CBLDF Auction with Sim & Gaiman

As most regular readers know, I/we are fans of the CBLDF and the EFF (Contribute to both!) The CBLDF is running a charity auction which is collaboration between Dave Sim of Cerebus fame and Neil Gaiman of Sandman amongst others. There's some good background online as well as the auction itself. The money raised will go to fighting censorship in the graphic arts. I'd also heartily recommend reading Neil's blog and taking Dave Sim up on his offer. His collected form letter are funny, thought provoking and great to read. Oh - and happy birthday, Neil.

Comments

EFF

[LegendOfLink]

Don't forget guys, these are the people who are fighting against the DMCA, the USA PATRIOT ACT, and any other civil liberty limiting crap legislation.

Good job guys, we love ya all.

Re:CBLDF?

[jd]

I believe it was in England that the comic "Oz" was banned and several artists sent to jail. For the crime of drawing an anatomically-correct Winnie the Pooh.

On the one hand, I have very little sympathy for those who churn out turgid pulp for the express purpose of ripping off those brainless enough to buy a product on shock value, rather than by whether they actually want the thing. However, I'd argue that most of the problem lies in how stupid consumers are encouraged to be, particularly by the educational system, so fixing the stupidity seems a more worthy aim than fixing the comics.

Take care of the root causes, and the symptoms will take care of themselves.

On the other hand, I do not believe that censorship is a useful mechanism. It engenders a lot of hostility, it creates a social pressure point of non-conformance, and it is generally self-destructive.

Again, though, if you tackled the underlying causes for the stuff you don't like, then those things that have no useful purpose will simply go of their own accord. If you tackle only the issues that are visible, then the underlying issues never get resolved, and the impact will simply mutate.

If you are in a house, and the foundations collapse, re-painting the kitchen isn't going to help. It'll conceal the cracks in the walls, but the house will still fall down.

To me, censorship of the comics is neither a problem nor a solution. Nor are the so-called "adult" comics. Both are simply different parts of society venting in different ways. Blocking one side from venting at all will simply build up pressure, leading to an explosion. Doesn't matter which side you block. If you had to block one side, though, I'd say blocking the censors is likely the better choice.

The best solution of all is to dig deeper and reduce or remove those stresses that create the problems in the first place. You'll never fix them all, but at the moment, nobody is doing much to fix any of them at all.