The ban on comic books in schools and libraries in the United States is increasing and the situation could get worse, said the head of the Comic Book Defense Fund, Jeff Trexler, during the WonderCon 2026 conference.
“Rights are being attacked and we can no longer count on the courts”, said the lawyer, in response to a question from Lusa about the blacklist of comic books.
Trexler stressed that hundreds of comic books were banned and that a decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, referring to Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, determined that libraries do not enjoy the protections of the First Amendment (relating to freedom of opinion and expression).
“We have to fight this,” the lawyer continued. “This has to go to the Supreme Court. We face great losses if we don’t fight.”
In the last academic year, 601 comic books were blacklisted from restrictions or bans in schools and librariesrepresenting around 9% of the total of 6,719 banned or restricted books. It was an increase from the previous year, when comic books had accounted for 6% of bans, according to PEN America.
Among the Banned or restricted titles are “Maus”, “Batman: The Killing Joke”, “Dragon Ball” and “Watchmen”. Prohibitions vary from state to state and in some cases are specific to a school system or local libraries.
The situation could get worse, considered Trexler, if the bill HR 7661, presented in the Chamber of Deputies this month and which intends to ban books that have any reference to gender dysphoria or trans peoplealbeit subtle.
Author Amy Chu, who writes comic books for Marvel, DC and others, said such a law would affect the work of authors and publishers.
“I think some people will back down,” Chu said, whose best-selling books are about the lesbian vampire Carmilla.
Moni Barrette, who was a librarian for 16 years, spoke of the increase in prohibitions and noted that the threshold is lower for sexuality than for violence.
“If two people love each other, we have a problem.”
Comic books have historically been considered problematic, but bans have increased since 2021, particularly targeting books with LGBTQ+ characters, profanity and racial issues.
Some of these themes are the reasons that made different types of comic books popular, as voiceover actress Cailtin Glass highlighted in a panel on diversity that took place at the conference.
“Anime has resonated so much because of the variety of stories that are told”, he exemplified.
This is also what Aaron Butler, editor of the HBO series “Euphoria” highlighted.
“It’s really good for creativity to have diversity of all kinds.”
The discussions took place at the 38th edition of WonderCon, which ends today in Anaheim. The annual comics, science fiction and film conference is organized by Comic-Con International and this year had 900 exhibitors and more than 60,000 attendees.
