I would do with my own child. What age
would I give them [my book] Potential? I don’t © Ariel Schrag. Published by Viking Juvenile
know—that would depend on who they were andif I thought they were ready, and if they read it before I thought they
were ready, then I would talk to them about it to help them understandit. I think that’s all you can really do. Kids are always going to get exposed to things before its ready. I mean, I watched The Shining at aneighth grade birthday party and was traumatized for two weeks. But
that’s expectable that teenagers watch horror movies at birthday parties,
that’s what they do; for some of the teens, they’re fine and some, likeme, can’t sleep for two weeks. The more important thing is to be a present parent and to be aware of what your child is reading or consuming
and be there to talk to them about it if they need to. (Source: Shalom Life)

Alan Moore(Source: The Comics Journal #282)

Neil Gaiman

Ariel SchragJeff Smith
I learned this weekend that Bone has been challenged on the basis of “political viewpoint, racism and violence.” I have no idea
what book these people read. After fielding these and other charges
for a while now, I’m starting to think such outrageous accusations(really, racism?) say more about the people who make them than about
the books themselves. (Source: CBLDF)

MARJANE SATRAPI
The good thing is that these people who ban things, it’s like they are completely unaware of what ahuman being is. If you want to make adolescents read a book, ban it! And then they all want to readit. Because then they’re rebellious. Why not just explain it? It’s not like kids are dumb. (Source: AmericanLibraries Magazine)

On the Chicago ban: It’s shameful. I cannot believe something like this can happen in the UnitedStates of America... These are not photos of torture. It’s a drawing and it’s one frame. I don’t thinkAmerican kids of seventh grade have not seen any signs of violence. Seventh graders have brains,
and they see all kinds of things on cinema and the Internet. It’s a black and white drawing, and I’m
not showing something extremely horrible. (Source: Chicago Tribune)
On Charlie Hebdo: People have the right to have a different point of view and to provoke. If weallow acts like this to create a climate of fear, we will have lost our freedom. (Source: New York Times)
Copyright ©2003 by Marjane Satrapi. Published by Pantheon.