VanCAF (Online) 2020: Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund (CLLDF) Interview

The written story, as well as recorded interview were done by Chris Doucher, Editor-in-Chief, Writer and Comic Panel Moderator for GeekNerdNet.

This week, Vancouver Comic Arts Festival (VanCAF) is running its festival online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, wanting to continue to support creators in the book, comic and arts industries VanCAF festival has asked a ton of people to contribute content. So when the Comic Legends Legal Defence Fund (CLLDF) asked me to chat with them to help spread the word about what they do, and chat about their recent #Canucks4Comics initiative, I dropped everything to speak with CLLDF President, Leonard Wong and Director, Jay Bardyla. As of the publishing time of this interview, #Canucks4Comics has raised $19, 480 CAD and counting - that total includes $1,510.55 from the #BeOurHeroesCanada fundraiser which has been running this weekend, and concludes Monday, May 18. The big CLLDF #Canucks4Comics online auction - similar to BINC in the United States - was run to help raise money to provide rental relief for comic shops across Canada, that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. So if a comic retailer wants to receive assistance through this program, there’s a form they can submit to CLLDF.

The initial - and ongoing - mandate of CLLDF is to help creators (via legal fees and other assistance) who might get into legal trouble when it comes to censorship of certain forms of art when crossing the border into Canada. In recent years, CLLDF took it to another level by sponsoring creator guests at conventions and shows as another avenue to raise money for their fund. For instance, they had planned to have guests Steve Leiber and Matt Fraction at their booth for VanCAF 2020. Unfortunately, that isn’t happening this go round, but here’s hoping for conventions and shows to be back sooner rather than later.

Keep in mind, while VanCAF was only scheduled to run May 11-17 keep coming back to their site as they will be doing more great things beyond the aforementioned dates. Thank you VanCAF for giving CLLDF and GeekNerdNet.com, a place on your online festival site, and thanks to Leonard and Jay for taking time to do this interview.

Listen to the full interview right now! Select “Listen in bowser” on the Soundcloud link. Depending on which device you’re using to access this interview, you may also click/select the SoundCloud Play button. Enjoy!


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