Over at Not a Blog, George R.R. Martin has posted about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which helps comic book artists, retailers, and more in defending against attempts to restrain their rights to free speech. It’s a good cause, as he writes:
The CBLDF is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the rights of free speech and free expression in comics books, graphic novels, and related fields. My own roots as a “funny book” fan go all the way back to the letters of comment I published in FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, and other Marvel comics back in the early 60s. I also attended the very first comicon, and won my first writing prize for an amateur prose superhero yarn (an Alley Award, which I never received, sob), so comics are a medium dear to my heart… as anyone who has ever read my own long-running WILD CARDS series of mosaic novels surely knows.
And in support of it, he’s donated 100 signed hardcovers of Inside Straight, the first in the “new generation” Wild Cards series of superhero fiction, to the CBLDF. Signatures come from all contributors (including GRRM), excepting the “elusive” S.L. Farrell. It’s a worthy cause, and a good read to boot.