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Exercise your First Amendment rights (while you still can)! In conjunction with Banned Books Week, The True Believers Graphic Novel Book Club is conducting a virtual “read-in” September 24th through September 30th and all members are encouraged to celebrate the freedom to read by reading a "banned" graphic novel during Banned Books Week!

The Issue: The American Library Association defines a book challenge as an attempt to remove or restrict the access of materials from a curriculum or library, based upon the objections of an individual or group. In response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries across the United States in 1982, Banned Books Week was launched by a coalition of diverse organizations as an annual celebration of the freedom to read and as an educational platform against the dangers of censorship.

Comic books and censorship have a storied shared history dating back to the 1950s, and as comics and graphic novels increasingly appear today on the shelves of local libraries and schools (and increasingly appeal to a more sophisticated audience) they are increasingly vulnerable to having their content challenged. On the front lines of this never-ending battle is The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and readers. The CBLDF provides legal referrals, representation, advice, assistance, and education in furtherance of these goals.

According to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, comics and graphic novels nowadays are most commonly challenged for containing "adult content" and/or age inappropriate material, profanity/offensive language, sex and/or nudity, violence and/or horror, and material deemed offensive on political, social, racial, and/or religious grounds.

The heart of the matter is whether the viewpoints of a few should dictate what the many may read and enjoy. The CBLDF helps librarians and communities stand up for comics when the rights of readers to view the materials they want, and when the rights of parents to determine what is right for their own children to read, is threatened.

Help Fight Censorship – Read a “Banned” Book: In recognition of Banned Book Week True Believers are encouraged to read any of the following graphic novels, all of which have been challenged at local libraries and/or schools over the last decade according to the CBLDF:

• Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

• Blankets by Craig Thompson

• Bone by Jeff Smith

• The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa

• Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner

• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

• Habibi by Craig Thompson

• Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes

• Maus by Art Spiegelman

• Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez

• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

• Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon

• Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse

• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Additionally, the list of the Top Ten Challenged Books of 2016 includes these graphic novels:

• This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki. Challenged because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes

• Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier. Challenged because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit, and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint

• Big Hard Sex Criminals written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky. Challenged because it was considered sexually explicit (ya think?!)

Participants are encouraged to share their thoughts on what they read during the week with fellow True Believers by posting comments to this Banned Book Week Meetup listing.

For those True Believers that can't always make our regular Meetups, reading a graphic novel and sharing your thoughts with the group during Banned Book Week is a great way to participate in our ever-growing community!

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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."- The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Learn more about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and help support its work at http://www.cbldf.org

Learn more about Banned Books Week at http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Suggested Supplemental Reading:

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The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created―in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was beaten down by church groups, community bluestockings, and a McCarthyish Congress―only to resurface with a crooked smile on its face in Mad magazine.

When we picture the 1950s, we hear the sound of early rock and roll. The Ten-Cent Plague shows how -- years before music -- comics brought on a clash between children and their parents, between prewar and postwar standards. Created by outsiders from the tenements, garish, shameless, and often shocking, comics spoke to young people and provided the guardians of mainstream culture with a big target. Parents, teachers, and complicit kids burned comics in public bonfires. Cities passed laws to outlaw comics. Congress took action with televised hearings that nearly destroyed the careers of hundreds of artists and writers.

The Ten-Cent Plague radically revises common notions of popular culture, the generation gap, and the divide between "high" and "low" art. As he did with the lives of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (in Lush Life) and Bob Dylan and his circle (in Positively 4th Street), Hajdu brings a place, a time, and a milieu unforgettably back to life.

Bob Chasteen

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Celebrate Banned Books Week - Read a "Banned" Graphic Novel!

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True Believers Graphic Novel Book Club

Celebrate Banned Books Week - Read a "Banned" Graphic Novel!

True Believers Graphic Novel Book Club

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